⦿ ) video

[latkje]

[ This is Nash. He has a pleasant but lazy expression. ]

I don't like to live in the past. It makes me feel old. But when a thought eats at you, sometimes the only thing you can do is take a bite, right?

Anyway, a few weeks ago something the Initiative did put people in their wrong bodies. I don't mean to drudge up bad memories, but— think about it. What are we, really? Hands, feet, fingers, eyes?

We've all got bodies, but souls? [ He shakes his head. ] Not for me to say.

But if the Initiative can keep our fingers and toes and move the rest around, it means there has to be something else, right? And whatever that something else is, the Initiative can mess with it it.

[ The implications are spooky, so he takes a moment to be spooked. And then waves that all away, shrugging. ]

You ever stop to think, and not know how to start up again?

Comments

[goinbust]

"Don so many things over the years not to be proud of generally don't like to look back. As long as what yer doing now keeps it so you can look in a mirror and not hate yourself I don't think about it too much."

[latkje]

How unfair for the blind.

[goinbust]

"Dunno... They don't have to see the horrors of war."

[latkje]

Or the love of their life! I'm not sure it's an even trade. But I've never been blind— I spend too much time looking.

[goinbust]

"Dunno, may spend too much time thinkin too. That can be a right dangerous pass time."

[latkje]

I don't deny it.

[goinbust]

"Then maybe ya just need to do something to take a break from it. Give the brain a rest and when yer ready to start using it again it won't be stuck on something that keeps you afraid."

[latkje]

[ He shakes his head. ] I think I've spent enough of my life running away.

[goinbust]

"Yeah, but ya also can't win every fight. Sometimes ya gotta be more worried about the fights that matter over the ones that don't."

[latkje]

[ He laughs at that. ]

I'm a lot of things, probably, but I'm not young.

[goinbust]

"Never brought up young. I ain't either, but I've seen generals try to win fights they couldn't just to protect meaningless perfect records."

[latkje]

No, you didn't. But learning there's some fights you have to lose— that's a part of growing up.

Some people never manage.

[goinbust]

"Seen a lot of damn good soldiers die to them. Dunno about you."

[latkje]

I'm not a general either, you know.

[goinbust]

"I can tell. That's why I'm botherin to talk to you. Don't quite have the better than everyone look or the ridiculous 'I'm better than you' mustache most of the ones I know have."

[latkje]

[ Nash thinks, briefly, that he was pretty much born into arrogant SOBdom. ]

I didn't know facial hair was a requirement.

[ Suikoden, man, all the best generals are like, 15. ]

[goinbust]

"Where I come from they tend to be. At least the human ones."

[Pshaw, Matthieu and Shu were both later in age.]

[latkje]

[Strategists are strategists!!]

Maybe that's your problem, then. You can't feed an army with a mustache.

[goinbust]

"Feed the army? Hell if half the armies where I come from survive long enough for three squares anymore you get a medal."

[latkje]

Squares?

[goinbust]

"Square meals. Sorry, most recruiters offer a cot and three squares as part of the sign up speech."

[latkje]

It's good incentive to anyone who hasn't got that much.

[goinbust]

"Back home there wasn't a lot for a lot of people."

[latkje]

And desperation is the easiest thing to manipulate.

[goinbust]

"Its sad but true. Originally I signed up so the parents could keep the farm but that was several lifetimes ago it seems."