exsiliumlogs | C'est la mort. (Open)

Date & Time:Tonight, around 7.
Location:The viewing windows.
Characters:Anyone who knew Peace or who might stop to pay respects at a memorial even if they didn't know her.
Summary:A memorial gathering for an Exsile who ceased to exist with the most recent world change.
Warnings:Tears, cursing, bitterness? Not sure yet. People can label threads as they come up. Everyone is free to make their own and jump around. Prose and action are both fine.

It's a waste of emergency torches, but there are a few set up around anyway, lit that soft unearthly blue of emergency lighting. The flowers are paper, clumsily folded from discharge sheets, some from the prison, some from the clinic. There are no photos. All of the ones she was in before are empty spaces, or pictures of Stanley or others who'd been holding her at the time. The music is strings, playing softly from a haphazardly tossed tablet. There are no chairs. Instead, every pillow from 144 is on the ground as seating.

Stanley isn't sitting on one, though. He's standing at the window, staring down at the planet so far below. Today, he's combed his hair. It's still in his eyes because it's too long, but he's made the effort to tame it at any rate.

He's not sure how to start things off, but if someone shows up he'll greet them. That's what you do, right? So that's what he does.

"Thanks for coming."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The water was favored more today than the sandwiches even by Giovanni. Not that they would not taste good or that he did not have to eat sometime but it was difficult to consider eating at such a time of loss.

That young girl had so much spirit. She should have lived a long and full life, had children of her own some day... She deserved at least the chance to try instead of being erased from history and forgotten. It was always tragic when ever some one died but it was even more so some how when it was a child.

It occurred then, as he studied Stanley across the table that he really may never have seen death like this before. He had been so green, so inexperienced in battle and even more than that. The young man seemed very inexperienced with life as well as if he had been very sheltered or not given the proper guidance to help him deal with these situations now that he was on his own.

The question had to be asked, though it was done very softly and in the most gentle manner he could manage.]

Have you never experienced death before?

[The question makes his heart skip painfully. It's a good question, but it hurts to be asked. Stanley shakes his head slowly. In his experience, it's mostly older relatives who die. A few classmates here and there, through accident or injury.

A cousin he used to see a few times a year at family gatherings...but it's never been so personal. Never someone so young and close to him. Usually there was a clear distance between himself and his idea of reality and...death. Even his own brushes with it hadn't felt this terrifying. He'd thought when he arrived here that he might have died at home, but that hadn't been painful as much as nerve wracking.

This was a whole different beast.]

[Giovanni was a assassin, a bringer of death. He had seen people die many times before. Men often took their last strangled breath as their blood dripped down his blade.

He was accustomed to the idea of death, knew what to expect from it, but... it was still unpleasant business. Even those whose death meant life for others deserved respect in their final moment. It was a terrible necessity that some people had to die to free others from their tyranny. His mentor had stressed that fact to him during his training and it held true.

That in this case a child was involved did make it that much more tragic to him. He had several children at home whom he loved and tried to protect. If one of them had been killed... He did not know what he would do. For a moment he felt lost, unsure what to say, but then the words of wisdom his mentor had spoken to him after his first kill came flooding back. ]

Death is a difficult thing, it is meant to be so that we do not forget. It does not get any easier, but the pain will lessen over time.

[And now for something of his own. ]

Do not punish yourself for it. That sweet girl would not want to see you suffer for her sake.

[It's hard to respond to that. Does it get better? He hopes so. It feels like stones stacked up on his ribcage now. Heavy, painful, constricting. What does Giovanni do to make that feeling go away? That quiet terror that comes of knowing that everything you do in this place has the potential to erase someone from existence entirely. How is anyone meant to bear a burden like that stoically?]

She didn't want to see her home destroyed and her family slaughtered either.

[Stanley pushes away the plate of sandwiches, sure now that he won't be able to eat any until later. He's trying to get a grip on the situation. Trying to understand. But all that it comes back to is that they're responsible. How can he push that aside? Maybe Peace wouldn't have held it against them, who knows. The thing is, they never will know.

He rubs at the aching spot between his eyes and stares down at his feet, too big to fit his shoes now. He's been growing. He gets the chance to do that. How can he feel anything except guilty about it?]

I want to go home.

[The assassin's eyes darted away at the pronouncement.

She didn't want to see her home destroyed and her family slaughtered either.

No, she hadn't. They had failed her family... failed her in preventing that. There was no way to turn off that feeling of defeat and loss. He hadn't meant to say that there was if it had come across that way. ]

Unfortunately war is like that. Innocent people are often lost in meaninglessly senseless ways...

[Sad to say there was nothing that they could have done to prevent it. They had tried everything in their power. The lost of those innocents was on United Earth and whomever had meddled with history to distort the timeline.]

You may be able to, one day. I mean to work towards that. Try not to give up hope.

[It isn't Giovanni he's angry at. It's all of them, collectively. And himself. And the UE, for starting shit. And the Initiative when they were powerful, for sticking them with the bill. Tasking them with fixing something so monumentally fucked up. He's angry at the universe too, for being so vast and cruel. So it's not Giovanni that he's objecting to, not really. It doesn't change the objection just to know that.

He kicks the table leg, frustrated, and disturbs someone sitting further down the bench just trying to enjoy their dinner in peace. Maybe they didn't get the memo about Peace being gone now. Hah.

Except it isn't really funny. Not actually. Not at all. Stanley slumps forward on the table, like he used to do in class when he really couldn't stand the lecture material.]

We can't. Someone tried once and they took the whole planet down. No one ever tells you about that until it's too late, but it happened.

[A sympathetic smile was offered and a hand was quickly raised in a peaceful gesture meant to soften the glare of the gentleman at the other end of the table. It was a wordless form of apology but it did soothe the temper of the other man who went back to eating without yelling anything derogatory in their direction. ]

I am aware of what happened before. Some how United Earth was able to attack that world.

[And completely destroy it... Millions of people wiped out with a single action.
They did have too much power. That needed to be changed.]

I do not know how this was possible but if we can discover the way we can prevent it from happening again.

These have been terrible defeats and too many people have been made to suffer due to them, but that does not mean that we stop fighting. If you want to go home you must find the strength in yourself to stand when every instinct in you tells you it is impossible.

[Strong words, sometimes they were not always felt, but he had a creed to uphold and a family at home to protect... friends to avenge. The losses here were painful, potentially crippling, but he had to keep fighting for the good of everyone. It would do no one any good to allow the UE to maintain their ability to so easily destroy lives.]

How?

[It's not sarcasm, honest. It's a legitimate question.

It must be frustrating for Giovanni, to be asked questions like that. But it's frustrating to ask them, too. What else can they do? They can't just pretend it isn't happening. If they do that, don't they lose by default?]

[Some times the answers to questions come very easily, the correct choice being so blatantly obvious that one didn't even need to think about it. This was not one of those times.

How indeed.]

First we should try to discover more about our new situation. Then maybe we can discover a way.

[There's not much to be said in response to that. It sounds hopeless, but it probably isn't supposed to. It's just so big and impossible.

Stan nods anyway, trying not to look as unconvinced as he feels.]

I guess.

C'est la mort. (Open)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject