April 8th | Text

[realimperfect]

I've been thinking, lately, about something I experienced back in the place where I was born..

If you could meet yourself as a child…

Would she/he be proud of you?

What kind of excuse would you say to excuse the things you've done or the person you've become?

Comments

video.

[dissenter]

You're asking me to go back very far, here... [how many times had he even been a child by now? hundreds? he's lost track of all the life cycles.]

... I have few regrets.

video.

[realimperfect]

Not all of us have such long lifetimes. [ But there's a small smirk of an interested expression there, waiting for him to back track as far as he needed. After all, they'd had interesting discussions about these kinds of things before. ]

Mmn - but do you think your child self would approve of who you are now?

[dissenter]

It's just as well. If everyone lived long enough to be as wise as I like to sound, I'd be out of an occupation.

[joking done, he pauses before continuing in a more serious vein:] I'd always been a rather mature child. [as was to be expected of someone who was forced to remember each and every one of his innumerable past lives.] Whereas others were able to grow disillusioned with the responsibilities required of them in the world of adults... I suppose I embraced them when they came.

To be a king is surely the greatest of all responsibilities. I've erred, to be sure, but-- anyone would be proud to see themselves rise to that challenge.

[realimperfect]

To be king is to take on a lot of responsibilities. Though, having that responsibility does not always a great man make. [ And Donov Mayer may not really rank on that scale, so far as Re-l is concerned, but being regent of the domed city she had come from wasn't exactly the easiest job in the world, nor was balancing things that she couldn't have begun to understand even from the slight bit she'd gathered before it had all come down.

- Ah, this subject always made her nostalgic in ways that wasn't always good. ]

Though, it's easy to debate that by virtue of position alone a king is forced to be many things.

[dissenter]

A good man, perhaps not. But no one with that much power has any choice but to be great.

[he smiles then, waving a dismissive hand.] --oh, but you wouldn't believe! Millions of lives to watch over, an entire planet to maintain, endless choices to make... It's my incredible luck that I was hardly unpopular and mine were not a particularly dissenting people. I've read about some of the more ill-fated monarchies of this world.

[guillotines, heads on pikes, blood in the streets? well, in some fashion qilby had to admire their knack for getting things done...]

[realimperfect]

They have far more choices than to be 'great.' [ Coming from a jaded young human who's pretty sure she's seen what power can do to make a man very much insane, instead. A few times over, if once wasn't enough. ]

Complacency doesn't really qualify the greatness of a leader. Just the meek minds of people who don't dare to challenge him to be great.

[dissenter]

The word carries different connotations for us, it seems. [unsurprising. the short-lived never really could comprehend the fact that there were those that just existed on a completely different level.

the second bit, though, could have come right out of his own mouth. how many lives had he spent trying to convince king yugo that he was stifling their people's growth with his complacency? qilby almost finds it hard to pretend to be mildly offended.

he quirks a brow, but doesn't drop his smile.] Let's not make this personal, now. My kind had quite earned the right to be happy.

[realimperfect]

[ She wouldn't have any idea about existing on another level - Vincent, however, might have a better view on that with his memories regained. However, since he wasn't here, at the moment, she'll have to rely on her own life experience which was just..

well not all that bright of a future outlook. ]

By your estimations of course they have. However from the outside it may not be the same.

[dissenter]

[and his estimations were always correct, he wants to retort, but that would be far too antagonistic. damn everything.

instead he settles for a milder reply, but he can't keep all of the testiness out of his voice, or help a faint frown creeping up on his features and replacing his easy smile.] I suppose not; yours is certainly a sentiment our invaders shared. Evidently their right to destroy everything that is good trumped our right to a peaceful existence.

[realimperfect]

That's how it's always been, hasn't it? One group of people presumes themselves to be entirely superior to another and either justifies their slaughter or attempts to indoctrinate and change them in to the fellow citizen they want them to be by whatever measures possible? Maybe both, if they're feeling completely masochistic or just ambitious that year?

That's what Romdeau did to immigrants after it destroyed Mosk - and I'm sure it's happened before hand in different domes with different leaders. Most races or groups consider themselves superior to others in one way or another - so to hold one as an exceptional example to the contrary is a simple lie.

[ She's had a lot of time to think, here, over her discussions with Vincent, over things he's said since they'd gone off on this grand 'adventure' together after the collapse of the dome - a lot of time to think about what they'd discovered and how it all pieced together. Her paper notebook, in the Rabbit, had been filled with their scribbles trying to place every thing together and more perfectly come to understand just what the hell Vincent was remembering, and where it fit in with the concrete evidence they had found.

Meanwhile, Re-l seemed to become more jaded about humans as a whole, but that's really no surprise. ]