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nxtherold · 4 years

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𝐂𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐗 : 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

A compilation of what the Nightmare says to each muse in the Fade, what their tombstones say, and what their Fears appear as.

𝐀𝐕𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐄

What her fears appear as: Her fears appear as the people she cares for, both alive and dead, corrupted by red lyrium. Templars and Mages from her time in Kirkwall are among these faces as well.

What her tombstone says: Not Being Good Enough

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: “Nothing you did mattered, Hawke. All you ever did was make things worse. Carver and your mother both died because you were too weak to save them, you foolish girl. Bethany, (Fenris / other love interest), and whoever else you have left will all die. Knowing your history, it will certainly be your fault when the time comes, and you’ll have to watch the life leave their eyes. A familiar view, isn’t it, Hawke? So familiar that I imagine you’re seeing it in your head at this very moment. Ah, yes, what an accurate depiction of the fate awaiting anyone who dares care for a girl as cursed as you."

𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐒

What her fears appear as: Vaughan and his henchmen as well as slavers from Tevinter

What her tombstone says: Oppression

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "Why are you even here, elf? All your efforts to elevate your people have been for nought. When will you grow tired of being an accessory to heroes far greater than you could ever pretend to be? You were born from nothing, just like your mother, and you will die just as she did: as nothing. No title, no status could change that.”

𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐀

What her fears appear as: Herself, given wholly to the qun. Also the Arishok, Rasaan, her mother, and Luis. Quite frankly, there’s a lot of faces from her past that Nightmare can use against her.

What her tombstone says: Losing Herself

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "You think I could ignore your presence, pirate? A most curious return to the Fade indeed. I’m just waiting to see when you’ll plunge your dagger into the Inquisitor’s back, just like you did to Hawke years ago. But she didn’t tell anyone about that, did she? What a good friend. Too good for you. And even after all the times you betrayed her you still had the nerve to cling to her coattails and leech off of whatever glory might fall your way. You see yourself as the captain of the ship, Isabela, but you belong on the bottom of the boat, not in the captain’s cabin. You are truly, and irredeemably, scum. The day will come when all of your so-called friends wipe you from their boots as they should have rightfully done years ago.”

𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃

What her fears appear as: Various people she killed during the Blight.

What her tombstone says: Despair

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "The great Hero of Ferelden. Ah, look at you now, little Cousland. Bryce’s darling pup. You never had a choice, did you? They shoved that rot down your throat, clad you in silver, and told you to be a hero. And you’ve hated what you are every day since then. You can still feel it, the taint, as hot and fresh in your veins as the first day. How long till you become a shell? How long until the voices call to you, before dark hands drag you down into the abyss? Oh, my dear, what a pitiful existence. You saved the world, yet your life is unfulfilled, and it will never be. No amount of glory can make you content, because you’re too empty to ever feel whole again. But such is the tale of many heroes. I wonder, will you find your end at your Calling? Or will you become like Loghain first, too blind to see that you’ve torn down your own house. You are ruined either way. You will always, even after your last breath, be ruined.”

𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐀 𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐋𝐓

What her fears appear as: a ghostly apparition of the Shame of Serault

What her tombstone says: Inability

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "Yet another noble lady playing the part of a caged bird. But you're not caged, and you haven't been for a while. You know you could have done something about your brother before he got himself in such a sorry state. Instead you chose to smile and pretend everything was okay and then retreat into the woods whenever his anger turned in your direction. You stopped the people from overthrowing him. You let him continue down his dark path because you were either too incapable or too unwilling to confront him. Caspien may be cruel, Octavia, but you're effete, and Serault will be in far worse hands when you are eventually forced to step up and do what you should have done long ago. I truly pity the mortals who have so long been at the mercy of your family and will continue to suffer at your cursed hands for one more generation: the worst generation, surpassing even the horrors of the Shame's reign."

𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐄

What her fears appear as: Herself.

What her tombstone says: Weakness

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "Ah, the Bane of the Wicked. That is what you were once called, yes? How ironic it is that you are the most wicked of all. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were one of us."

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐀

What her fears appear as: A vanguard of Tevinter slaves, turned against her by their masters.

What her tombstone says: Silence

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "You were never free, Calpernia, and you never will be. You simply keep hopping from one master to the next. It won’t be long before there is no one willing to take your side. No one to stand for you. We all know that you cannot make it on your own. You’re a girl playing a revolutionary, but make no mistake that it is make-believe. You’re merely a puppet, and your existence only matters when there is someone to pull your strings."

𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄

What her fears appear as: Tevinter slave-hunters.

What her tombstone says: Loss of Identity

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "How does it feel to be a pet, Arsine? Spending your days dancing away for the nobles in their plays? Sure, you get to come to court and play the Game, but you'll never be more than a useful tool at best. You're a novelty. A pretty face with strange ears to tickle the exotic tastes of the bored nobility. You'll never be one of them, but you're barely even an elf anymore, either. You're so tainted that the Dalish wouldn't even welcome you back at this point. The moment the nobles grow tired of you, you'll go back to being a nobody with an existance so inconsequential that neither the humans nor the elves will care that they've lost you."

𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐍

What her fears appear as: Smaller versions of Nightmare himself.

What her tombstone says: Loss

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "Ah, Honora, you look well for someone who dabbles in all manners of filthy magic. I bet your heart has remained the same since our last meeting as well; cold and stagnant, like the dead husband who rarely shared your bed. The man you're always compared to. You once thought yourself a stronger mage than him. A better chief, too. But your people question that assertion, and now you have started to question it as well. I am the one who took Angof's life, by the way, not those agents of the king. And if you insist on crossing me, dear Honora, I'll take yours too."

𝐊𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐈 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐄

What her fears appear as: Herself, possessed by demons.

What her tombstone says: Corruption

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "You have such faith in your precious Maker, little snake. So much that you cannot seem to accept the fact that you are nothing but a heretic. The Maker doesn't speak to you. Auriel wasn't written out of Chantry history because she was a threat to their control; she was written out of Chantry history because she was a cowardly, self-important witch who became the same zealous monster that you yourself have become. The only justice you will ever bring forth is your own death in pursuit of your worthless cause. And just like Auriel, history will forget you, too."

#I spent way too long doing this but tbh I got distracted a bunch lmao #[hawke ; codex]#[nalindri ; codex]#[isabela ; codex]#[rosara ; codex]#[octavia ; codex]#[pandora ; codex]#[calpernia ; codex]#[arsine ; codex]#[honora ; codex]#[kaeri ; codex]

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mmmmalo · 5 years

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the king/father creates/births things while the queen serves only to impregnate (him with the idea for what he will create, like a muse, if you will)? idk i hate women being reduced to their reproductive function but this also seems misogynistic somehow. also does this make roxy's ability to create objects from nothing another "she's trans" joke?

I think the discomfort you’re apprehending is discussed somewhat when Crockertier!Jane tells Jake he will only exist to sire her children? Sexual objectification is probably a more familiar experience for women, but the unease in being subsumed by some sexual function isn’t necessarily gender exclusive… (the existence of domination play attests to that probably)

This subject is probably out of my depth, but I’m going to meander a bit and hopefully say a couple useful things.

First, some clarification: “birth” is the principle of separation and “pregnancy” is the principle of union. Thus birth-as-we-know-it is rendered equivalent to ejaculation, Breathing out, pooping – all of which involve separation from that which was once part of you. Likewise the image of a gestating fetus is equivalent to taut testicles, lungs full of air, a constipated colon – states in which the union is maintained. On this level, it’s apparent that any given body can participate in both halves of the dichotomy.

But as elaborated back in the Roxy-and-Dirk post, Sburb’s queens and kings are aligned with birth and pregnancy, respectively. As per Caliborn’s enchantment, this is treated a hat-switch, a reversal of expectations on who ejaculates and who gestates. “Birth” (which Caliborn likes) is coded as masculine, so that assigning this function to the queen is met as a reversal. While “pregnancy” (for which Caliborn fetishes his disgust) is coded as feminine, so that assigning this function to the king is met as a reversal.

The problem I’m facing is evaluating whether the birth/pregnancy dichotomy (aka separation/union, aka Breath/Blood) contains an intrinsic (ie inescapable?) gendered hierarchy, or if the gendered hierarchy is imported by characters (or us) onto what is actually a gender-neutral distinction. Though there could also be a broader point that binary systems are easily co-opted as mapping to the gender binary…? So that even if a distinction “ought to be” neutral, the matter remains that it has been /rendered/ gendered?

To avoid speaking too much in terms of generalities, I’m going to reorient this discussion around John Egbert via an ask concerning the ARG:

you gotta talk about it man come on

I read the ARG as a conspiracy theory that falls in line with the kids’ paranoid fantasies. In the same way that the very real trolls function as manifestations from the psyches of those around them, the world of Homestuck is, in general, shaped by the psychological profiles of its inhabitants.

I gather this partly from the nods to an irl conspiracy (eg declaring Obama to be a cross-dimensional immigrant), but mainly because the overwhelming paranoia that defines the narrative, the conviction that the world has degenerated and that every known authority is but a feeble puppet of a nebulous overlord. Comedians Laurel and Hardy are slowly corrupted and eventually infused with Evil, resulting in the birth of the Insane Clown Posse, which is to say ICP’s low-class status translates into degenerate art within the confines of the conspiracy. Albert Einstein is renounced as a fake, whose “insights” are mere scraps cast off from a feast of truth available to some unseen master. It’s all insurmountably stupid, but there is a unifying thread:

The idea is that the world is “fallen”, in two of the senses explored via John Egbert’s fear of heights (or rather, his fear of descent).

1. John is literally afraid of heights, having fallen from the slime pogo. But John’s entry item is an apple because he experiences a pervasive sense that there is a perfect world of ideals from which he has been thrown down – a sort of intersection between the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden and the heavenly Platonic Forms. This manifests partly in an obsession with authenticity, a subject that pervades Act 1 (x)(x). The Obama birth-certificate conspiracy attempts to frame Obama as “inauthentic”, and framing Einstein as a feeble peddler of inherited slivers of truth relies on the idea that there is a Godly figure with access to ALL the truth, a master presiding over the Pleroma. John is susceptible to this kind of thinking; after all, the paranoid idea of Betty Crocker as an Illuminati-tier omnipotent antagonist began as one of John’s funny delusions.

2. The biblical Fall is at times phrased as the corruption of humanity, and that sense carries into Homestuck. The other Heir, Equius, is revolted and titillated by that which he regards as base. His fetishization being lower class and other modes of degradation receives a visual complement in images of a falling ideal: the death-by-fall of man-horse Arthour, and Equius’s own descent through the caves of LOCAS (the circumstances of a lusus’s death and the features of a planet both bear relation to a player’s fantasies). John complicates the picture a little bit: he specifically has a fascination with “bad movies” (low status art), but also he regards the other side of the silver screen as a Pleroma of sorts, which simultaneously elevates the art.

But my goal is to demonstrate that all of this intersects with the original topic: the division of high/low is also projected onto masculine/feminine.

John wishes to undo his traumatic fall from the slime pogo, an event that has come to represent John’s fantasy of his own birth. As hinted at the start, the birth he imagines for himself is ejaculatory: Ghostbusters is “manbro bukkake theatre”, and John fancies himself a ghost busted directly from the loins of his heavenly Father. John seeks to re-merge with his image of God, a goal implicit in John’s attempts to reunite with Dad in a more familiar sense.

But implicit in John’s quest to give up the ghost and ascend to the Father is a rejection of the implicitly feminized earth and flesh, to which the self/soul is umbilically bound. This gendering is often shown via robots:

Jake jokingly says that Dirk is “more machine than man” – this is a jab at Dirk’s terse demeanor, but placing machines in opposition to manhood potentially feminizes the machines, compromising Dirk’s desiring to be a paragon of dudeliness. The simultaneous masculinization of reason and dehuminizing jabs like Jake’s confuse and frustrate Dirk for a variety of reasons

The ghost of Aradia enters robotic husk to be reborn, imitating the insertion of the spirit into the body. She then finds that Equius has inserted something into her body against her will, and violently removes it and destroys it. “It” was a chip that controlled her feelings, but the intimate violation has tones of assault, and Aradia’s heart is effectively aborted.

There’s more examples, but this is just an aside to push the notion that the Fall (from high to low) entails the entry of spirit into body, which via the analogous entry of sperm into womb would seem to gender hierarchy itself. Masculine/feminine is entrenched as high/low by the metaphysics.

(Here’s a nice post that notes a gendering of the hemocaste system in Zebruh’s Friendsim route)

This leads me into thinking that John’s desire to merge with the image of the Father is connected to his love of pranking people, insofar as it becomes a assertion of domination/power (which is presumed to be the masculine position). The prankster’s gambit, at its purest, is a measure of Who’s On Top.

At the end of the Chaos Dunk scene (in which John symbolically enacts Rose’s rape fantasies), John pranks Rose by dumping a bucket full of gushers on her head. Buckets are receptacles, and thus occupy the balls/womb half of the divide. Evacuating the bucket all over Rose is a repetition of earlier symbolic assault, and the moment is embellished with a prankster’s gambit to emphasize the notion that there is an element of domination to the encounter.

The bucket prank is echoed in a later conversation between John and Rose, beginning at page 2922. John asks repeatedly whether Rose “knows everything” now, says the beta kids “were in this adventure together” but with Rose’s occult knowledge, she is now “getting away from us”. John is not anxious that Rose is separating in a neutral way – his anxiety stems from the idea that she is rising above them. “Knowing everything” is a property of mastery, and John is confused by Rose being above him. At the end of 2922, John attempts to mock Rose’s words, but she tells him he’s being mean and he apologizes.

Rose herself expresses some anxieties about her position, saying elements of her wizard shtick have made her feel “ridiculous” or “embarrassed”. Her choice of words invokes the manifestation of Eridan, who mocks Rose’s “ludicrous poppycock” – she has an ongoing worry that her phallus (masculinized symbol of power) is fake.

This is why the scene culminates in an play scenario, in which John promises to sweep in like a noble knight and banish Rose’s encroaching grimdarkness, and Rose in turn pretends to swoon. The joke is an ironic acquiescence to the (gendered) hierarchy that is implicitly being challenged by Rose’s rise to power (or rather, that the kids perceive to have challenged). Past this, the conversation goes on to the subject of the Tumor, in a way that I have difficult tying into some sort of conclusion for the gendered aspects of the conversation.

This probably bears some relation to Rose’s insistence that John is the group’s leader…? But again, I’m at a loss. Let’s wrap this up.

On your last point: Roxy creating items from nothing actually throws a small wrench into things: in another essay on Gnosticism I was reading (Schuyler Brown’s “Begotten, Not Created”), “emanation” suggested that the creation was originally part of something (God, the One, etc), and emanation was thus framed as being in opposition to creation-from-nothing.

This brings me back to the problem of not knowing which portions of Homestuck’s metaphysics are particular to a given character’s psyche, which portions are universal, and which portions are loaded with both personal and universal meaning, or personal meaning that are /rendered/ universal. The motif of Roxy throwing a dead cat out of bucket seems to carry multiple meanings at once… in the sense we’ve noted, it would relate to the terror of stillbirth and miscarriage that follows Mom and Condy around. But reading “birth” as ejaculation, the cat could also be read as a disappointed acknowledgement that she cannot create life on her own…?

#this also contains the gist of what I gleamed from the ARG #rape cw #homestuck reread 3 #john #rose #roxy

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nxtheromoved · 3 years

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𝐂𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐗 : 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

A compilation of what the Nightmare says to each muse in the Fade, what their tombstones say, and what their Fears appear as.

𝐀𝐕𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐄

What her fears appear as: Her fears appear as the people she cares for, both alive and dead, corrupted by red lyrium. Templars and Mages from her time in Kirkwall are among these faces as well.

What her tombstone says: Not Being Good Enough

𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐒

What her fears appear as: Vaughan and his henchmen as well as slavers from Tevinter

What her tombstone says: Oppression

𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐀

What her fears appear as: Herself, given wholly to the qun. Also the Arishok, Rasaan, her mother, and Luis. Quite frankly, there’s a lot of faces from her past that Nightmare can use against her.

What her tombstone says: Losing Herself

𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃

What her fears appear as: Various people she killed during the Blight.

What her tombstone says: Despair

𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐀 𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐋𝐓

What her fears appear as: a ghostly apparition of the Shame of Serault

What her tombstone says: Inability

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "Yet another noble lady playing the part of a caged bird. But you’re not caged, and you haven’t been for a while. You know you could have done something about your brother before he got himself in such a sorry state. Instead you chose to smile and pretend everything was okay and then retreat into the woods whenever his anger turned in your direction. You stopped the people from overthrowing him. You let him continue down his dark path because you were either too incapable or too unwilling to confront him. Caspien may be cruel, Octavia, but you’re effete, and Serault will be in far worse hands when you are eventually forced to step up and do what you should have done long ago. I truly pity the mortals who have so long been at the mercy of your family and will continue to suffer at your cursed hands for one more generation: the worst generation, surpassing even the horrors of the Shame’s reign.”

𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐄

What her fears appear as: Herself.

What her tombstone says: Weakness

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: “Ah, the Bane of the Wicked. That is what you were once called, yes? How ironic it is that you are the most wicked of all. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were one of us.”

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐀

What her fears appear as: A vanguard of Tevinter slaves, turned against her by their masters.

What her tombstone says: Silence

𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄

What her fears appear as: Tevinter slave-hunters.

What her tombstone says: Loss of Identity

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: "How does it feel to be a pet, Arsine? Spending your days dancing away for the nobles in their plays? Sure, you get to come to court and play the Game, but you’ll never be more than a useful tool at best. You’re a novelty. A pretty face with strange ears to tickle the exotic tastes of the bored nobility. You’ll never be one of them, but you’re barely even an elf anymore, either. You’re so tainted that the Dalish wouldn’t even welcome you back at this point. The moment the nobles grow tired of you, you’ll go back to being a nobody with an existance so inconsequential that neither the humans nor the elves will care that they’ve lost you.”

𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐍

What her fears appear as: Smaller versions of Nightmare himself.

What her tombstone says: Loss

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: “Ah, Honora, you look well for someone who dabbles in all manners of filthy magic. I bet your heart has remained the same since our last meeting as well; cold and stagnant, like the dead husband who rarely shared your bed. The man you’re always compared to. You once thought yourself a stronger mage than him. A better chief, too. But your people question that assertion, and now you have started to question it as well. I am the one who took Angof’s life, by the way, not those agents of the king. And if you insist on crossing me, dear Honora, I’ll take yours too.”

𝐊𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐈 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐄

What her fears appear as: Herself, possessed by demons.

What her tombstone says: Corruption

What Nightmare says to her in the Fade: “You have such faith in your precious Maker, little snake. So much that you cannot seem to accept the fact that you are nothing but a heretic. The Maker doesn’t speak to you. Auriel wasn’t written out of Chantry history because she was a threat to their control; she was written out of Chantry history because she was a cowardly, self-important witch who became the same zealous monster that you yourself have become. The only justice you will ever bring forth is your own death in pursuit of your worthless cause. And just like Auriel, history will forget you, too.”

#repost from my old blog

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aceticlives · 7 years

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You remember the day you found him, dragging him out of the Dun like a piece of driftwood. You remember how stiff he was when you found him, and how cold. Cold as the water was on that winter day, freezing to the touch. You’d thought him dead, hadn’t known what to do with him – and then you saw him twitch. And then you really hadn’t known what to do with him.

You remember the fear you’d felt keeping a mongrel at your residence secretly, knowing by his injuries that someone wanted him dead, but unwilling to do the smart thing and throw him out to die like his previous owners had, whoever they were. You weren’t the kind of person to just let something die – man, animal, or hated creature, as this one was. For he was obviously hated, by the wounds inflicted upon him. A stolen voice, and clipped wings, and the marks of a hard-fought existence all over – and yet, whoever it was had not been thorough enough. The nameless man you’d taken in refused to die.

For the longest time, he had not been able to communicate beyond nods and shakes of the head, pantomimes of his huge calloused hands and dances. But you lived in a place that respected privacy, and he was an utterly silent being. You couldn’t exactly say why you kept him so long, but you talked to him every day, and he listened patiently. He took care of housework, like one from the old tales of house spirits from Krerdiff that you remembered your nanny telling you – that lower-class woman who knew the lore of the land that your parents regarded as old-fashioned and fantastical and useless, but that you loved to listen to when she would tell it. A hearth spirit that cared for the home as long as you kept it sated – a domovoy, hairy, but not small at all, and seen quite often. It was comfortable, that life, but you knew it could not possibly last forever. He was not a house spirit. He was a half-breed, and an obvious one.

You learned the language of the deaf, a construction that the domovoy could take up, and taught him. It was the thing you worked on to exhaustion, harder than your job, harder than keeping up to date with your friends and the girls who fancied you, who you grew distant with. It didn’t matter. It absorbed you, making this man whole again, though once again you couldn’t pin down why. The domovoy soon took up most of your free time. To you, making this creature live once more was more important than living your own life.

Quickly, and pleasingly, the domovoy learned to speak once again. He told you he was dead, but not gone, and that you owned the right to what was left of him. The concept frightened and abhorred you. You worried that the domovoy was willingly submitting himself to slavery with you as his owner, but the more you spoke with him, the more you understood that the concept was not the same as the Navroyan brand of ownership. He owed you his life; he would protect yours at all costs. He owed you his voice; he would make sure yours was heard. He owed you his freedom, such as it was; he would make sure none would dare impose on yours. But that wasn’t nearly enough to explain it, and you never understood the full concept of what he gave to you until much later.

When he had learned enough of the language that he could speak sufficiently, he told you about his life. It disgusted you, deeply. For a few months, you carried it with you. Your work suffered, and your friends grew even more distant. Your thoughts grew ever more radical, ever more disconnected from the mainstream idea of what was right and what was wrong, and you felt more and more that you didn’t belong in such a place as the dark, gray metropolis of Navroya. You moved back home, taking him with you, calling him your servant. But you didn’t feel at home there either.

You thought to a long-ago meeting you had with a Xekohym and his infant child of another species. You held the pictures, the evidence you had of that meeting, and thought of where they were. You thought of their fates and the fates of everyone you knew, and you realized that none of it was right. This wasn’t how the world was supposed to be. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

Your family was ancient nobility. You were descended from warrior kings, great heroes and movers of worlds, at least in the small corner of the world called Krerdiff. And you were an environmental scientist. The desire for knowledge, discovery – it intrigued you greatly. Learning that the world you lived in was diseased, broken, and wrong left you in a state of sadness so great you spent two months living at your family’s estate trying to recover from that epiphany. Your friend – your only friend, now – spent every day of it at your side, out of character for him, as he would normally keep to himself.

And you realized that in his silent accompaniment he was telling you that he believed you could do something about it. You made plans. You could not stay here any longer – in this broken, horrible place that had once been such a good land. A ship to a far-off land, and a new life, in Lith. Your parents, worried though they were, had few objections. They, like your only friend, believed in your abilities, even if they had no conception of your new beliefs.

In Lith, you found yourself. Your servant showed his old skills had not faded when you made enemies of Acetate-contracted slavers over what you imagined to be a friendly game of dice. One of them drew a blade when you had a run of good luck, and your servant turned it back on the man, spilling his blood over the tavern floor. His friends attacked. You bludgeoned one over the head with a pewter mug, killing him. Afterwards, you felt bad, first because you’d taken a life, but then because the innkeep ran you out of the building. Your friend approved of your instinct for battle, and said, simply, that what you had done was justified. It made you feel better, knowing he approved.

After that, things happened quickly. You started to target men like the one you’d killed, encouraged by your friend. You bought a revolver as large as your forearm. You bought a horse. Your servant taught you how to fight. You made allies of bounty hunters who were as often as not also slave catchers and you ended up becoming someone they told stories about around the campfire. The Krerdiff spirit of vengeance that came in the night, leaving no one alive. Such a thing had no name in Krerdiff folklore – a focus on vengeance was mainly a part of old Navroyan culture. So the legend was called the Falcon, after his homeland’s flag. But you never embraced that legend, because you didn’t believe it was really you, and you never told allies you met who they thought you to be.

Some you met worked as part of organizations. You cultivated connections with them. And some you met worked alone. Some were human. Some were not. You connected with them as well. Everyone you met was an asset – and you made sure to make yourself a desirable contact for them. If you were going to make a difference, you would need all the help you could get, on both sides of the divide that had been torn between races and species. Your servant was sometimes useful for this, and sometimes a detriment. You kept him no matter what. You would never abandon him, and he would never abandon you.

It took a long time. Years. You hadn’t expected your journey here to take this course, and you hadn’t expected it to take as long as it had, but you didn’t regret it. Only parts of it. After so long, you felt it was time to return to where the real fight was. Your friend agreed when you asked him. You left subordinates in place in Lith to carry on your work, ones you’d variously gathered and coerced and blackmailed into working towards your goal, and you returned to Navroya. You could tell your servant was unhappy, but he did not complain and did not show it. You talked to him, and told him that the work you both would be doing would be in honor of his people. You meant this. What your servant had told you of his extinct people had stuck with you, and commemerating them this way felt right to you, though you failed to think of how he felt.

It took more work to build up the base of connections and operations you needed there, but after your time in Lith, it was startlingly easy. Life was cheaper here than in Lith, maybe cheaper than anywhere in the world, and that made it very easy. Kill the leader of a gang and install your own, discredit the leader of a charity and install your friend there, bankrupt a local business and buy it out for pennies on the dollar – you don’t imagine that your methods are noble at all, but you tell yourself the means you use are all worth it to further your goal.

Soon after you arrived back, in one of the first operations you undertook, you discovered the existence of something you hadn’t known existed. Something called a puppet parlor.

The horror of your discovery was beyond anything you’d ever imagined. The things you’d heard, the injustices you’d seen committed in Lith – it didn’t prepare you. This wasn’t humans enslaving monsters. This was humans enslaving humans – full-blooded Roner on both sides. And after everything you’d seen, witnessing your own people exploited in the same manner that you’d seen others exploited hit you harder than anything, and you felt for yourself the same feeling you realized all of those you’d fought for had felt. That anger, that maliciousness, that sorrow – you felt it, like you’d never felt the same feelings before. And you knew, after that, that not only the symptoms had to be dealt with, but that the root cause had to be dealt with. Navroya was diseased; you knew this. But you hadn’t know the extent of the corruption.

You tried to fight it. For years, you tried. But the horrible system was too strong, too self-sustaining. Any damage you did it healed too fast for you to take advantage. You tried to sow your ideas in the minds of the young, but it wasn’t fast enough for your liking. You had to be ensured of the system’s destruction, but you felt your body would fail before you saw Navroya crumble and be reborn.

Before you knew it, you had become old. Your life had passed before you. Chances at finding someone to love you had come and gone, ignored in the face of your mad desire for change. And in the small moments you weren’t thinking of your work, you regretted this. You kept trying to impress your ideals and beliefs on those you met – sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. You were never an extremely charistmatic speaker, but you tried. And now you find yourself in the dreadful position of having to wait to see if your work will be worthwhile, or if it will be for naught.

The people you’ve hurt, the lives you’ve saved, the allies you’ve gained, and the enemies you’ve made – this is what it boils down to. It’s time to see if it’s enough.

#yantzey #raoul

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