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The Initiate | 1338 Pound Cake Lane

Date: 2017-03-22 03:54 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (Default)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
KURLOZ

1 4M NOT SUR3 WH4T TO S4Y H3R3. 1 H4V3 R34D TH1S L3TT3R 4 DOZ3N T1M3S, BUT ST1LL... 1TS H4RD. M3UL1N S41D 4 LOT OF TH3 S4M3 4BOUT YOU. 1T W4SNT 4NY 34S13R TO H34R 1T FROM H3R.

YOU 4R3 GOOD. 1 KNOW YOU 4R3. 1 F33L TH4T SO D33PLY, KNOW1NG 4LL TH3 TH1NGS TH4T YOU H4V3 DON3 FOR M3 4ND 4LL TH3 TH1NGS TH4T YOU WOULD DO FOR P4N3M 1N TH3 FUTUR3. 3V3RYTH1NG TH4T YOU G4V3 UP, JUST SO TH4T OTH3RS COULD L1V3 4ND B3 FR33. YOUR3 4 H3RO TO M3, KURLOZ. 4ND 1 KNOW YOUV3 B33N JUST 4S GOOD TO TH3 P3OPL3 1N TH1S V1LL4G3.

BUT WH3N 1 H4V3 TO TH1NK 4BOUT THOS3 OTH3R TH1NGS... 1 DONT KNOW HOW TO F33L. 1 G3T SC4R3D. 1 KNOW TH4T THOS3 P4RTS 4R3 4LSO YOU, BUT 1T HURTS. 1 SHOULDNT C4R3 4BOUT SOM3ON3 WHO H4S C4US3D SO MUCH H4RM. BUT 1 DO. W1THOUT H3S1T4T1ON. W1THOUT SH4M3. 4ND WH3N 3V3RYON3 4ROUND M3 PO1NTS OUT TH3 TH1NGS TH4T YOU DO, 1... C4NT H3LP BUT WOND3R 1F TH3R3 1S SOM3TH1NG WRONG W1TH M3. SOM3TH1NG WRONG W1TH HOW 1 F33L, 1F 1 WOULD R4TH3R C4R3 4BOUT YOU TH4N C4R3 4BOUT WH4T TH3 P3RSON TH4T YOU W3R3 D1D TO OTH3RS. 1 TH1NK... TH3R3 MUST B3 SOM3TH1NG BROK3N 1N M3. SOM3TH1NG B4D.

1 DONT KNOW WH4T TO DO. 1 W1SH 1T W4S ONLY G4MZ33 TH4T W4S TH3 PROBL3M, BUT 1T 1SNT 4NYMOR3. 1 W4NT TO DO WH4T F33LS R1GHT, BUT NOTH1NG DO3S. 1 W4NT TO ST4Y W1TH YOU, BUT TH4T F33LS WRONG. 1F 1 TH1NK 4BOUT L34V1NG, TH4T F33LS WORS3. 1F 1 TH1NK 4BOUT NOT C4R1NG 4BOUT WH4T F33LS R1GHT, 1 F33L L1K3 SOM3TH1NG 1S TRY1NG TO TW1ST 1TS3LF R1GHT OUT OF MY CH3ST. 4ND 1F 1 TRY TO JUST NOT TH1NK 4BOUT 1T, TH4TS WRONG TOO.

1 4M SC4R3D. 1 4M SC4R3D OF SO M4NY TH1NGS. 1 4M SC4R3D OF WH3R3 W3 4R3 GO1NG TO B3 4T TH3 3ND OF TH1S. 1 4M SC4R3D OF WH3R3 1 4M GO1NG TO B3. 1 4M SC4R3D TH4T TH3R3 WONT B3 4 SOLUT1ON WH3R3 1 G3T TO K33P 3V3RYTH1NG TH4T M4TT3RS TO M3. 1 4M SC4R3D TH4T 1 W1LL H4V3 TO CHOOS3, 4ND SC4R3D TH4T 1 DONT KNOW WH4T TH4T CHO1C3 W1LL B3.

T3R3Z1

[action]

Date: 2017-03-23 12:41 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970590)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[When the letter comes, she's almost afraid of what it might say. Her thoughts are already a mess on the matter, and she knows what a force of chaos that Kurloz can be on them. But the words are less troubling than she imagined, even if she still doesn't know what to think.

She must have tried to pen a letter back to him at least half a dozen times. No matter what she wrote, it didn't feel right. Nothing did, and she was starting to think that maybe it just wouldn't anymore. Maybe she had lost that feeling forever, and that's only one more fear added to her growing list.

She rolls the pen back and forth anxiously between her fingers, frowning down at the seventh or eighth sheets of paper. The other sheets have been crumbled up and shove aside--or angrily thrown across the room. Finally, she slaps the pen down onto the table and stands. She has no coat to pull on, but she goes to the door, trekking out into the snow and heading across the familiar pathways to the house with the goat pen and the crack down the middle of its door.

That causes her to hesitate as she reaches the step, her fingers tracing the line of split wood. Her brow furrows, her thoughts falling back to the argument that had spawned this crack. But it's not enough of a pause to keep her from ultimately rapping her knuckles against the frame and waiting in uncertain silence.]

[action]

Date: 2017-03-23 01:20 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970622)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[She doesn't really have a plan. She doesn't have a reason for being here. She's running purely on instinct because at this point in time, thinking too hard about any of this only makes her upset.

He answers the door, and her lack of preparation must seem obvious, she thinks. She stands there as the seconds tick by, his question hanging in the air without an answer. Does she want to come in? She doesn't know. She wants a lot of things right now, but she knows that half of them are impossible. The other half... She's not sure if she should want them or not.

She doesn't break the silence, but she does shatter the way that the moment seems to hang between them like a fragile bit of glass on a string. She moves forward, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her face against his chest. Her fingers dig into his back, clinging as if he were a lifeline in a particularly nasty storm.]

Date: 2017-03-23 03:37 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970623)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[You ain't coming apart. He says it so easy, like truth. It doesn't feel that way, but she lets him move her, pulling her inside and closing the door. She lets him wrap around her in the first place, and there's something like relief in that, even if it's plagued by guilt.

Should she even be here? Should she be accepting this comfort? Wouldn't a better person have worked this dilemma out by now? Her worries have become recursive now, moving in now on her hesitance and her inability to solve this problem, and thus posing new ones. That feels like a very good definition of "coming apart".]


I don't want to lose you. [She says it this time for a completely different reason than before. Something has to give in the middle of all this turmoil, and part of her is terrified that it's going to be him. For once, she wishes there was someone to tell her what to do--only for her to regret that thought a moment later when she realizes what they would probably tell her.

She feels the urge to defend him against this unspoken, imagined entity. Kurloz is good. He's been a steady shoulder for her to lean on. He's protected her. He's here right now, comforting her, even as she questions that goodness. What more does he have to do? Hasn't he proven himself by now?

Has he? Is good will something you can quantify and hoard as currency to pay off past debts? Does that change who he is as a person? That doubt curls around her thoughts like a snake, dropping poison into her mind. If past crimes are so easy to erase, then what does right or wrong matter? Why bother with being good in the first place?

She doesn't have a good answer to that. She doesn't have a good answer to anything.]


I just want to go back. To not thinking about this.

Date: 2017-03-23 01:57 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970621)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[She doesn't complain when he scoops her up, taking her to the pile that this all started on. He curls in close, and she takes that opportunity to cling tightly to him, feeling a lot like a child in that moment. Still, she wishes they could stay that way forever. His words come as an unwelcome reminder, jarring her out of this safe moment.

But she listens when he speaks. She's been doing a lot of listening lately. To him, to Meulin, to her own messed up train of thoughts. There's so much to sort through and so many conflicts. But what he says feels true. What he told this other person feels right in a way that her thoughts say isn't. It sounds like something she might have told Kurloz once. Maybe it was. Or maybe he came up with it himself.

He talks of painting over a canvas as a metaphor for his past crimes, but it sits uneasy in her heart.]


...Yes, I understand. But it doesn't... Painting over the canvas doesn't make it blank again. It's still been marred. It can't ever be pristine again. Even if you paint it blank, it's still painted. It's fake.

[And by that logic, it can't ever be good. Any attempt to be so is just...pretending to be something it's not.]

Date: 2017-03-23 02:51 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970631)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[Their metaphors are mixed up, she thinks. He must be talking about something else. He talks about a blank canvas to mean something boring and unlived, while she means it to be something that's simply unmarked. Innocent. He can't mean the way that it sounds, like doing harm is a good thing. That it can create something beautiful. That isn't the Kurloz that she knows... so she abandons the metaphor entirely.]

It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work like that. There's good people out there in the world. And there's bad people. You don't decide to be one or the other, you just... are. Sometimes it's difficult to discern, like when we met... I wasn't sure which you were. I wasn't sure for a long time. I'm not sure that you knew, either, but the truth always comes out.

There's always a moment where you realize which it is. And it can't be anything else. You don't paint over it and make something new, not unless you've been pretending all this time, and I can't imagine...

[That all of this is fake. That he's not the troll that she's known him to be.]

Date: 2017-03-23 04:03 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970623)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[She looks troubled, that much is clear. She looks like he's told her the world will end, and there's nothing she can do to change it. She looks like she can't bear to hear the words that he's speaking, like she wants to cover her ears and block him out. Some of his words sting. When he holds her face and tells her that she can't do this if he really matters to her, she looks gutted. She does care about him. He does matter. But...

Everything was so much easier before all of this, before everyone she cared about started challenging what she's known as truth her whole life.

It's never failed her before. It's never failed her.]


You're different from him. You're... practically different people. Whatever happened to him... Whatever broke him and made him think that he had to murder the people he cared about, that tragedy didn't have to happen to you. You're still good. You're safe. You're never going to be like him.

Date: 2017-03-23 07:10 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970622)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[She remembers that story, but not in the detail that he tells it. Before, it was something that he seemed almost proud of. A defining moment that built his character, not... Not a cage that he locked himself in. And everything that followed after... It doesn't sound like him. It sounds like another person entirely. She couldn't imagine him setting fire to a hivestem or torturing another person. It was all so firmly outside of her idea of who he was.

Even back then... She remembers being horrified at what he did to Karkat and Signless. She remembers having her faith in him shaken. She hadn't been sure of who he was back then, and that seemed pretty damning, but she had wanted to give him a chance to defend himself. A chance to explain. What happened instead was less an apology and more a plea for help. And she hadn't thought twice about reaching out to lend that help, provided that he understood her limits.

She knew he was angry, but she had never considered him cruel. She never realized--or maybe she just hadn't wanted to see it. He had been kind to her when she needed it. He had been a friend to her, done all that she asked of him to keep the peace. He had followed every rule, every stipulation... but only after she met him. What was that supposed to mean, then? Did it even matter that there was a before? And what did that say about after? If someone could move so easily between good and bad... Did it make a difference at all what anyone was?

She draws her hands back from him, if only to press them over her ears. She curls in on herself, as if trying to shut out the world. Her eyes close tight, squeezing tears out of the corners.]

Date: 2017-03-23 09:40 pm (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970622)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[Even as she tries to shut him out, he seeks to comfort her. He wipes her tears and piles on her all the reasons she would ever need to leave him with a clear conscience. He places the blame at his own feet, piles the guilt onto his own shoulders so that hers might feel lighter.]

Stop it. [Her voice comes quietly, a small protest but a protest none the less.] Stop...trying to act like it's not my fault, too. Like I wasn't the one fooling myself. You're not responsible for the things I told myself.

[He's always been like that. Or well... maybe not always. She has to actually think on it now. She's not sure where it started, but she knows this habit of blaming himself. Of assuming that he's the worst that there could possibly be. Is there any wonder that she felt it necessary to deny that assumption so strongly?]

You're not... You can't tell me that there's no easy answer and then try to blame yourself for everything. What are you even trying to do? Do you want me to hate you? I just... don't understand. You're not... You're not bad, Kurloz. You're not. Nothing that you say is going to convince me of that.

[They've been through too much for too long. He's been too kind to her, even now, for her to think that.]

Date: 2017-03-24 12:40 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970621)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[His protest takes her aback for a moment. Long enough to hear out his explanation, as he continues. She didn't think she was bad. Did she? No... Probably not. Though she can't deny the thoughts whispered in the back of her mind. Those little prickles of fear that still tell her over and over that something is wrong with her.

He doesn't want her to leave, but he wants her to be happy. She almost laughs. Almost, but doesn't. How does he expect her to be happy without him? She needs him. As much as she needs Meulin or anyone else that she cares about. And in a way, even more important than that... He needs her. If what he says is true, if he's this way because of her, what would her leaving do to him? Would he still be the gentle Kurloz that she knows? Would he change yet again?

He bows his head, looking away from her. I want you to be knowing who all it is I am. Is that what he thinks is going on here? That she pities...some image that she's made up of him?]


Kurloz... I get what you're trying to say, but you don't realize... It's not... The troll I pity isn't someone that I only think exists. The troll I pity saved my life. The troll I pity comforted me when I felt broken down. The troll I pity wrote me poetry and held me close when we danced. The troll I pity...changed everything for me. Himself, and Panem. Maybe that other stuff is harder to swallow, but... That reason is still there.

[Even if she has to take everything that he says as truth... That Kurloz still exists. He can't say that he doesn't. There's just... other parts to him that came before. Parts that she tried not to think about, but parts that he wants her to...for whatever reason.

It's not easy. She's unsettled, and she's struggling with it. But at the very least, she feels little more sure about him. No one as considerate as he's being could possibly be bad. No one who has been as kind and gentle with her as he has deserves to be punished or abandoned.]

Date: 2017-03-24 01:51 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970627)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[He lights up at her response, and her heart eases a little. Even if everything else feels uncertain, he's the one thing that she knows can't be wrong. That's what her heart is telling her, anyway. He kisses her cheek and takes her hands. She squeezes them back.

It's difficult to worry about other things when he's so happy. Difficult... but not impossible, given the shift in topic that he eventually brings.

He asks if she'd like to be nearby when he talks to Gamzee... and just the thought has her stiffen a bit. There's that old flair of fear--but it's more unsure. More out of habit than anything logical. Her thoughts on Gamzee aren't just going to roll over so easily, even if she's trying to understand his logic behind it all. She tries to keep her response as rational as she knows how to be.]


I don't... want him around me. I don't want to talk to him. But if you're going to write to him... I'd like to read it.

Date: 2017-03-24 03:06 am (UTC)
codename_snapdragon: (pic#9970603)
From: [personal profile] codename_snapdragon
[She's relieved that he doesn't want her to meet him yet. She's not sure that she could bear it right now. Everything is still uncertain, and she's not sure how to feel. She's not sure what she's supposed to think.

That feeling only increases as he admits that he already wrote the letter that she's asking to read. He might notice the way her lips press together a little tighter, but she tries not to think ill of him for it. She can't blame him. He's been so hopeful of this, despite her trepidation; and at least he told her the truth of it. It's not as if he was trying to hide.

He babbles like he thinks that she's going to be angry, already making excuses for why she might not like what she reads.]
Kurloz, please... Just let me read it. [She holds out her hand, trying to be gentle with her words. She takes the letter when he offers it, bracing herself as she starts to read.

He's right, of course. She doesn't like any of it. There's too much here to twist, too much left open for someone to use. It's not the kind of letter you would write to someone you were wary of. It's half apology, half plea for reconciliation. There are a lot of bitter thoughts that come to mind, especially with the talk of how proud he is getting thrown around. She swallows them down with all the others.

Once finished, she folds the letter up again. The urge to rip it up right there is strong, but she hands it back. Her grip on the paper is tight, turning her knuckles a lighter grey. Her jaw is tight, too, and it takes her a moment to loosen it enough to speak.]


Laying it on a little thick. I guess you didn't think to consider some restraint? Maybe invite him to at least talk once or twice before making proclamations of "protecting him until your dying breath"? [Her tone veers dry, and she wrinkles her nose a little in annoyance. She's not trying to be an ass, but it's difficult to rein in her feelings.]

Best case scenario, you're going to overwhelm him. [Worst case, he's basically handing Gamzee everything he needs on a silver platter.]

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The Initiate Fraysong ♑ (Young GHB)

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