011 ❀ Scratch your Name into the fabric of this World before you Go

[floreatnoctem]

Memento mori- remember that you will die.

[Chidori's voice is quiet, somber as always, but there's a lack of the usual note of resignation in her voice, a spare bit of determination.]

I don't... make speeches, usually. And I haven't kept up with whatever you've all been saying here, so if someone has said this before...

[Feel free to ignore it, is the implication.]

In any case, the main thing to remember is that we're all going to die. Permanently, I suppose I should say- and it isn't that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. We're not real, and I think by this point it should be obvious that the 'circumstances' under which we were supposedly brought here are a lie. Convoluted, well-crafted and well-enforced, but a lie nonetheless. I can only presume the dead versions of our worlds are programmed into us when we 'leave' and 'return', but that doesn't matter either. As I said, it doesn't matter that we will die...

But what will matter is what we each do before then.

So regardless of what they put us through, regardless of how we are 'punished'- because that's no more real than anything else, really- we have a year, right? The time I've had here is more than I was supposed to anyway- I've been ready to die for a long time.

So take my advice, and live so you won't have any regrets in the end.



After all, what's the point in holding anything back anymore?

Comments

voice

[colonial]

[America's voice is very quiet.] We're real. We hav'to be real. And we don't all hav'to die.

voice

[floreatnoctem]

[Ah little one, she's sorry in a way, but mostly she's just bothered that they'd put the mind of someone so young through this.]

Why do we have to be?

[colonial]

I'm a country. Um, a colony. [He hesitates, looking for a way to word this.] If I'm not really a country I'm not anything.

[floreatnoctem]

I see. Well, let me put it to you this way...

[A pause, and she hesitates, but-]

The you that existed before this place, that you is a colony, that you exists. The you that's here is like... an extra. Just in case, sort of... and you're not the real thing, I'm afraid. But you can always decide to be something else.

[colonial]

No! [His tone rises to something between anger and desperation.] I'm the real thing! I have to be! I can't just be something else!

[floreatnoctem]

[If Chidori could frown verbally, she would. But she can't, so instead she very firmly sighs-]

Stop. A tantrum won't get you anywhere.

[Despite the fact that well... you're a kid and that's all you can really do.]

Besides, you shouldn't worry about what you are or aren't anymore. It won't change the kind of person you are. Or colony, I suppose.

[colonial]

[America makes a low whining sound in the back of his throat--a tantrum he's obviously trying to cut off so he can keep talking--and is quiet for a while.]

Um. You're a human, right?

[floreatnoctem]

[A complicated question, but one that she doesn't feel like fumbling her way through the complexities of at the moment.]

In a manner of speaking, yes. Why do you ask?

[colonial]

'Cause I think it's different. [There's another little pause.] If you're a human, you can do all sorts of stuff. Like you can be a doctor or teach kids or have kids. And so people wanna do all that stuff and then if they can't be a doctor then maybe they can go do something else. But a country is always a country, so if I can't be a country then I can't be anything.

[floreatnoctem]

That's not always true. No matter what anyone tells you, not all humans have the chance to be what they want. Some of us don't get the chance, some aren't given a choice.

But I should think if you can be a whole country, you could very well be whatever you please, no matter what anyone says.

[colonial]

If I can't be America... There's nothing else I'd want to be.

[floreatnoctem]

Nothing? Nothing at all?

[colonial]

If I'm not America I'm not anything. [He thinks he's said something like that before, though.] Sorry, it's real hard to explain and I don't really understand it all the way. You should ask France or England, maybe they'd be able to explain better. I can keep trying, if you want?

[floreatnoctem]

No, it's fine- I'm sure it's very complicated but... I wonder, if you were going to be America anyway, why not just be America now?

[colonial]

I am being America now, 'cause I'm real and I can't be fake. [He's decided to be insistent about that--denying any other option stubbornly.] I saw through the glasses this month so I'm sure. I have to be real.

[floreatnoctem]

If that's what you want.

[Because Chidori really can't bring herself to make a kid miserable.]

...glasses?

[colonial]

There were these special glasses England got that let you see everyone's soul again. But not like before, like they really are! So I got to see all my people inside me.

[The memory alone cheers him up considerably.]

[floreatnoctem]

Souls, huh? What do souls look like?

[She wonders if it's anything like what she can sense through Medea.]