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 Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:27 am
Lacing his fingers around the mug, Emrys answered neutrally, "Then I can help you, Amrita. There is a cost. Everything worthwhile has a cost, and the price for this is everything you could have otherwise become."
His eyes flicked down to the mug, a small frown, the first sincere sign of emotion, played across his face upon finding it cold. Long, thin fingers made a brief gesture, and a moment later, steam was once again rising from its surface. The professor looked back at the ghoul, "Do you need time to think it over?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:55 am
At first it had been great news; wonderful news, even. The kind of news that made her gasp with joy and shift on the edge of her seat. In one fell swoop that feeling was gone, crushed by the gravity of the situation. Consequences. There were always consequences.
The panic began to weave through her core. She was being presented with a choice: What she wanted, in exchange for the unknown. All of it made to sound like she would be losing out on something important. The what-ifs began to run through her mind. What if she didn't get Emrys to help. What if she figure it out on her own. What if she lived with it? What if she agreed to his help...?
"Y-You make it sound like I don' have a future if I have my freedom..." She said with a nervous laugh, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. "If...If I do give all of that up...would it mean giving up my friends and family? ...And my potential?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:06 am
Emrys watched her think, eyes following every anxious thought and motion, seeing everything. For a moment he seemed to be staring through her and into something that may, perhaps, but the destiny she'd be giving up. "There's always a future, Amrita. The difference will be your place within it. You can either have your potential or you can become it." He paused and glanced out the window, gaze sweeping over the gloomy campus grounds, staff and students alike scurrying to morning classes. "You're the only one who can decide if it's worth the loss of everything else."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:30 am
Amrita had been too busy with her own thoughts to notice, but Emrys' almost probing stare only served to make her anxieties worse. It really was a lot to think about, but the more she thought about it now, the less there seemed to be an 'easy' choice. Every scenario, every workaround, all of them had a consequence. She either lived with the tag and everything it represented, or she didn't, and potentially lost everything she could have become because of it. Every scenario she ran through her head ended with a dead end, stopped by her worry in the tag or by the consequence the Professor had laid down for her.
"Jack." She breathed out unhappily, unable to help the way her voice wobbled near the end. All she wanted was to go back to the way things were before the tag was forced on her. As insane as things were then, they seemed normal and calm compared to what she had been through since then. It didn't seem fair that she was now faced with horrible consequences for something she didn't even ask for in the first place.
"This would be so much easier if I knew exactly what I was giving up..." She rubbed at her face with both hands, fingers pressing hard against flesh, sinew and bone, before burying up in her hair for a moment. Panic still tingled in her chest, eating away at her metaphorical heart. Having potential or being it. Her place in the future. "...You wouldn't happen to know that, would you?" It was a horrible shot in the dark and she certainly didn't expect him to be able to see the future, but she simply had to ask.
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:39 am
Lifting one hand from the mug, he gestured out the window. "Likely what most of those others have. Some job. A house. Maybe a family or sorts. Possibly not. You would have a life with some happiness and also some tragedy to serve as a contrast. Eventually you would grow tired. You will return to FEAR when you accept that whatever potential you once had, it has since been realized, leaving you nothing more than a tangible vessel for a set of very common actions and emotions." He turned back to her, expression blankly matter-of-fact. "For all that we would separate ourselves from them, the people of this world live much like humans. Little more than cattle."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:50 am
Amrita followed his gesture and took a look out the window, watching some students - some she knew, some she did not - mill about at the beginning of their day. Everything he described sounded like the normal, uneventful life she had dreamed of the more her life turned for the worst, and yet the more he spoke the more one little thing continued to gnaw at her: in that scenario, she would still have her tag. Those nice, normal things would be plagued by fear and anxiety that didn't belong. She would self destruct piece by piece, and she knew it.
"...If that's what I'd be giving up, what would my freedom give me?" The answer was, of course, obvious; she'd be free and live up to her potential, but where did that leave her if she was giving up the life she really wanted?
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:01 am
The professor spread his hands hands out, and there was something sharply pale about them that cut through both light and shadow as they moved. Something about them did not quite match the bland, less than memorable man before her. "Everything else."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:25 am
Amrita found herself staring at his hands as he gestured, spotting something off about them but not being able to place exactly what it was. Everything else, huh? That was something she couldn't quite conceive, but she at least understood one thing about that scenario: She'd be free.
Her answer seemed so obvious to her, and yet she was hesitating.
"This is...it's an awful lot to digest." The choice she was being presented with was a lot clearer now, but it sadly didn't make it any easier for her. "I do need to think about it." She agreed with his earlier question, albeit belatedly. "...If that's okay."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:37 am
The professor gave her a mild smile, and there was really nothing out of the ordinary about him. Or this little chat for that matter. Just a teacher, discussing the worries of life after graduation with a promising, but troubled, student. It was kind of him to take time out of his morning for her.
"Have a nice day, Amrita."
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:43 am
"Thank you, Professor Emrys." Amrita stood up, feeling strangely at ease. "You too." When she left his office and closed the door behind her, she simply stood in the hallway for a moment and reflected on how strangely normal that whole conversation felt.
She shook her head and hurried down the hallway with a lot more to think about than she initially bargained for.
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