text; un: adversary

[wingstosee]

Oh. Hey there.

[ the voice that drifts through the communicators defies description. it is venus's voice, and it is not; like a young tenor, barrel-aged since the beginning of time and only just coming into its own. it sounds like fresh hookah and tastes like music. it's like static and honey, gently sifting out of electronic speakers. ]

This place... [ a sigh. ] It's beautiful, isn't it? A thousand thousands, living their own truths. It's flawed, and uncut, and cracked down the edges. It's the most beautiful, wonderful gem I've seen.

[ for a few seconds, the recording stays silent. all that remains is the background noise of lunatia: voices trickling up from the streets. the whirr of machinery and the hum of crystals. ]

There are hundreds of you, and I know so few. [ there's something ancient in her words. deep, old, sad. ] So while there's still time... Tell me. Remind me of your name. Let me see your face so I never forget it again.

[ an exhale, long and smooth. ]

And if you're hurting, or lonely, or you've forgotten too... Find me. I'm waiting. I'll always wait for you.

[ there's a soft laugh, barely audible - a fond exhalation more than anything voiced. ]

Until then, my darling.

[ the recording clicks off. ]

Comments

[trivialization]

It's inability to forget that makes it long. Otherwise you're only living one moment at a time, anyway, and each passes the same no matter how many have passed before, or are waiting still.

But how should I take this? Are you collecting faces? Or just trying to make friends in poetry?

[wingstosee]

Is that true? Humans forget so easily... Their lives are so short. But they grow tired all the same.

[ there's a bit of a pause at evangeline's second comment, though. finally, the voice speaks again. ]

I am... lost. [ it's a surprisingly candid thing to admit - especially given just who's talking. it's also a surprisingly broad one. ] I know so little of this place. I know so few of you within it. And just existing in this tiny space, bound by its gravity and its laws... It is exhausting. I just want to know of those who are bound with me. I want to hear their voices, and their names, and their dreams.

[trivialization]

Humans don't measure time by the accumulation of their own moments. They measure it against the people and things around them. They tire when the world disappoints them or passes them by, not when they've had too much of it.

And that aside, I wasn't speaking as a human. You don't sound like one either. When you say it like that I have to think you're used to hearing every voice and knowing every dream.

[wingstosee]

Ah... But that's beautiful too, isn't it? To be able to tell the world enough.

[ there is a pause. her voice is as gentle as ever when she speaks again - though there is a hint of curiosity as well. ]

I am. [ plain, simple. the truth. ] And I... am unused to this. Being able to reach out to you, like this, instead of waiting to be heard. How strange it feels.

[trivialization]

[ The aloof, jaded nonchalance that is Eva's calling card in these discussions is very near finished, replaced by something sharper. ]

And it doesn't wear on you? The bitter spite of all humanity?

[wingstosee]

Of course it does. Does anyone truly want to see the ones they love hurt?

[ this person... she talks as someone separated from humanity. and yet there is something so, so human about her. she is curious! she wants to know more of this woman - her name, her story, her song. ]

[trivialization]

On occasion. [ She's one of those 'it builds character' types. ]

But I don't mean the simple fact of it. I mean the accumulation. Their pain becomes yours, their resentments become yours, a last moment held forever, until the weight of them drowns out everything else and demands an end to humanity.

[wingstosee]

...

[ the voice is silent, for a thoughtful moment. and then, after a tangible wait and weight alike, she finally speaks. ]

Why should humanity be the target?

[trivialization]

Because you feel so much of their pain it seems a mercy. Because you feel so much of their resentment that it seems just.

[wingstosee]

Being "just" in a cruel world is the virtue of hypocrisy. And death is only a mercy for those who accept the world as it is.

[ there's a flare of static across the comms - like a burst of wind, noise being picked up from a dozen places at once. and through it, if only for a moment, there is a song - sweeter than any siren's call, richer than any ambrosia. ]

Darling... if you know these feelings, then surely you know who is to blame? Who is it that planted the seeds? Who stood by as you watched them wilt beneath the light?

[trivialization]

I've said so many times. But I didn't feel them myself like she does. I really was asking of you. I want to know if you've broken already.

[ A little shiver runs up her spine at the music. How long has it been since she felt something like that? When Ba'al had come for her? The first time...]

...I've already cursed Him. Once is enough.

[wingstosee]

I understand. You ask me to understand another.

[ but she doesn't sound hurt, or angry. there is an understanding there, now - a compassion bleeding in through the radio's call. ]

Broken... No, never. There are wounds in my heart and on my body. There is a pain that has been there since humanity was first dreamed. It still hasn't healed. Maybe it never will. But none of that could break me.

[ it's not spoken with confidence, so much as truthfulness. this isn't something she has to believe in, any more than she has to believe that each second will continue to come after the next. ]

"The devil is only the shadow of man cast from the light of god." [ his infallible words, not hers. ] As long as His light remains, I will remain unbroken.

[trivialization]

So you paid poor Peter Schlemihl for what was already yours. How generous.

If it's a matter of metaphysics I ought to accept that there are features of your mind as irrevocable as the bodies of immortals, yet...

I trust nothing there.

[wingstosee]

I wouldn't ask you to. What need is there for faith?

[ the schlemihl reference miraculously goes uncommented on, somehow. ]

Only gods demand belief.