The world is all one! Unity mind!

[brandnewday]

[Another week, another set of disasters. Hibiki’s head is still reeling from the lengthy ordeal that was Solf J. Kimblee. But it’s because of that exasperation that she’s able to turn her restlessness into something useful. It’s too late to set about making curry for everyone, so it’s time to make some easier dishes. A replication of Fern’s mac-and-cheese, somehow she’s whipped up some kind of donut to go with her animal-shaped rice balls. There’s coffee, tea...hopefully it’s enough? And if it’s not, Rin has provided some delicious Chinese food. And that always tastes better late at night, doesn’t it?

And for the adults (or the exasperated teenagers), Susan is carting down booze from the bar. Joy. Hibiki’s never written to the group en masse before, but she delivers a piece of paper to everyone while Rin and Susan finish up the preparations. Each paper has a drawing of an animal on it, too.]

Too much has happened today. Whether you want to get angry, cry, smile, laugh, or just be out of your room, you don’t have to do it alone. Rin and I have prepared food for everyone, and Susan’s brought the drinks downstairs so none of us have to go into the bar tonight.

Even if it’s just for a little while, won’t you think about joining us in the dining room tonight? Being together is just as important as working hard. And remember, nankurunaisa!

-Hibiki Ganaha

[Three more candles are lit today. Tabitha Smith. Sigrun Eide. Solf Kimblee. They’re all Cabanela’s doing. There aren't any decorations, but the food is spaced out so everyone should be able to grab something and munch if they need it. It’s not clear how many people will come, but a serious attempt was made this time.]

Comments

[matchbreaker]

[ She did. Of course she did. But as she looks up at the ceiling, she laughs a little darkly, and ... begins, ]

Two hundred years ago, some mongrel halfbreed decided that she could get he salvation by going to the humans and their God. Elements of their church had always been spreading vicious rumors against us, cursing our name and letting their flock think that we were monsters. [ They are the monsters. Humans are demons. ] I hope that bitch found it, [ That's said with dripping sarcasm ] because she sold out the locations of numerous estates and hiding places of families throughout Europe. Then for each house they slaughtered and burned, they found other others. Maybe they tortured it out of some of the others, I don't know.

The point is that the Inquisition came in force - the church brought their priests and their soldiers, their spooks and their thugs. Less than a month later, every house that anyone had ever heard of was rubble and ash - their occupants dead or fleeing. ... They came for my house. My James managed to whisk me to safety as those cross-bearing soldiers came, but I fought him every step of the way. I never saw what happened to daddy or mom, to my uncle or to... my brother. At the time, I dreamed they escaped to the woods, ever the resourceful Markers. But no, I'm well certain... they're dead by now.

[ She ... ] They're dead, the old estate's ash, and then grandmother and the others in the basement must've rotted to death in their sleep below that.

[ . . . ]

Those of us who survived went to Japan in utter secrecy - the other side of the world, far, far from out ancestral homelands, now forever tainted with out blood. we were to make a new life there - and I did. I did... but as James said, I never saw my homeland again.

[ . . . ]

The Assembly represents some three hundred vampires, the vampires of Japan. But as far as I know, we're the only ones left in the world.

[heritrix]

[The story is not shocking to Rin. There's a reason she told Elda to drop her line of questioning further, and it's because the only answer she could give her would be one just like this.

Why would the Holy Church of Mage's Association have an estimate of how many Dead Apostles are currently active in the world? You don't take a census of monsters like that, that are so evil and dangerous; you eliminate them before they can become a bigger threat.

Rin has no doubt there are bigger clusters of them in the world, far beyond her personal bubble. It's just an estimate of their numbers would be impossible.

It's still probably more than 300.

But they're not the same at all. There are some among those Dead Apostles that can pass as human; even some whose values align with humans. But most are monsters that would kill anything they touch; they don't live in houses with families.

...Rin draws her feet up into her chair, hugging her knees.]

How lonely.

[She should think of something else to say, but it's the first thought that comes to mind.]

[matchbreaker]

[ How lonely.

... It's a perfect summation of her life, isn't it? It's the nature of it, the nature of everything that she's gone through and suffered. She hesitates only a moment before she breathes out a long, long exhale. ]

Yes, it is.

[heritrix]

It's no wonder your secret troubled you in that case. There's a lot on the line, and all the more so with so few of you. You can't afford something like that happening again.

I'm surprised you didn't explode earlier. Has this been building up all week?

[matchbreaker]

[ there's more, many more complications. But yes, that's... that's a serious concern of hers. Still, at that second part, she laughs actually, running her hands over her face as she lays here on the bed, ] A week?

Week? No, little mage, it's been here since the beginning. I hate humans! I despise them, I loathe them, I will never forgive them! I'll never cherish them, I'll never accept them, I will never befriend them!

[ . . . And yet, here she is. ]

[heritrix]

[...ah. Okay, she thinks she gets it now.]

Then the way I see it, you have two options.

[matchbreaker]

I don't need some beansprout to play at being a therapist.

[ ... She snaps that, but there's not a lot of bite in there. ]

[heritrix]

Therapists get paid, and don't accept walk-ins.

[matchbreaker]

So you're just being a busybody.

[ With a wave of her hand: ] Go on then. I did barge in.

[heritrix]

[She snorts.] Those two statements contradict each other so throughly...

[You came to her, Elda. You don't bear your soul like that unless you want someone to hear you out about it.]

But two options, like I said.

To stay true to your ideal, you can define that working with humans for the sake of your survival isn't the same as accepting them. If you're doing this for yourself you can carry on as normal, without guilt or bother shackling you.

The other option is to examine yourself and the broader picture. Maybe it's not that you've changed, but with the billions of humans out there in the billions of universes where the tragedy that befell you never happened... There's probably some humans you hate less than others.

[matchbreaker]

[ Of course they do, but it's not as absurd as those two options. One of them is impossible, one of them is wrong, and the problem is that the one that is incorrect... it's obvious which one it is, but it's the more painful one. She's silent for a while, sitting up and curling her legs up closer to herself.

Mmm. ]

[heritrix]

If those options don't suit you, you can tweak them to your liking. If you alter them to the point they're unrecognizable, though, I think you'll ultimately you'll be twice as dissatisfied.

[matchbreaker]

That first one's barely even an option. That's a delusion, to think that so much exception can be made when I'm in a room with you like this.

[ She says, into her legs. ]

[heritrix]

I'm not sure I get why.

[What does that have to do with anything?]

[matchbreaker]

Because I'm tolerating your presence, because I came in here for a purpose... because I'm talking to you. Perhaps you can so compartmentalize, perhaps other can too. But that's just silly. Connections, bonds, those sorts of things aren't just there for survival, girl.

[ Is she really that dense? ]

[heritrix]

[Fucking maybe on at least this particular subject, because Rin honestly looks baffled.]

This isn't like the bonds of family, or making friends at school. It's a life and death situation, where anyone can become your enemy.

[Why wouldn't it be that black and white?

...Something nags between the bones of Rin's chest, a memory of a warm back against hers. It puts her on the cusp of understanding, but she's not all the way there yet; doesn't quite understand the bond she has with that boy should be the rule, and not a surprising exception.

She continues with only a little hesitancy.]

There's several people I like here, but I know any one of them could try to kill me down the line. I don't know if we can afford to look at it another way.

[She's surprised Elda doesn't? She hates humans, so if anything it should be easier for her.]

[matchbreaker]

[ you know, if anything... this makes her mood pick up because she has an outlet for irritation in the form of putting a hand on her hip and affixing a light glare to the mage. She begins, ]

Of course it's not family. Family's eternal, unbroken, defined. It's uncomplicated, because blood and love ties people together in a way that's impossible to let go of and ought not to be looked at different.

[ She shakes her head, but even as she's saying that... Sayaka did say not three hours ago that Elda was the closest thing she'd had to a mother.

... She's still not sure how to feel about it. ]

Honestly, listen to yourself. It's that which got that Blue girl killed.

[heritrix]

[Blood, she gets. Love... Rin thinks of Shirou and Sakura, and the hole in her heart hurts more.]

Love is absolutely complicated. [This is grumbled without thought, mostly to herself.]

I wouldn't say that's what got Blue killed. So far, she's the only culprit I've been able to sympathize with.

[That's why she offered what she did. Though they never spoke before that day, Blue has been the only murderer Rin felt she could understand. For a day or two after that trial it bothered her, and she brings her hands to her chest now recalling it, eyes downcast.]

But she was impulsive, and didn't think things all the way through. She was scared, and that was her downfall more than anything.

[matchbreaker]

That's true, but there's something a lot more basic than that. If that's what you've gotten out of it, then you're missing the heart of the thing.

[ she licks one of her fingers, and then points that long nail at her., ]

Loneliness killed her.

1/2

[heritrix]

[While she doesn't respond to that right away, Rin's eyes fly wide at Elda's words.


A mother who left her behind, to chat cheerfully to ghosts of ones no longer there. Who spoke her name but never saw her when their eyes met.

A girl who looks sad and never smiles, and she can never talk to seriously. Not even to ask a question. "Do you miss me as much as I miss you?"

A house that's too quiet. A house you can hear every sound in if you listen hard enough, whether your upstairs or downstairs, because it's been a decade since more than one person has really lived and breathed in it.

How it felt a little more alive when Archer was there, dependable and by her side. How much it hurt when even he left her.

How happy she was when a stupid boy rescued her.]

[heritrix]

[Rin bows her head. Maybe she understands what Elda is talking about a little better than she thought.

She bites her lip as she turns away, because she's sure if she didn't she would cry. It takes a second to seize back control of herself.]

Do you think loneliness will kill you too?

[matchbreaker]

[ . . . She... That's recognition in the girl's eyes. She's seen some tragedy, and perhaps never thought about how to connect that pain to other people. Maybe she never considered it in herself? She's not really sure what it is. The fact is that Elda doesn't want to deal with that girl's pain now, even if she should.

And...

She bows her head. ]

... I would have fallen to it, after that tragedy I told you. I'm intensely blessed to have been courted by my James there. That he gave me two centuries of marriage, a child, three grandchildren. ... I'll never be alone again, that's what I thought. And now, here... Well, I'm apart from that beloved family of mine.

[ . . . ]

When I explain it like that, it's no surprise I found those people I decided I liked here.

[heritrix]

[Sayaka's the one that comes to mind first.]

Do we remind you of them?

[matchbreaker]

Not by a longshot. Not a a one of you could begin to stand in for them.

[ but... ]

Rather... I don't want - no, I wouldn't survive being alone.

[heritrix]

[Rin actually looks more satisfied than not by Elda's answer, taking that with an immediate and firm nod. That's good. She'd rather be recognized as her own person.]

Maybe there's an Option 3 after all, then.