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 Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 1:15 pm
Of the parks he visited during his tenure as a Negaverse agent, North End park often sported the brightest lights. The sodium bulbs must've seen replacement often, and blazed across the paths at tight intervals, though very few traveled their sanctioned walkways overnight. Moths accounted for the brunt of activity at his peripherals now. He assumed the luminance meant targets were spotted from afar, and he started to suspect that Hvergelmir chose this location for the ease that one could spot her.
Umber started down the paths himself, winding on the whimsical walkways while he peered beyond their yellowed ambience. It destroyed his night vision, but he felt nothing more than the solitary knight signature ahead. He guessed at a park bench, at a picnic table, perhaps even on the swings. Someone in that vicinity waited and offered no approach.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she said. North End Park. Here, her time was dedicated toward those who needed discussion. Perhaps it was foolish to even consider it - he felt no particular uneasiness toward his decision regarding the war and its necessity - but he acknowledged that he would return with an answer.
If nothing else, this visit stood as a chance to reevaluate Hvergelmir as a captain himself and determine if one should approach her under very different circumstances on one of these warm, summer nights.
Frogs chirped from the lake nearby when he spotted her. Grasshoppers sounded their songs, crickets chirped. "Hvergelmir," he greeted distantly, formally. He approached while the songbirds slept. "I've come up with an answer to your question." Small talk was left by the wayside while he came to a stop a few feet from the noted bench.
His hands came to fold across his chest, but they felt too guarded there. "But first, I want to know if you're aware of anyone who died due to this war."Shazari i have something i need to mail to you
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 1:01 pm
The cloak Hvergelmir were was spun from an odd fabric all its own, whose origin was somewhat mysterious, but it served her well in all except obscuring her identity: it was sheer but warm, it was warm but breathable. In winter, it had kept her from freezing; in summer, it was helping to keep the mosquitoes off. That and a little protective circle of citronella candles. Some of her fellow knights, she knew, had some notion of how to recognize slight particular resonances in others' auric energy. For herself, she supposed she'd had too little exposure to anyone else in repetition to develop a sense of familiarity to most anything she could sense. The approaching aura, at any rate, just felt to her like a captain, nothing more specific. She was a little surprised, though, to see Umber. Hvergelmir hadn't been all that confident he'd return. "Captain Umber," she returned his greeting with a hopeful smile. "It's good to see you again. I hope -- " she began, but was cut off by his jump into the conversation with both feet. Well, let no one ever say that this one wasted any time in beating around a bush. Hvergelmir's smile flickered uncertainly a little, at the interruption -- then settled into a more solemn expression as she shifted into listening to his question. There was time to wait and see where he was going with it. You want to lead this conversation. For you, that's how this will go. Very well, then -- I'll follow your steps. Show me what tune you mean to dance to, Umber.She cast her eyes downward briefly with an exhausted, close-mouthed smile. "What a war that would be," Hvergelmir observed, her tone soft and rhetorical, "where no one died. Do you mean in this lifetime? Or in a previous one?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:53 am
Umber's solicitation shriveled her smile rather quickly. He guessed that she knew he found no favor in small talk. They shouldn't need it - or he hoped it wouldn't matter. To speak of nothings around the questions he held seemed a counterproductive tactic, much like the rest of the cultural adaptations he made.
Before, he thought bitterly. In a previous lifetime. All this talk of being knights. Jupiter, Babylon said. Hvergelmir's response dimmed some of the authoritative hardness in his gaze, and folded arms soon found alternate position in shoving hands into back pockets. The question of previous lifetimes continually flustered him - he understood so little why most clung to tired tales of a time that never involved them. Was there some means for the people present now to meet those who existed back then? In Umber's mind, the closest he could come to meeting the agents of yore would be to trawl the Rift for some of the oldest youma available. Likely humanoid, as he would require reliable communication. Even then, he found the past held very little bearing on the present.
"I mean this lifetime. Do you know of anyone who died in the war since we have been combatants?" He knew of none himself, even including those whose starseeds he claimed momentarily. The seeds always found their paths back to their owners without permanent loss. But the storage vessel for starseeds still thrived with the amount inside, so some undoubtedly died within the context of this decade. But did Hvergelmir know any of them?
Did she know anyone at all that lost their life while she sat upon this bench?
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:07 am
A captain already. A captain and he knows so little. Was the Negaverse promoting just anyone, these days? Could a person who was this green actually accept their new title without wondering what kind of organization would promote them on such a scant record? Maybe, Hvergelmir had to suppose, something like that had brought Umber back here when he seemed to have no particular interest in her company otherwise. Maybe he wanted to know how firm the footing was that his organization stood upon. "Yes," she answered. "I know of people who've died." Some of them, she recalled, had lost their lives outside of enemy combat. Cove and Degrasse had been lost to Mistral's labyrinth, just like the people on Falias and Sarras's level. Bischofite, from what she knew, might've died from somehow getting mixed up in Zirconia's attempts to return home. But those deaths had been complicated, and it was sort of moot whether or not they'd been direct consequences of the war. "At New Year's," she began, rubbing her fingers idly over the scarring on her palm, "Some people were killed, and their bodies were left behind, and a few more were fed starseeds until they became youma -- which can count as death or not, if you like. And before that, a group of lieutenants, slaughtered in a warehouse. A civilian in the residential district -- she was already dead before I got there. And then one man that Sailor Atë killed in front of me, and another one General Avalon killed. I wasn't too late for either of those two -- I just didn't help them." She frowned. "You hear about others, but . . . I try to mostly speak from my own experience." A gesture indicated the empty space on the bench. "Would you like to sit down? You don't have to."
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:31 am
"And you knew these people personally?" He imagined she came into contact with them at least once to know of their deaths. She, too, was stuck in cells among the rest. The lieutenants, though, sounded more of an aside than any real personal connection. Or he assumed so - Hvergelmir's position left her much more open to forging friendships with officers.
Umber hesitated, then took a seat somewhat near Hvergelmir but with enough distance to remain respectful by Destiny City boundaries. It felt odd to sit so far away from someone he spoke with, but he tried to push it from mind. Hands fell into lap in a messy tangle of no particular arrangement. "I imagine the war becomes necessary to bring others together - you wouldn't know the people you did if there wasn't a conflict - and conflict is necessary to grow our character. Knowing someone who died in the war usually drives one further into it, and that feeds into population control. Agents killing senshi out of personal vendettas. Senshi doing the same for ideals. War lets people speak who would otherwise go unheard.
"War also limits survival. It stunts would-be relationships and pulls one from people that would've been met without a war. It is also too heavy a conflict for most people to stomach - which makes it like exercising to the point of breaking one's bones and expecting it to improve one's body. Strong people who can easily stomach the adversities of life become shellshocked." He looked toward a lamp across the street where a single moth beat itself against the glass. Repeatedly it attacked the lamp, and Umber imagined that if he drew closer, he could hear its tiny body impacting the surface.
"But all this is to say that a war can be useful, but it isn't necessary. That doesn't change the fact that it is." He spoke calmly, despite the enunciation. "But my personal views aren't required in my Negaverse duties.
"Is that satisfactory, Hvergelmir?"Shazari sorry i lost where i was going with that question in my last post
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Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 3:48 pm
"No," Hvergelmir answered solemnly, "I didn't know any of them personally. I try not to make that a requirement." There was no particular note of humor or sarcasm in her tone -- nor did she intend any. On this point, Hvergelmir was generally sincere: empathy took work. It required conscious effort to keep strangers inside of one's monkeysphere. "Thank you for giving it so much thought," she said. "Not everyone bothers with it. It doesn't matter whether I find it satisfactory or not, though -- it matters whether you do. I really just wanted to get to know you better: your personal views, not just your duties as a soldier. Do you like your job? Are there aspects you find fulfilling?" She sat facing him a little more head-on, one leg crossed over the other and her hand propped on her knee, chin resting on her palm.
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Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2015 3:17 am
Hvergelmir's response received a nod, though he followed up with no speech. Instead, he glanced out toward the woods where he spotted the barest fleck of a streetlight on the other side. He watched it, then, for some time.
Umber listened to her questions. He waited a beat before answering, as he calculated a response that sounded coherent and possibly relatable. Hvergelmir already clarified that he need not please her, so these answers were more for his own benefit than hers. "I don't find a need to like or dislike it. To me, it is a need - like sleeping or eating. There's no reason to form an opinion over it, when I have to do it. And having the duties given has been a useful replacement for what I used to do." Hunting became mostly irrelevant once he moved to the city - and he found no necessities to complete around Porsha's household beyond his Negaverse ones. Fate showed it as the progression from one task to the next.
"I'm not implying that it wears on me. I don't mind it." Peripheral vision caught movement and he diverted his gaze abruptly, then noted the disturbance was a squirrel.
Finally he gave up on studying the woods and turned toward her. Hvergelmir, with her glittering dress and her shimmering hair and the liquid gold that painted the lot of it together. She looked from the stars - Umber could believe that. She looked like she never belonged here. "But it is fulfilling. It's working toward a goal that's more than survival. The Negaverse brought me from a life that became exactly that." He felt uncertain whether to add more. Caution dictated that he leave it at that, and if she solicited with further pointed questions, then he would answer.
Umber wondered precisely how much Hvergelmir shared with the Negaverse, or how they dealt with her. A knight, an effective enemy, and here she is playing counsel to agents. She had not yet suggested anything against the Negaverse, so he found no reason to report her for it. But why interact with the agents on such a personal level without joining the faction? "If I may, why do you talk to anyone out here? You have the choice of fighting alongside your comrades, but you do not."
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Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:47 am
Skittish. That had been Hvergelmir's first impression, from the way Umber acted: ill-at-ease in his seat, jumpy at every small sound, not particularly forthcoming. Skittish, she'd assumed. Frightened. Shy. She'd thought maybe he was just a little bashful and awkward, or maybe a little socially stunted. The way he watched things, though, gave her a little cause to reconsider. His eyes lingered long after sight or sound had drawn them, studious.' Maybe not shy. Maybe attuned. Attentive. Umber was guarded in his responses, though not necessarily completely avoidant: a part of her was surprised that he volunteered anything, really. But the most she could piece out of his response, the best conclusion she could draw for what it was he was fighting for, was The Negaverse brought me from a life that became exactly that.So there it was again, apparently, their same old methodology: they looked for people who were desperate, and offered them relief in exchange for bloodied service. They preyed on the weak. Umber had been scraping by in some kind of dead-end existence, and now he was living a life that challenged him in some way. Offered him a future with unknown possibilities. Given what seemed to be a high level of detachment -- unless he was simply withholding the bulk of his emotional discourse out of distrust for her as an enemy, which she granted was possible -- she wondered how long he'd been living in that other life, that other hopeless cycle. "I like eating," she countered lightly. "Necessary or not. Cooking, not so much." Hvergelmir drummed her fingers in an idle pattern against her cheek, thoughtful. "But it's good to feel challenged, if that's what you're saying. I can see why that might appeal to you." And it was good, she assumed, to have a sense of security, too. To know your next meal was always coming, your house wasn't going anywhere. She supposed the Negaverse could provide those kinds of things without demanding a hundred and forty hours a week. His question was easier, but surprising. She was glad he showed any interest in furthering the chat at all, given he didn't seem to have any particular positive emotions toward her. Maybe it was just that he didn't have any negative ones, either. Or maybe something else. Who knew. He seemed highly observational, but not highly curious. It was a strange combination, if so. "Because I also have the choice of not fighting alongside my comrades," she said. "Because no one commands me except myself -- and that makes me morally responsible for the forseeable consequences of my decisions." I am a knight of Hvergelmir. I am a being of free will. I will follow no order blindly. "I'm told your side fights in the name of defending the Earth from alien conquest. I see that as a noble cause. My oath prevents me from taking up arms against your agents while they fight for that goal."
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:38 am
So you enjoy these efforts. His gaze finally returned to her in the same hawkish study. No smile or frown augmented his expression - he simply watched.
Her specific mention of moral responsibility interested him. Was she, then, privy to the same belief systems that Ochre clung to so stubbornly? Had they met before? Perhaps expecting as much from two similar belief systems demanded too many assumptions for both the size of their powered world and Ochre's ability to suss out a primarily sentient entity. However, Hvergelmir surprised him at their first meeting - she was not, in fact, entirely sentient.
Morality became a concern only when the affected individual determined that it was of import. Therefore, Hvergelmir must place some weight on those moral responsibilities, which he found terribly curious. Why consider morals at all, when they lay outside the boundary of physical and emotional repercussion? What possessed her to think that moral repercussion deserved consideration? Morals were unfamiliar ground to him, further questions demanded extra consideration before going forth. "Have you held yourself morally accountable for not fighting with your comrades?" He found it easy to imagine the Negaverse doling out punishment as an exterior source for moral obligation, and he could reference quite well his experiences on his own for acting of free will, but combining that free will with moral obligation sounded impossibly straining to the psyche. "Or for the consequences of your decisions?"
Have you self-flagellated over losses from your side, or wins to ours? And what would that do for you, beyond pain?
Her comments on the Negaverse's reason for fighting the war sounded much like the reasoning provided in the training manual. The senshi were considered an invading force, and the Negaverse appointed themselves to halt the siege. Umber, personally, found little of it inspiring - or even relevant. "I guess it is." His gaze turned back to the trees, where he saw a few quick sparks of light. He wondered if fireflies found this place amenable. The warmth of summer allowed for them, at least. "So you're morally responsible for respecting decisions you find noble?" Hvergelmir, for her talk of self-command, sounded terribly limited to her belief systems. But within that, she offered much as a sounding board to those willing to talk. She seemed a particularly uncanny dichotomy - a powerful slave.
"Have you ever thought of joining the Negaverse?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:44 am
"I've tried to hold myself morally accountable, yes," she affirmed, picking her feet up onto the bench in front of her and wrapping her arms around her knees. "My oath might be a decision I can't go back on, but that doesn't mean I can't learn anything from its outcome. Sometimes the results of my decision are unfortunate... but I knew I was giving something up when I chose the path I did. I mean," she frowned, looking for a way to convey what she was saying. "A choice to be a specialist in something is a choice not to be a generalist in many things. There are things you gain and lose in each. There are things you can't accomplish by half-measures." Hvergelmir ran a hand along the fabric of her skirt, letting the starry fabric spill, watery, through her fingers. "I watched a Saturn knight being converted against his will by one of your General-Queens. If not for my oath, I could've intervened -- I was close enough for that. At times like that, I've wondered if it was the right choice. If what I've gained is worth what others have paid -- or how anyone decides that." She sighed. "I would say I'm morally responsible for respecting decisions I find noble, yes -- otherwise, what's the point? I have a value system because I value things. And because I have a value system, I'm aware of my ability to choose to do things that further those values, or things that don't. Why acknowledge that things matter to me, without acknowledging the control I have over what becomes of those things? I could pretend that the ability to improve or degrade the success of those values out in the world had nothing to do with me, but I'd be kidding myself." It was tempting, as it always was, to hedge her bets to try and further the conversation, the relationship. It was tempting to claim she was open-minded to the possibility of joining the Negaverse, that it had ever been something she'd given serious consideration to. It wasn't. It never had been. "No," she said flatly. "Joining the Negaverse has never been a serious option for me. I lack the proper temperament to be happy as a soldier."
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Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2015 3:12 pm
Umber listened for what he found pertinent to his questions, and as he listened, he remained idle to a point of statuesque. He allowed Hvergelmir to wind into her point in her whimsical and meandering manner, explaining at basic value the differences between specialization and generalization. The brunt of what she explained in her first breaths only recalled the basic facts he learned as a young teen, and added nothing to those lessons. She did not, however, tarry long on thoughts of her specialization, for she soon proceeded to the brunt of what she meant to say (or what he assumed she meant to say).
Morals and values aren't interchangeable. Morals describe right and wrong, but values describe what matters and what doesn't. She's held to right or wrong on the things that matter to her. Why have a moral system at all? It sounds superfluous when placed beside a value system. When he chose to speak, he did so slowly, as if measuring the impact of any given word before giving voice to it. "There's no reason to have a moral system alongside a value system. You are responsible for what becomes of those things, but that responsibility doesn't have to be right or wrong. That's what puzzles me. Why classify any effect as right or wrong? It just is." But if you're morally responsible for respecting the Negaverse, so long as it claims to fight for mankind, then you're overwritten and ineffectual against us. Clever, and strange.
"One day it won't be a decision." Would it truly matter if her temperament rendered her a poor soldier? If it did, then her starseed would find better use between someone's teeth. Hvergelmir may make a poor foot soldier, but she spoke well. Many dangers still lurked where they weren't most apparent, and while her talks had not yet given him reason to consider her an adversary, there would always be room for it in the spoken word.
But expectation of betrayal felt pointless in the moment. They spoke, and little came of it but to expand their own reasoning faculties concerning the war. What benefit was there in suspecting her?
"Do you think you surrendered your ability to take action in this war when you pledged that oath? If you're speaking of the same instance, then recall that I was there when that Saturn knight was corrupted."Shazari ugh sorry for the suck the hospital ate my brain
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Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 7:03 pm
Hvergelmir couldn't keep the frown off her face. His questions were so bleak -- what kind of a mind did they reflect? How far gone was he into resignation, if this was how he saw the world? "Why label anything as right or wrong, when it's all subjective, you mean? Why keep choosing to be free when someday the Negaverse will stop tolerating my freedom?" She shrugged. "The question answers itself -- or, I'll answer it for you with another question. Why get out of bed in the morning, if we're just going to die someday? "Why live at all? Why care about anything?" She shook her head. "No -- I don't believe I gave up my ability to take action in this war. Neither did I intend to. I just gave up my ability to take that particular action in this war. There are other things I can do. I try to remember that not every problem that has a physical solution only has a physical solution."
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:56 am
"Those aren't the same questions. Getting out of bed or not getting out of bed isn't related to morals. I'm not asking why you try, but why you label your try right or wrong." Were they speaking two different languages? He started to think so - or else they came from starkly different backgrounds that prevented proper communication. "When I hunt a deer and shoot it, some people will call that action morally wrong. This seems pointless to me. Whether right or wrong, the deer is dead. That simply is. Why evaluate it for more than that?"
I wonder what actions you take. Do you think them right or wrong? He watched her for a time, waiting for her to add to her discussion or turn points about until he looked the idiot for voicing a question, or any number of tricks he found her capable of. He waited for the way the moonlight caught her hair as liquid starlight. He waited for her to fidget, or open a new vein of conversation, or finally consider her a threat.
He waited until he found the sentence warranted. "You concern me, Hvergelmir."
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:24 am
Their disconnect was unfamiliar. It was rare that Hvergelmir had floundered so greatly in finding even the smallest common ground with someone, however superficially different they might often be. Whatever Umber was -- however his curious, strange mind worked behind those staring eyes -- he was something it was hard for her to reach. She struggled to find something she knew well enough to compare him to. When I hunt a deer and shoot it. That, at least, was information, of a kind. "Right and wrong are just . . . words we use to describe desirable and undesirable behavior, I suppose. The purpose of criticism is future improvement." His other comment, though, caught her off-guard. It came not only after a long, unbroken silence, but was also completely unexpected and baffling. There were many words he could've used. Concern was a particularly baffling one. " I concern you?" she repeated back, dubious. "Have I done something?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 1:05 am
Right and wrong are words used to describe desirable and undesirable behavior. That is correct. Right and wrong as a feedback system works for optimization. But when when there isn't an accepted standard of 'right', or you decide there isn't a 'right', then what use is it? Right and wrong can reflect my posture in shooting the deer, but right and wrong for the event itself... It sounds like a system that controls the whole, and damages the parts.
"I understand now." He understood it, and considered the moral applicability of right and wrong to be mostly worthless - at least to him. But the Negaverse found little use for them, either, despite being an organization, for many of the officers chose morally wrong actions that were never frowned upon. Betraying the organization held no superstition of being morally wrong, but received corrections based on the simple need to prevent further damage. Even Ochre's punishment hinged on the basis of survival over moral obligation.
But when Hvergelmir raised question over his concern, he continued to watch her for signs of guilt, awareness, recognition.
'Have I done something?'
After a time, he answered her. "I'm not sure." He stood afterward, and turned from her. He left without declaration, abandoning the ambient light bathing the bench for the cold darkness of the encroaching trees. The territory felt far more familiar to him - far more bare to his recognition than Hvergelmir's cloudy purpose.
'I try to remember that not every problem that has a physical solution only has a physical solution.'
I should take her more seriously.Shazari fin! thank you for the rp! <3
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