exsilium | three. (video.)

three. (video.)

( At least this time Ellie isn't in some random, ramshackle building, but enjoying the warmth of the kitchen and a giant cup of coffee. At least she looks marginally better rested than she has on previous occasions. )

So, with that whole swap thing, I've been thinking. ( A pause, and there's a note of self mockery in her voice: ) Because I don't think enough when weird stuff isn't happening. Or less-weird stuff, at any rate. ( Has she really digressed already and wandered off with her thoughts? She shakes her head at herself. )

I was thinking about anger. Or any emotion, I guess, when they get that intense that you feel like all your insides are writhing about like snakes, but anger's the one that stuck out for me. We're all in this war, and some of us have been in wars before and some haven't, and everyone handles it in these different ways.

( She trails off; articulating this isn't going so smoothly as she'd expected, but sometimes you just have to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. Homer used to throw pasta at the wall, a lot, and a bloody lot of that stuck. The memory makes her smile a little. )

I mean, just before I got here, Kev-- uh, this guy in our group, he wasn't doing so well with everything. ( See, Fi, she at least tried not to name and shame. Belatedly. ) Everyone tried different things to get him going, and it was this weird insight-- I guess it just said a bit about the kind of people we are, depending what tactic we used. ( Fi: sympathy. Lee: abuse. Homer: encouragement. )
I was all logic and common sense. ( A beat, before she continues, speaking a little more slowly as she grapples with her pride and tries to think it out. ) Sometimes I don't think that really shows the full picture, but.

( She could say that it definitely doesn't, not when you got anger that just bubbles up and blows being reasonable right out of the water. She could, but does not. )

Anyway, I was talking to this guy here, before, about anger. How you can use it, and that, make it work for you, and I just... I didn't know if that really worked for anyone. If anger's a weapon, or if you got an on/off switch for it, or what? 'Cause there's this quote in uh, this Shakespeare play - “wrath makes him deaf,” I think the Queen in Henry VI. ( She squints, trying to remember. ) And then there's another bit, about not coming between “the dragon and his rage,” in King Lear. I think Lear was already going crazy, though, by then, though. ( Quietly: ) It's been a while since I studied them. Trying to read that stuff and figure out all the language is hard, without those special high school study editions.

( Where was she even going with this? )

So I guess I just wondered what you lot thought about it. Anger and controlling anger and using it and whether it screws you up, or what.

( A beat, and she smiles crookedly. ) Or we could talk about dragons. We don't have any back home, but some of you have to have dragons, right?

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It's even sadder in that case. I mean, anger fades away eventually, right? So if they don't have anything after that, it's horrible.

Yeah.

( She glances down, twisting her fingers together. ) It is.

( Is that what she would have wound up like, if she'd stayed in the war? Was Exsilium her saving grace? ) They might have a chance to find something else, when the anger faded and gave them room for it.

I'm not sure it's really a case of not having room. I mean, people have the capacity to feel lots of things at once. Even if somebody has a ton of anger inside them, it doesn't mean there's no room for anything else.

You don't--

( Sometimes it's painful, dealing with people who seem so innocent. ) It hurts too much to have the other things there. You can't have them, because if they're there it makes all the other stuff too difficult. You just have to keep going. You have to be harsh, and just--

( A sigh. )

It's hard to explain.

Right, but even saying you have to keep going, that proves that you have determination there, and even if that's linked to the anger, it's still something separate. So it can't just be one thing, you know?

( Hah. Ellie's eyebrows raise a little, and she leans back in her chair. )

You might have something, there. I might just become a whole, working person again yet.

( And yet, her voice is so full of self-mockery. )

[A pause, thoughtful.]

Why do you think you're not whole or working?

( Ah. ) That's a good question.

( Ellie's really blunt. Beating around the bush and avoiding things, at least when she can't make it look like that's not what she's doing, it makes her feel fake, stupid. )

Probably 'cause I've let the war back home get to me too much. That's all.

( As if it were that simple. )

There's nothing wrong with letting things get to you. I mean, that's human, right? So just because things are troubling you, it doesn't mean you're not functional, I guess.

You're a little too idealistic for your own good, I reckon.

( She laughs a bit, but it's not a happy sound. ) You do awful things in wars. You do things that nobody should ever do, and you get used to it and it stops being such a big deal any more.

Everyone says that.

Mm, I think there's a difference between the things you do because you want to and the things you do because there's no other option. If that's the case - maybe what you did wasn't so awful.

It was awful. Don't go putting some bloody gloss on it.

( Her words come out too harsh, loud and angry, so she takes a moment and tries to remind herself to breathe. Don't snap. It takes a little while, and she can't quite bring herself to apologise, but she does continue. )

You're right that there was a lot that was necessity, rather than just... being some whim, and that. That doesn't take the blood off your hands, but.

...Sorry, that didn't quite come out the way I meant it. I didn't want to make it seem like it doesn't matter. I mean, what you went through, that must have been awful.

I think people who would do something like that on a whim are monsters. You're not a monster.

( A bit guiltily, Ellie drops her gaze, even if she doesn't apologise for her outburst. She's just quiet for a little bit, before she mulls over Ahiru's words. )

How else would you define a monster? What are the things people have to do for an idealist to think they're too far gone to be human?

[She pauses, thinking about her answer to that question.]

People who hurt others for no reason other than amusement, people like that are monsters. Or, like, people who could help people, and who don't have any good reason for not helping people, but choose not to do it anyways when the need comes. What do you think, though?

Sometimes it depends on the time of day, just what I think.

( The admission is flat. )

I don't know. Sometimes I think someone who's prepared to kill someone else to save their own life might be a monster. Other times, I reckon that's totally justified, it's fine, and it's the people who can just scheme in cold blood, not just act in hot blood, that are the real monsters. People who betray the people counting on them, that get a kick out of hurting other people, who'd--

( The list will go on too long, and it's sifting through unpleasant thoughts. The soldiers that tried to take Fi and Robyn, the soldier that they suffocated. Her gaze drops, and she shakes her head. )

I think maybe we all have something good and something monstrous in us.

[There's another pause, more thought before she speaks.]

I don't really know about that. I mean, there are some people who are just - good through and through, you know? And, like, obviously people can be both good and bad at different times, but I'm not sure about good and monstrous. When I think of somebody who's a monster, I don't think of someone with any good inside of them, I guess.

I don't think it's black and white. I used to, I mean. I thought the police were the good guys, and criminals were bad. If you kill, you're terrible, if you have a uniform, if you're got some kinda authority, you gotta be right. It's never that simple, though. There are the people whose job it is to protect, and people trust them, but they trash it. Just turn and run, or abuse the power they got and bugger whoever gets themselves mown down in the process.

I've seen friends of mine, good-- people I love more than my own life. I've seen them kill, do awful things in hot blood and cold blood, and there were times I never wanted them to touch me again, because they'd turned into something awful. But they're still my mates. They're still good, strong people. They do the things all of us struggle with. ( She does them, too. They've all struggled. )

How do you begin to define a monster? Or a saint? I don't think there's a way to know, for sure. There are times I'd swear there were devils in all of us, dark things that just come spilling out, and every time they do, they get stronger. But having that devil doesn't mean we can't do something good and decent, either.

( She stops, tries to muster some other words, but just winds up closing her mouth, lips pressed together, and she shrugs. )

[She opens her mouth, an automatic retort on her tongue, but something makes her pause. All of a sudden, she's thinking of Fakir threatening her with that jagged shard of glass, then going on to save her countless times. Joe, telling her all the things he'd like to do to the companies if he had a chance, and then swearing to protect her no matter what. Michael, talking about how he had no regrets in killing people whose names he didn't even know, and then stopping the police from taking her in. Jack and Gabriel, who said if anyone ever hurt her they'd have hell to pay, and not listening to her when she argued against that. Christina, one of her greatest friends, who wiped out an entire state after being spurned. Kurt, firing that gun to scare off a few teenagers.

When she speaks again, she sounds a little bit different. Maybe because she feels a little bit different, too.]

...Maybe you're right. I mean, not about everyone - I still think there are people who are good through and through. And even the people who do have some kind of darkness inside them, there's never any guarantee that it'll ever come out. I think really warm people, they can chase that darkness away, too. They can make others brighter.

( Warm people. The sort that hadn't embraced darkness and become dependent on the night, wrapping it around her as she goes about those terrible things she does. Steph, she'd said that bats were part of the night, but Ellie was pretty sure there were worse things, more dangerous ones.
Ellie clears her throat, but it doesn't do much to help. Her voice still sounds rough, over-used and tired, and she doesn't look at the screen - she's thinking aloud, really. )

Warm people, they belong to the light.

( Fi, she thought. Robyn, Corrie. Cedric, Peter, Collette, Asami. Steph, too, was still brighter, for all that sadness she carried. Leonard, despite being grumpy enough to rival Ellie, before he had his coffee. She'd have thought that maybe the reason Snow went home was because she was too bright for this, for this war, if she didn't think that the others all had their own brightness, even if it was different sorts. It was just as vibrant, and warm. )

The cold ones are closer to death, maybe.

Edited (can't stop editing ever time for an intervention) 2013-03-29 01:58 (UTC)

[There's a much shorter pause this time, and then the words have conviction behind them.]

Not closer to death! That's a bad way to put it. Maybe it's like... Maybe most people have the potential to do bad things, but it's how hard they fight against doing those things that makes us who we are.

Having a moral code, something like that? Or just... something to live by?

Yeah, having a moral code for yourself, trying to always do the right thing when you can. Helping others do the same, too.

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three. (video.)

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oh my god i am so sorry for the slow and also hail the teal deers

IT'S PERFECTLY FINE and also a tag hasn't made me think so hard in ages so i have to thank you!!!

nothing like traumatising the duckling 8|b

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