[Helping matters along, Venat sends the address over in her next text, and then sets out. It isn't far, so arriving only takes her a few minutes... though if Zidane beats her there through greater willingness to take shortcuts, she won't be surprised in the least.]
[Actually, she would be there first. Considering he didn't reside in Camelot, he has to burn up a totem to travel before heading on over to the address she's sent. At least he gets there in a decent time - maybe.]
[The question makes her laugh; how could it not? He likely couldn't live long enough to make her wait too long, but that would be a little callous to point out!]
You needn't worry about me. It gave me time to think about food.
To think I'd pictured you as the sort who'd have no hesitation in making a selection. Truly, I am learning much this day, and your story has not even begun!
[ Perhaps over a week after his outburst, he sends this private message: ]
Hydaelyn,
I do not write this to apologise for my words. I do not write this to apologise for my past deeds either. I write this because your assumptions about me were so egregiously incorrect that they were offensive and leaving them unanswered does not sit well with me.
You claim that I saw the sundered shards as lesser. Indeed, they were lesser: not only physically but intrinsically, and you know that very well because you made them that way. You seem to have forgotten that I am cursed with a keenness of sight that disallows me from viewing them as aught else.
Yet in spite of their lack, I still walked the earth amongst them. I took their forms. I lived with them; worked with them; broke bread with them; even loved and died with them. When the shards were yet newly made and man still squabbling in the dirt, I spent decades upon decades trying to enlighten their peoples before Lahabrea, Elidibus and I ever settled on our plan for the first Rejoining - but I had nothing to show for my efforts except for death and loss and heartache. Over, and over, and over again.
Every bit of pain and suffering I reaped with these bloody hands, I took upon my shoulders. I bore their dying screams, I bore their unrealised hopes and wishes and dreams, and swore that when we made the world whole, no-one would ever have to die in torment ever again. Yet you would dare accuse me of running from my guilt? Tell me, Hydaelyn: did you ever spend time amongst those that you claimed to have loved? Did you truly understand their suffering as I was made to, or did you watch from afar in the depths of the aetherial sea, offering trite comfort to your champions, and content yourself with the thought that, some ten millennia hence, all would be forgiven because you were their 'Mother'?
No, I am not the one who hid from the cruel reality of the new world, Hydaelyn. You did.
For my own part, I must apologize. Allowing anger to color my words, when I sought reconciliation, was poor form.
Pray permit me to debate you on several points, and perhaps the distance that putting thoughts to words requires shall allow us both a more objective approach.
1st, I must dispute an assertion you make, that it is only the sundered shards you saw as lesser. To the contrary, I think you and all those who sought the final sacrifice to Zodiark found other beings to be lesser well before the Sundering. Else you would not have felt justified in sacrificing them to restore those who had sacrificed themselves before.
Even should we limit ourselves to only considerations of the sundered shards, I fear your argument of vision is but sophistry. You are not a fool, nor a dullard, and none who know aught of you can accuse you of either. You've the capacity to perceive merit in others beyond their aetherial presence. The history of the Source alone is full of those of keen intellect, strong personality, and great skill, as you must admit; to call them 'lesser' is to judge them by only that particular aspect of their beings that you choose, in order to view them as lesser. Even you admit this flawed reasoning as you declaim your presence among them, your efforts to live and aid them, to emulate their lives.
And should you retain belief that your sight alone made your perception inevitable, I must ask this: have you ever asked the one whose sight we both know to be keener than yours what he saw of the new lives, the sundered peoples? I do not know what he will say, I admit that now, yet from all that has happened I do not fear the answer he would give you.
Know that I fault nothing of your logic, in believing you could make a world where none would die in pain or torment. Of the Meteia, the Endsinger, you knew naught. But I ask you now, did not the need to sacrifice to Zodiark already cause the pain and torment you swore would be unnecessary? For those who would have been taken involuntarily, and for those left behind by those who went by choice? Could you ever erase that? Pretend it did not happen? Ignore its consequences? Swear that it would never be necessary again, that no other calamity or catastrophe would demand such a price?
And on final note, I must correct an assumption of yours: I knew from the first that I deserved no forgiveness. I have never once asked for any, and never shall, from them nor from you. Well would all people be justified in cursing my name -- did you perhaps know that for a time, even the Warrior of Light lost all faith and trust in me? But the people of the Source and the shards would be, will be, alive to curse my name, and that has ever been my goal from the start.
I have read over this missive, and have done my best to be calm and even; if any of it should read to you as less than that, pray know it was not by intent, indeed counter to it.
I also wish you to know, Hades, that I forgive you all that you did. Not for purely selfless reasons, I must confess -- for the truth, at this far date, is that all the pain and grief you brought to me and mine served my hopes in the end, and yet had it not been you enacting such, others would have. But in truth, though we disagree on so very many critical matters, I understand your actions and your choices. Had things been just a little different, truly we might stand on the opposite sides of this gulf between us.
You can accuse me of the atrocity wrought by sacrifice only because you were the sole person to escape Hermes' use of Kairos. Those who stand upon the shore may well criticise the survivors of a shipwreck, but 'twas not they who had to steer the course through the tempest. I have had ample time to reflect upon the past millennia, Hydaelyn. Try as I might, I could not think of any other choices I could have made with the knowledge I had. Yet you know very well that even now those shards left behind still venerate you and think of you fondly as their Mother. So do not try and garner pity by saying otherwise.
Nor do you know Hythlodaeus as well as you think you do. Faced with the pressure of duty, the loneliness of aeons, and an overwhelming belief that his ability falters in comparison to mine, do you truly think he would have thought differently of the sundered world? Nay, he would have been the first to crack. The first to go mad over their guttering souls. He would have done worse than I to see those he loved returned.
But in the end, Hydaelyn, I do not care what you think or feel of me. I am done with my part in your farcical play. I do not want your forgiveness. And while I will tolerate your presence for however long this island sees fit to keep you, you will never be able to recapture the goodwill I once had for you. If you desire reconciliation then you will need to earn it through your own penance, just as I have had to.
[He does not understand, perhaps never shall, that forgiveness is for the one forgiving. The world is full of pain and suffering as it is -- she saw to that. Why live holding to hatred and rancor? Especially when this new life is an unexpected gift?]
Long, long, long have I thought on the choices that led us here, and each time my conclusion was the same: I cannot conceive of what we might have done, besides Zodiark, to stop the song of the End.
Make no mistake, I consider this a flaw of my own imagination. I have no doubt that some other choice could have spared us long enough to take the battle to the Meteia properly. But I do not know it. And the idea of Zodiark provided such a clear and immediate response, how can I argue that some uncertain and unknown path be sought out, while the Final Days continued? Indeed, for many, to abandon a sure protection with sure costs in favor of an unknown one with unknown costs would be a moral affront. And so I conclude, at the end of my musings, that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that were my vote to be counted, it would have been on your side.
Even known what would come.
It was the second use, and the third proposed, that I could not and would not abide, memory or no. Even so, had we stopped at the second, I'd have let it pass. Memory or no, that is what I thought even then, and why I protested onwards in the hopes that perhaps I could split the timelines, create one where we survived and healed and grew.
We, of course, know what came of that.
After writing the above, I set this message aside with intent to return to it with calmer thoughts and eyes, and now that I have done so, I find myself growing somewhat vexed by your repeated anger over how the people of the shards view Hydaelyn. (Not Venat, though I understand why you see no difference therein.) Is it anger that the name is revered when you hate it so, and feel it deserving of that hate? Or that you feel it is a comfort to me, where you would see none come to me?
[She ought to leave well enough alone, and yet -- permitting him to bottle all this up and let it fester will cause him grievous harm. Better to lance the boil, to let the caustic contents of the wound flow free, in the hopes that it can begin to heal. Let him resent the one who opened it, let the life he has here pack it with gentle gauze and warmth, and perhaps someday Hades can find his soul as light as that perpetual grump can manage.]
[As for her? He'd shone light on a thought she'd long ago let die -- a sundered world where he and the others accepted what must be, lived up to his disdain of becoming megalomaniacal maniacs, and used their power for the blessing and benefit of all. A world in which none would know Hydaelyn by any name or form, and would have no need to, because they had great men to advise and aid them. If he knew he'd dug up such an image, rendered barbed and bitter by time, he'd likely gloat.]
[If he could ever credence that she once imagined such a thing in the first place, of course.]
[ He stares at her response for a long time. He feels as though he should feel something. More anger, perhaps. But there is only numbness. What should he say to all that? He was tempered, even if he was aware of his own will. He was not allowed to let his grief pass. She would probably decry it as an excuse though. He doesn't need her to tell him how it sounds. His penance is the anguish of understanding the suffering he has wrought, anguish deep and dark enough to threaten to swallow him in whole, and it will stay with him until he finally, truly returns to the star.
This time he doesn't respond until the next day. And when he does, he simply writes this: ]
[He is right; she considers that an excuse, when a traveler's ward could so easily shield against the effect. Were she to speak her thoughts, she would think either he chose tempering willingly in hopes it would strengthen his commitment or dull his grief -- or that he simply believe himself to be tempered, because it explains and forgives much.]
[But she will not speak those thoughts, not any time soon. They serve no purpose.]
I cannot answer to the first, not in any way you'd credence. But as for the second, 'tis no comfort save for those few who know the tale in its entirety and still speak the name without loathing. Well might we both suspect how most people would treat that name instead, if they but knew what I had truly done to them.
[ A ward which was not present at the time of Zodiark's summoning. As if any of them could have predicted it would be needed.
Regardless, it's too late now to think of what should have been done. He was freed of Zodiark's tempering in another world so the point is moot. ]
Fine. Then answer me this one last thing, Hydaelyn: your desire for mortal man was that they learn to accept loss and hardship and continue to move forward in spite of it. Yet you allowed the Crystal Exarch's manipulation of time to further your own plans - facilitated my death, even - and never once criticised him for it. In fact I distinctly remember you praising his efforts.
I do not hold any grudge towards you for my death on the First. I made my choices freely and reaped the result of my failure. But I cannot abide hypocrisy, Hydaelyn. I know the Exarch came from a world where our Eighth Umbral Calamity succeeded. If you truly held any sort of regard for man surpassing despair, tell me this: why praise THEM for resurrecting their loved ones? You should have condemned him, as you condemned all the rest of us.
A fair question, yet the circumstances have a critical distinction. Of all those who worked upon the project which sent the Crystal Exarch back to the past of the First, only he himself would be even the slightest bit of a beneficiary of such a project. All others who participated would gain nothing save the knowledge that they had tried -- for they could not ever have any idea whether he would succeed or fail, nor ever touch again the separate timeline they created.
What they gained from their efforts was not a return to their old lives, not a denial of their pain, not a rejection of their suffering; rather, they helped others, even if those others are another version of themselves. If in the process they helped themselves, it was by replacing despair with hope, by transmuting agony into altruism, and by incidentally learning much in the span of the project that would aid them in rebuilding their own shattered civilization.
I said earlier I would have gladly separated our own timelines, to save our people, if you recall. Had, by fortune or fate or dint of effort, the third sacrifice to Zodiark been abandoned, such would have been the result, and I argued against it unto the very end. That would not have destroyed the timeline we knew... but I suspect it was impossible, looking back on it now, for such a thing to occur given how things happened.
I am not convinced. Those same people who worked upon the project abandoned their own attempts at a cure. They used precious resources that could have gone towards rebuilding their societies in the aftermath to instead create a machine that would erase their failures. How is that any different to us, Hydaelyn? We could not find a solution except to force one by dint of our collective strength. We, at the time, did not understand how to let nature take its course. Yet your precious mortals should have known better. They saw no future for themselves and gave up. They were unable to see that life would have returned in time had they but tried to cultivate it.
I will say it plain: by your own standards, they are not worth saving, for they couldn't withstand a calamity of Ascian making let alone one from the cosmos.
Our very presumptions about this are at odds. Where you believe they gave up, I believe they sought salvation for others. Where you believe their society was failing, I believe they must have had the strength to support this effort. And where you believe they spent their energy on something with no benefit, I believe that studying both Alexander and the Crystal Tower must have surely offered them many insights into aetherology that would provide benefit to them after the project ended.
But even should I accept all your presumptions over mine, then my answer remains and must be this: They did it not for themselves, but for others. They gave of themselves to spare others. That is the difference, Hades. The final line in the sand was not our people giving up and surrendering themselves -- in fact, that is what we of the Hydaelyn faction did, to oppose the rest of our people from restoring what was lost at the cost of others.
So if I were to take their machine right now and use it to avert the Final Days, you would approve?
If I were to erase seven ages of turmoil, seven ages of innovation, seven ages of births and deaths and lives and legacies, you would approve because it would bring our people together and would not involve sacrifice to bring about Zodiark?
Our people could have learnt to withstand Meteion eventually had you introduced the concept of death gradually. You never gave them that chance. Or rather, Hermes never gave them that chance, and then you kept your counsel until it was too late to do aught. Meanwhile the Exarch sacrifices numerous generations but 'tis all well and good because "look at what we have learnt from their erasure"!
We are never going to see eye to eye on this, Hydaelyn, and I doubt I will ever forgive you. I said I would not raise a hand against you and I should think you know I always keep my word, but the camaraderie we once shared is long broken.
To erase it 'twould be terrible. Could you take the same path, then I would wish you and the new timeline you split off from ours all the luck in the world. For a split would result, and naught would be erased.
Yet... I beg your indulgence in one more thing. Before your name was revealed, while you wore this form I did not recognize, I've no doubt you recognized me. I ask not why you kept the secret, but rather, why -- with all that lies between us, and the camaraderie broken -- did you show me courtesy and kindness? (For that was courtesy and kindness, by your standards -- I recognize that in you still, as I do now in this exchange of thoughts which has remained such.)
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timeasmymeasure
text; un: luckyseven
Date: 2022-06-14 03:25 am (UTC)Yo, it's Zidane! Still on for lunch and a story?
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Date: 2022-06-15 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2022-06-24 04:56 pm (UTC)[She's teasing, honest!]
Today, then?
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Date: 2022-06-24 08:05 pm (UTC)[He gets the implications, but friends can go hang out too.]
Oh yeah, meet ya there.
->Action!
Date: 2022-06-24 08:21 pm (UTC)Awe, yeah, Action!
Date: 2022-06-24 08:25 pm (UTC)Hey! Didn't make you wait too long, did I?
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Date: 2022-06-26 02:18 am (UTC)You needn't worry about me. It gave me time to think about food.
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Date: 2022-06-26 04:12 am (UTC)[How rude of him making a lady wait longer...]
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Date: 2022-06-29 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
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From:text | [thearchitect]
Date: 2022-08-25 02:10 pm (UTC)Hydaelyn,
I do not write this to apologise for my words. I do not write this to apologise for my past deeds either. I write this because your assumptions about me were so egregiously incorrect that they were offensive and leaving them unanswered does not sit well with me.
You claim that I saw the sundered shards as lesser. Indeed, they were lesser: not only physically but intrinsically, and you know that very well because you made them that way. You seem to have forgotten that I am cursed with a keenness of sight that disallows me from viewing them as aught else.
Yet in spite of their lack, I still walked the earth amongst them. I took their forms. I lived with them; worked with them; broke bread with them; even loved and died with them. When the shards were yet newly made and man still squabbling in the dirt, I spent decades upon decades trying to enlighten their peoples before Lahabrea, Elidibus and I ever settled on our plan for the first Rejoining - but I had nothing to show for my efforts except for death and loss and heartache. Over, and over, and over again.
Every bit of pain and suffering I reaped with these bloody hands, I took upon my shoulders. I bore their dying screams, I bore their unrealised hopes and wishes and dreams, and swore that when we made the world whole, no-one would ever have to die in torment ever again. Yet you would dare accuse me of running from my guilt? Tell me, Hydaelyn: did you ever spend time amongst those that you claimed to have loved? Did you truly understand their suffering as I was made to, or did you watch from afar in the depths of the aetherial sea, offering trite comfort to your champions, and content yourself with the thought that, some ten millennia hence, all would be forgiven because you were their 'Mother'?
No, I am not the one who hid from the cruel reality of the new world, Hydaelyn. You did.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 03:23 pm (UTC)Pray permit me to debate you on several points, and perhaps the distance that putting thoughts to words requires shall allow us both a more objective approach.
1st, I must dispute an assertion you make, that it is only the sundered shards you saw as lesser. To the contrary, I think you and all those who sought the final sacrifice to Zodiark found other beings to be lesser well before the Sundering. Else you would not have felt justified in sacrificing them to restore those who had sacrificed themselves before.
Even should we limit ourselves to only considerations of the sundered shards, I fear your argument of vision is but sophistry. You are not a fool, nor a dullard, and none who know aught of you can accuse you of either. You've the capacity to perceive merit in others beyond their aetherial presence. The history of the Source alone is full of those of keen intellect, strong personality, and great skill, as you must admit; to call them 'lesser' is to judge them by only that particular aspect of their beings that you choose, in order to view them as lesser. Even you admit this flawed reasoning as you declaim your presence among them, your efforts to live and aid them, to emulate their lives.
And should you retain belief that your sight alone made your perception inevitable, I must ask this: have you ever asked the one whose sight we both know to be keener than yours what he saw of the new lives, the sundered peoples? I do not know what he will say, I admit that now, yet from all that has happened I do not fear the answer he would give you.
Know that I fault nothing of your logic, in believing you could make a world where none would die in pain or torment. Of the Meteia, the Endsinger, you knew naught. But I ask you now, did not the need to sacrifice to Zodiark already cause the pain and torment you swore would be unnecessary? For those who would have been taken involuntarily, and for those left behind by those who went by choice? Could you ever erase that? Pretend it did not happen? Ignore its consequences? Swear that it would never be necessary again, that no other calamity or catastrophe would demand such a price?
And on final note, I must correct an assumption of yours: I knew from the first that I deserved no forgiveness. I have never once asked for any, and never shall, from them nor from you. Well would all people be justified in cursing my name -- did you perhaps know that for a time, even the Warrior of Light lost all faith and trust in me? But the people of the Source and the shards would be, will be, alive to curse my name, and that has ever been my goal from the start.
I have read over this missive, and have done my best to be calm and even; if any of it should read to you as less than that, pray know it was not by intent, indeed counter to it.
I also wish you to know, Hades, that I forgive you all that you did. Not for purely selfless reasons, I must confess -- for the truth, at this far date, is that all the pain and grief you brought to me and mine served my hopes in the end, and yet had it not been you enacting such, others would have. But in truth, though we disagree on so very many critical matters, I understand your actions and your choices. Had things been just a little different, truly we might stand on the opposite sides of this gulf between us.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-01 08:39 am (UTC)Nor do you know Hythlodaeus as well as you think you do. Faced with the pressure of duty, the loneliness of aeons, and an overwhelming belief that his ability falters in comparison to mine, do you truly think he would have thought differently of the sundered world? Nay, he would have been the first to crack. The first to go mad over their guttering souls. He would have done worse than I to see those he loved returned.
But in the end, Hydaelyn, I do not care what you think or feel of me. I am done with my part in your farcical play. I do not want your forgiveness. And while I will tolerate your presence for however long this island sees fit to keep you, you will never be able to recapture the goodwill I once had for you. If you desire reconciliation then you will need to earn it through your own penance, just as I have had to.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 05:44 pm (UTC)Long, long, long have I thought on the choices that led us here, and each time my conclusion was the same: I cannot conceive of what we might have done, besides Zodiark, to stop the song of the End.
Make no mistake, I consider this a flaw of my own imagination. I have no doubt that some other choice could have spared us long enough to take the battle to the Meteia properly. But I do not know it. And the idea of Zodiark provided such a clear and immediate response, how can I argue that some uncertain and unknown path be sought out, while the Final Days continued? Indeed, for many, to abandon a sure protection with sure costs in favor of an unknown one with unknown costs would be a moral affront. And so I conclude, at the end of my musings, that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that were my vote to be counted, it would have been on your side.
Even known what would come.
It was the second use, and the third proposed, that I could not and would not abide, memory or no. Even so, had we stopped at the second, I'd have let it pass. Memory or no, that is what I thought even then, and why I protested onwards in the hopes that perhaps I could split the timelines, create one where we survived and healed and grew.
We, of course, know what came of that.
After writing the above, I set this message aside with intent to return to it with calmer thoughts and eyes, and now that I have done so, I find myself growing somewhat vexed by your repeated anger over how the people of the shards view Hydaelyn. (Not Venat, though I understand why you see no difference therein.) Is it anger that the name is revered when you hate it so, and feel it deserving of that hate? Or that you feel it is a comfort to me, where you would see none come to me?
[She ought to leave well enough alone, and yet -- permitting him to bottle all this up and let it fester will cause him grievous harm. Better to lance the boil, to let the caustic contents of the wound flow free, in the hopes that it can begin to heal. Let him resent the one who opened it, let the life he has here pack it with gentle gauze and warmth, and perhaps someday Hades can find his soul as light as that perpetual grump can manage.]
[As for her? He'd shone light on a thought she'd long ago let die -- a sundered world where he and the others accepted what must be, lived up to his disdain of becoming megalomaniacal maniacs, and used their power for the blessing and benefit of all. A world in which none would know Hydaelyn by any name or form, and would have no need to, because they had great men to advise and aid them. If he knew he'd dug up such an image, rendered barbed and bitter by time, he'd likely gloat.]
[If he could ever credence that she once imagined such a thing in the first place, of course.]
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 06:15 am (UTC)This time he doesn't respond until the next day. And when he does, he simply writes this: ]
Both.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 01:59 am (UTC)[But she will not speak those thoughts, not any time soon. They serve no purpose.]
I cannot answer to the first, not in any way you'd credence. But as for the second, 'tis no comfort save for those few who know the tale in its entirety and still speak the name without loathing. Well might we both suspect how most people would treat that name instead, if they but knew what I had truly done to them.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 04:30 pm (UTC)Regardless, it's too late now to think of what should have been done. He was freed of Zodiark's tempering in another world so the point is moot. ]
Fine. Then answer me this one last thing, Hydaelyn: your desire for mortal man was that they learn to accept loss and hardship and continue to move forward in spite of it. Yet you allowed the Crystal Exarch's manipulation of time to further your own plans - facilitated my death, even - and never once criticised him for it. In fact I distinctly remember you praising his efforts.
I do not hold any grudge towards you for my death on the First. I made my choices freely and reaped the result of my failure. But I cannot abide hypocrisy, Hydaelyn. I know the Exarch came from a world where our Eighth Umbral Calamity succeeded. If you truly held any sort of regard for man surpassing despair, tell me this: why praise THEM for resurrecting their loved ones? You should have condemned him, as you condemned all the rest of us.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 05:10 pm (UTC)Of all those who worked upon the project which sent the Crystal Exarch back to the past of the First, only he himself would be even the slightest bit of a beneficiary of such a project. All others who participated would gain nothing save the knowledge that they had tried -- for they could not ever have any idea whether he would succeed or fail, nor ever touch again the separate timeline they created.
What they gained from their efforts was not a return to their old lives, not a denial of their pain, not a rejection of their suffering; rather, they helped others, even if those others are another version of themselves. If in the process they helped themselves, it was by replacing despair with hope, by transmuting agony into altruism, and by incidentally learning much in the span of the project that would aid them in rebuilding their own shattered civilization.
I said earlier I would have gladly separated our own timelines, to save our people, if you recall. Had, by fortune or fate or dint of effort, the third sacrifice to Zodiark been abandoned, such would have been the result, and I argued against it unto the very end. That would not have destroyed the timeline we knew... but I suspect it was impossible, looking back on it now, for such a thing to occur given how things happened.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 03:58 am (UTC)I will say it plain: by your own standards, they are not worth saving, for they couldn't withstand a calamity of Ascian making let alone one from the cosmos.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 04:14 pm (UTC)But even should I accept all your presumptions over mine, then my answer remains and must be this: They did it not for themselves, but for others. They gave of themselves to spare others. That is the difference, Hades. The final line in the sand was not our people giving up and surrendering themselves -- in fact, that is what we of the Hydaelyn faction did, to oppose the rest of our people from restoring what was lost at the cost of others.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 05:53 am (UTC)If I were to erase seven ages of turmoil, seven ages of innovation, seven ages of births and deaths and lives and legacies, you would approve because it would bring our people together and would not involve sacrifice to bring about Zodiark?
Our people could have learnt to withstand Meteion eventually had you introduced the concept of death gradually. You never gave them that chance. Or rather, Hermes never gave them that chance, and then you kept your counsel until it was too late to do aught. Meanwhile the Exarch sacrifices numerous generations but 'tis all well and good because "look at what we have learnt from their erasure"!
We are never going to see eye to eye on this, Hydaelyn, and I doubt I will ever forgive you. I said I would not raise a hand against you and I should think you know I always keep my word, but the camaraderie we once shared is long broken.
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Date: 2022-09-26 12:33 am (UTC)Yet... I beg your indulgence in one more thing. Before your name was revealed, while you wore this form I did not recognize, I've no doubt you recognized me. I ask not why you kept the secret, but rather, why -- with all that lies between us, and the camaraderie broken -- did you show me courtesy and kindness? (For that was courtesy and kindness, by your standards -- I recognize that in you still, as I do now in this exchange of thoughts which has remained such.)
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From:apologies, been a long week
From:S'okay!
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