thusia | (no subject)

[god i don't even. so precious, what do i do with you.]

You're lucky I like you, priest. I got rid of my sorrow because it was the only thing I couldn't find a way to enjoy, and I could never live like you, pleasure is key to my existence.

But I'll tell you a bit about it, and your payment is to distract me from it afterward.

. . . all right.

[haaah. hm. how does I show off sads]

...I met a peculiar woman earlier who told me she'd spoken to you, and suggested that you make a deal to get yourself some empathy. True?

A woman?

. . . the youkai. Yes.

[i do not even know what that is but it seems irrelevant]

I don't know if her suggestion would help you find happiness at all, but I'm sure it would teach you proper sorrow. That is essentially the life I lived for ten years and have full memory of now. The ability to understand and sympathize the people you kill while still not being able to help but enjoy it, and want to do it more and more.

[hmmm. looking slightly off to the side]

The nature of what I am. was. is that I love all humans and I love to kill all humans. Unlike you I had no trouble understanding the world, and unlike my family, I never stopped considering myself human. Very much like the people I took so much pleasure in breaking down. It became obvious I could not exist without eventually destroying part of myself, but the part of me that regretted what I was never did die, I just became insane enough that I was adept at ignoring it.

[ slides his hand down Slick's arm, almost stopping for a poor attempt at a shoulder pat before moving his hand to his face to try and turn his gaze back this way. ]

[obliges after a moment of resistance, looking genuinely understanding and affectionate]

The point isn't that I was secretly miserable, you understand. I felt 'sorrow' but I could override it almost completely. Regret over having to kill became nothing but a small bitter pill before I went onto my highly enjoyable business. I accepted being 'evil', as you say an unforgivable man, and that made things easier. I didn't have to argue with myself or justify anything.

...anyway, you have to understand what I was to understand how I came to be here. I was summoned by some gods, not unlike these ones of this place. They wiped out my memories and I was a 'blank', myself but without any ability to recall the life that built me, or any idea of what was in store for me when I remembered. Care to guess what sort of fellow I am without all of my 'history'?

[ takes a moment to consider that. ]

Your nature would remain the same, is it. . . but to what extent it was accepted or denied would change. As would what was 'acceptable'.

[ a huff ]

Morality is learned. . . [ a sour note enters his voice ] Or would you say acceptance of evil is.

[nod]

More or less. I was not like a child who didn't understand the world, so things about me... understanding 'right' and 'wrong, the fact that I care very little about material things, and that the people I care for are dearly important to me, did not change.

But my 'monster' is itself a memory. So I awoke without it's influence. I neither loved nor wanted to kill all people. I didn't take pleasure in their suffering or destruction. I didn't have to resist any impulses to kill everyone I pass.

In short, I was as most people are, not particularly 'good' or 'bad'. I could be cruel but also sympathetic, selfish but giving. I understood loyalty earned but could also fear my own destruction. Nothing special, really. A very ordinary man.

[ every time I am reminded that you weren't born fucked up it makes me sad in my kokoro. ]

Only to lose it, I assume.

[smiles]

How much would you like to be an ordinary man, priest?

. . . it's impossible. But behaving well would be preferable.

Imagine it's possible. You don't have to worry about acting like a monster because you have no real desire to. No, more importantly, you can enjoy 'friends' and 'family', you can find happiness in others by doing exactly as you are taught to do: be kind, be honest. Your faith is something you actually enjoy, because it gives you a path in life and in following that path you find comfort and happiness.

That would be your life if you were ordinary.

[ ugh ugh ugh ugh. Reminders he didn't want.

No answer, though his posture has gone stiff and his expression has just collapsed into FULL ROBOT. ]

[gonna pet you bb]

I think you are one of the few people who can even begin to understand what I've lost, so I have to explain it this way. People don't appreciate being able to feel a simple thing like guilt, or touching someone without at least idly considering digging your nails in until they cry. They don't get what it means to wake up from a 'nightmare' full of bodies and destruction and find it cheering, while knowing that is 'wrong'.

I was born 'normal' and I was able to return to being that way, briefly. Then I began to earn back memories of my former life. The one I told you about, of the man who I pinned to my floor and slowly killed, was one of the first I got back. In my memory I was having so much fun, and as an ordinary man I was sick and horrified. I locked myself away for days doing nothing but smoking and trying to understand how one copes with the realization that if he wants to remember his past, he has to accept that he is going to become a monster.

[ knows far too well.

Even though this line of conversation hits a little too hard, he can't quite turn away either. Misery is misery. His reply is almost a mumble. ]

Not a shared experience I was looking for.

[petpetpet and pulls you closer]

Well, people rarely get what they are looking for.

As I regained memories, my Noah began to awaken. I wasn't used to dealing with it, and once nearly took out the heart of someone I love because... [hmmm] well. Because it's right there. Because I wanted to. I knew I would hate myself for it but something about that was kind of enticing too.

That place didn't make it easy, either. The gods were cruel, and drew their power from suffering, so there was never any lack of it. Everyone was recovering memories of their own horrible lives, though usually things like 'I killed my father' or 'I was betrayed by my friends'. They played games where they were forced to kill each other or sacrifice themselves, and I saw the body of that person who I love slowly and painfully knit itself back together from death on roughly half a dozen occasions.

[laughs]

And I didn't like to stay and offer any comfort afterward because he had so many 'good' people around him and I wasn't sure I could keep myself from snapping a bit and letting my pleasure show more than my upset.

[ that's really fucked up

after a moment more of just. robot resistance though his face breaks into. some kind of rather pleased look. ]

Have you ever then . . .? Killed him.

Before the caves, the second time I met him, I put a hole in his heart and left him to bleed out. But he got better, because he's annoying like that. He was also one of the few I could not break. But he loves me and it's certainly caused him no end of misery.

[sigh]

Once he went into my heart for a 'game', not unlike going into your dreams, and was able to feel what I feel and enjoy the types of things I enjoy but never spoke to him about, and came out of it a sobbing wreck. It was one of those low points where you realize just how much of twisted wretch you are.

[ dreams, heart games, seems like annoying shit. ]

A sobbing wreck. But you love him.

I do love him. I was sane enough at the time that that experience was mostly just unfortunate, though a part of me still enjoyed his tears, of course.

[saah, takes hand away from you to rub his face briefly]

I recovered many more memories about the people I killed and whose deaths I enjoyed. I was fighting a war against the church, so many a 'good' man ended up missing organs or dangling from lampposts with a chain wrapped around their lungs. I tried to stop taking my memories at some point, but... hm.... why didn't I just stop? I suppose a part of me felt like I deserved my unhappiness. And a part of me no doubt just wanted to snap all ready so that my pain would end, or at least be overridden. It is also undeniably my life and of value to me. I had friends and a family that I cared for and wanted to remember, that I didn't have the right to forget just because remembering was inconvenient.

I was very indecisive then, I suppose. Stop, start. I would find jobs for the gods that involved torture or murder or then hide in my room and smoke and drink and fuck until I couldn't feel anything. I would convince myself that I wanted to stay at least 'human' and keep my sanity, then it would be too much and I would look for a way to just go back to being a monster. Honestly, I have trouble remembering it in much detail.

That you didn't have the right to forget? An interesting morality.

[ sigh. Still watching keenly. ]

Loving someone means you are obligated to them in a way. Love is worth more than pain, so sometimes you endure pain for the people you love. The memories of those people are valuable to me, and in the end, I don't regret regaining those memories even if it means I have to live with all the rest of myself.

. . . I don't love anyone. What a tormented existence you have, caught between two sides.

[normally i would protest but I suppose that conclusion is kind of the point]

Enough? Or did you have questions, priest?