animus_network | 002

[It takes him all day to muster himself out of his bed to make this post in the dormitory levels. Had he not been slammed with a message about his new "job", he would have kindly stayed in his room for a day or two just to... he wasn't even sure what the right word was. He didn't need to relax. He needed to detox. His journey home had been short, but he hoped and prayed it was just a dream. Only a dream, please just let it be that. But he'd seen the barren landscape, inhaled the putrid, acidic smell of miasma leaking out of every crack and crevice, seas of purple mud and poison all that remained of his world.

Of course he wanted it to be a dream.

...]

Two questions. Feel free to answer or not.

First: How many of you have been back home? As in: how many have returned to what used to be their home, only to come back? What did you see, and did it... feel real?

[...]

Second: What are we left with if the worlds we all know are really gone? Is it just us, this Tower, countless years and a few grim expectations?

I really am starting to wonder.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of course it is not.

We fight to find out the source of the destruction, and then we reverse it.

I refuse to give up hope.

[Perhaps it's farfetched. Perhaps it's ridiculously unreasonable in the face of all she has seen and experienced. But there's a glimmer of hope - she knows there is - and she will grasp onto it with everything she can.]

Your Highness.

No disrespect meant. But that seems like a very tall order.

[They have the technology to transmit all these people and things and monsters from different universes, and even send people back to take a look at what was left. But still no way to restore things. Part of Guy wants to hope that there's some way that, in that ability to cross universes, a solution could be found.

But right now, it seems like a fairy tale.]

I know. But what else do we have to fight for? As you said, the future is unbearably grim otherwise.

It was mentioned a long time ago that Dax wanted to 'fix it' before he fought Ruana. It will take a miracle to see that end - I am not so delusional to think that it will not - but if the possibility exists, better to fight for it than lay down and accept this existence.

At least, that is what I believe.

[Foolish, so many would say. But what have they to lose? Not even death can stop them as they are now.]

Mmm. Better to fight when we know we have nothing much else to lose at the moment, right?

They have our security, our lives, and at times our dignity and pride. And yet we're still here, and we're still functioning in this little game of theirs. If we'd have lost for good... well, I think we would have known it by now.

Precisely. It is just a matter of enduring what they throw at us until the opportunity and resources to change this fate present themselves to us.

[There's a slight pause in the text being sent.]

It is hard, being beat down so often, seeing the people you care about in pain. But it can be endured.

[Goddesses, does she know that it can be endured.]

I'm aware, Your Highness.

But even the highest endurance has its limits.

[He hasn't reached his. He knows he wouldn't be so collected had he started to break. But this isn't the first time he's had to see the land he lived in destroyed. Old wounds burn a bit too deep, and those, in themselves,were hard enough to endure right now.]

[... Again, it takes a while for there to be any kind of response, and for a moment it might even seem like she's left the terminal. For you see, it's much easier to fall into self-reflection through a medium that is not so immediate and demanding as video or audio.

Eventually, though--]

Forgive me. I did not mean to imply otherwise.

[But perhaps if this were a more demanding medium of communication, she would be more willing to add on the thought that makes her so hesitant.

I've been here too long.]

[The length of the pause is unusual, but he doesn't have reason to comment on it, especially given the eventual response.]

Don't worry about it.

...

Personal endurance for things like this is just pretty hard to figure out, I guess. You can't know how much one person might be able to face compared to someone else, or how much you yourself may be able to endure. Even the fluctuations of each day can make things absolutely intolerable.

I don't think anyone enjoys thinking about that kind of balance. Probably would make you sick with worry.

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text; WOW this tag got lost in my inbox I'm so sorry

text; (lol don't worry about it, I'm like three days behind myself :'D)