She had never felt so hesitant, or so heavy standing in Machine's quarters before. She had never wished before, that they hadn't answered their door. Wished they hadn't been in, so she would have had another excuse to prolong the inevitable. How she wished for another excuse to hold off on this moment. She knew she would not leave this room the same. She knew that something was going to change. Still had too much exposure to the past and the consequences of the past for it to be otherwise.
Still, she wished for it to be otherwise, even when she knew it wouldn't be.
The corrupt wasn't one to linger in awkward silences, and she also wasn't one to beat around the bush. There was no acceptable way to start this. No way to ease into it without it being painfully obvious it was circling to something lurking underneath. As she looked upon her friend, though, and locked onto their vivid blues eyes, she still wished for anything but this.
"I'm going to ask you something I've asked before." She said. "Before...you got by on a technicality, but now, you're under oath."
A promise they made to tell each other nothing but the truth.
"Did I want to join the Negaverse?"
Ivynian
It only seemed fitting after the last RP
Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:00 pm
What a weird vibe. Air feels bloody. Bleeding. A wide, wild look like something between sadness and divorce. Mention of ‘oath’ didn’t help that impression. The whole bit surrounding it, mentioning protections like a racket didn’t bode more well than a heat seeking missile, either.
Machine’s mouth malformed a uncertain line that mirrored pursed brows. “That’s kinda an accusation. Like....no that I was lawyering. You heard something different from somewhere that you consider more reliable?"
There was no reason to look away from the very direct gaze. It seemed like it may as well be swords being thrown, and they weren’t from the red daggers on the blue wrists. “Do I get to hear the wheres n whys accusing me?”
Because you’d have to have been talking to someone to be doing daggers for me. We trained, we laugh, we all been great together. Trying to find a place and purpose adn be more together than apart. But you’re pulling apart. Only that general and that captain were even there to See how it went down. So who’s telling you, Still, that you’ve got gallows eyes at me.
“No want played into it. You were valiant prince. You were ambushed, surrounded, trapped. You were protecting your civilian friend from who you perceived as an enemy. But we are friends, and I wasn’t going to let you just be starseeded as an enemy to the Queen. We are friends, so big Axe cut you free and brought you in. “
don’t wanna use were, even if it’s the right tense. We Were friends. This has that sorta feel where it’s all past tense there on out in hindsight.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:58 am
"Yes." Still replied. "I will tell you." Her guilt for what she'd been up to. For what she had been hiding from Machine, had been knowingly keeping mum until now. Knew she had been keeping it secret, precisely because she didn't want to appear that she was undermining what her friend had told her. "The time I've been patrolling, the time I've spent on my own exploring, I've been running to people from the past. Friends. People who knew the person I used to be and were shocked, appalled, and hurt by what I had become. I've talked with them." She didn't blame the corrupt for not knowing that she did have friends. They thought she was alone, and she didn't blame them for that. She thought she had been alone, too.
"I happened across the Captain who was there, too, when I woke up and he was quite pleased to inform me how things went down that morning." She felt a tremor in her hand. "It aligned with what others had been telling me---how it happened."
Then here it was.
What she had been dreading ever since she had started going down this rabbit hole. Her fears were being realized, no, confirmed by Machine. That growing suspicion about the circumstances leading up to her being here. The horrible confirmation. The shattering of the ignorance she had been desperate to cling to until it was staring her in the face, and she had no choice but to accept it: that she had never made the choice to be here. The corrupt's words hurt her more than anything else had so far, and the tremor in her hand started to move up as she stared at them. She started to tremble.
"Friends." Still echoed, her voice soft. "You say it's because we're friends that you protected me from being starseeded?" The more she spoke, she found her voice again. "Haüyne, I'm not upset that you lied---" In the grand scheme of things, that part was minor. It wasn't the lie or the withholding of the truth that shook her to the core. "You set me up. We're friends and you set me up." Is that what friends did to each other? "I'm upset that I never made the choice to be here. You made that choice for me, Haüyne." Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and the trembling grew more pronounced. "You robbed me of the choice."
And all this time she had been the fool.
"You knew what would happen to someone forced---knew I wouldn't be the same person---but of course we could be even better friends after it happened." She heard an edge in her voice, as things started to spiral. "Because it's easy to be friends with a blank slate, isn't it?"
Ivynian
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:05 pm
Tone shifted and slid, seeming quiet at first and then wholly accusatory. The words, though, the words themselves spoke whole volumes to eleven. Haüyne’s jaw worked, set, locked around breath for a moment and tasted everything like sucking blazing hot cheeto dust off of a familiar finger. Swallowed.
“You seem to have already decided what I think or don’t, what I thought or did, and why. “
“So what is it that you are wanting out of this? You don’t want actual answers from me, not any more than to fit into some puzzle you’ve designed with your friends so you can cut the answers and make them fit into that new picture. I’m glad you have friends. Don’t tell me about them.”
Them. Not me. Not Bus. Not us. Them. The effort was monumental not to acknowledge the other words. Doing so meant treason. Meant there were a lot of leaps of reason to be considered and reported to a Queen that was beloved, or to her war engine. What was loyalty anymore? First Bus and now Still.
“Don’t tell me another god-damned thing. Go, Still. Stay safe and don’t say another thing to me. As you observed, I’m not worth it. You’ve made your choices already. If I’m going to protect you after all I don’t need to know about them. I don’t need to know anything at all. Just like any senshi with a black star. ”
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:13 pm
The words further stung despite it all. It was this she never wanted the other corrupt to feel. That she was picking sides, but when it boiled down to it...it was what it was all about, wasn't it?
Though shaking, a fist couldn't help but shoot up to press against her lips. Still's eyes shut, tightly, as she crushed her knuckles against her lips to keep herself silent. This was the second time she was being shut down by someone she cared about, but unlike the first time, it was for her own good. Once again, she was playing a real life game of minesweeper, this time with her friend who clung to the Queen, which she was in direct line of disobeying.
The words, though cutting, though short, might have been some of the kindest she had ever heard, and it tore her up, that it was like this. That they were like this. She was angry, furious still, yes, but it didn't change the fact she had spent time and made memories with the other corrupt this past year. That, to the best way they knew how, were doing the best they could for her right now. Despite everything.
"But you're not just like any senshi with black star." She whispered hoarsely from behind her hand. "You're still my friend, and don't tell me that bull s**t about not being worth it---it wouldn't hurt so much if you weren't worth it, Haüyne. So tell me why."
Ivynian
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 10:29 pm
“You know the answer doll, so why you keep askin?” Machine’s lips felt like they could be parched mud, splitting at seams that hadn’t been realized before. “I didn’t spend this time training you about what’s in the manual so that you could forget. ‘The enemy must be eliminated and destroyed, or corrupted so that they are no longer a threat. Learn what you can from them, then kill them or corrupt them. Anything beyond that can be met with punishment.’ You were a white moon senshi. Skiv side you called some pinko by his callsign and made yourself known as someone familiar with the enemy. The Infiltration Division is meant for espionage- track and learn what you knew, and you turned out to be a player. Queen demands it. “
“And before you go making dumb connections yourself, lemme spell it out for you ahead of time. Plainly I was doing it to curry favor and advance myself in the eyes of the Sovs and the Queen. And Hey Presto, looks like it paid off, didn’t it? Got a shiny new promotion and accepted to the spy divs. You were a mark. A mission. And I made you like me. Must have been some bonkers freud repeat-the-trauma on a victim stuff. Being better friends after wasn’t really a part of the scheme, just gravy. “ Smiles could hide pain and make it easier.
For one of them. Maybe for Them. Still wanted to go to them and leave here. That’s where the accusations had been leading. Don’t think about it ‘Anyone tricked into leaving the Negaverse for the White Moon can be reclaimed, however at a small price.’ ‘death is the most suitable option for traitors.’
“They’re waiting, aren’t they? You don’t tell the prison warden that you’re gonna break out on Tuesday. That gets ya solitary. Bad enough it’s mostly shoot on sight once you’re over the wall.”
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 11:49 pm
Hadn't she heard these words before? Ah, yes. Early when she had woken up, from the knight Beringia who had said she was nothing more than a puppet and a tool while here.
She wanted to cry, hearing these words from them. It was the first time she had woken up that she wanted to cry. It was the first time she had woken up, that she felt the closest she had been to the person she used to be...even if she still couldn't really remember what it was like to be Olga. That girl who had turned herself in because she thought she was saving a friend, only that the friend had been the one to orchestrate it in the first place. That after this, she still wanted to hang onto the hope that there was more to all of this than what Machine was saying. Just a bit more---
No.
Still snatched that writhing mess of emotion and held it firm for now. Just for a bit longer. If Machine was going to turn her in---again, then she'd be a done deal soon enough. There was nothing to run from right in this moment, except from the words the other corrupt was spouting.
"Stop it." Her eyes snapped open, and her fist pulled away from her lips. "You didn't choose to be here, either---you too, wanted something and someone to hold onto---so you latched onto Metallia. You latched onto propaganda from a manual and a disembodied voice. Where has your Queen been for you, Haüyne? At your side, patrolling? At your side, watching movies? Hugged you? Held you? Was she there for Pyrophanite when he was being consumed by the monster inside of him?" Her clenched fists tightened.
"No." Still spat. "She wasn't. You were there for him. Harmotome was there for him, and I was there for him. He would be dead if it wasn't for us, Haüyne, and your Queen wouldn't have cared or batted an eye lash to your pain and loss. You're still just as lost as when you were first thrown into this like you told me---looking for anything to fill the void because you want to mean something, but pissing on those to whom you actually do." She trembled again.
"So stop it. You wouldn't have tried so hard to comfort me post-corruption if it was only that. It was the act of someone who had gone through the same thing---and didn't want that suffering to be inflicted on another---so which is it, Haüyne? Are you my friend, or are you my prison warden?"
Ivynian
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:50 pm
“Again with the Telling me, yet you STILLZ askin’ questions. I know what you are but whattam I?”
“You know so much then you don’t need to be asking me anything. I’ll say it twenty damn times.” But Machine frowned blue-black and blood. “Especially not with that tone. “
Execution’s eye twitched on the words. The spiel sounded like an appeal to action: a recruitment. Why bring up the queen or any of the rest of it as veiled ultimatums, if it weren’t. “You makin’ the same choices aren’t you? You didn’t hunt me down for this with Bus here. If we3, then why’s he excluded? Divide and conquer? Or is he getting left outta your Moonie Draft Speech because half-to-the-hallway doesn’t qualify for what your new friends want or can do? Tha’s rhetorical, b.t.dubs, because either way you made the same calculations I did when I signed up to recruit you for the Queen. “
“It’s all Los Dos, and more some. But you’re still tellin’ and you don’t want any of whatever might be in my mind factually. Go. “
“Go, Olga.”
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:34 pm
Still stared at the other corrupt, and while she was not so foolish as to hope or expect that Machine would have a sudden change of heart...she couldn't help but feel crushed. Like talking to Sergei, it didn't matter how much or how hard she tried...there simply wouldn't be a connection. "He's excluded because he actually made the choice to join, Haüyne." She replied, quietly. "He'd never understand how I feel. He'd never have an idea of what you feel, too. Having the choice makes all the difference."
But here it was. The point where there was nothing more to say. The point where it was truly goodbye...except, there was one more thing she could say, and would, before she left.
Still took a deep breath. All or nothing. Let it be known, that if she was nothing else...at least she was honest. That she tried.
"I love you, Haüyne. I shouldn't after everything, but I do. You're my friend. You took care of me and looked after me, even if you had a hand in making me what I am. I'm not leaving for them. I'm leaving for myself. I want to be happy, Haüyne. I want to matter. I want to mean something. I want permanence. I want fulfillment---and it's not that I can't find those things at your side---it's that I want them out of life---and I will not find them here. There's nothing for me here. Nothing that I want. There is no chance for me, here. That's why I'm going."
The corrupt then quickly crossed the distance between them, and she pulled the other into a tight hug. It was a short and quick embrace, but in that moment, Still crushed them to her. She then let them go, and stepped back.
"You once said there was no one for you on that side---but I'll be."
