IC Inbox III

[ukan]

This is Lark, leave a message.

Comments

[ukan]

What's up?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Why are you on this ship?

[ukan]

Do you want the long answer or t short one?

Where is this coming from?

[atowncalledtreffy]

I don’t care. It’s whatever answer you want to give.

[ukan]

I'm here because some people have no choice but to be here, and I believe things can be made better than they are.

[atowncalledtreffy]

And you’re going to make those things happen.

[ukan]

I don't know.

Why are you asking now?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Do you want the long answer or the short one?

[ukan]

The long one.

[atowncalledtreffy]

A lot of reasons. Things have been happening so fast lately that I’ve barely had a chance to catch my breath.

I don’t care if you want to spend months or years tucked away or helping other inmates. I know you didn’t have a choice in getting paired with me. To be honest, I liked it in the beginning because you didn’t have a deal and I wasn’t going to get out of here ever so I didn’t feel guilty about keeping you from something important.

Then you come out of nowhere and steal my weapons. And then go back to your wolfden like you’ve done a good job. You stole things that had saved me in Flotilla. Items that were precious to me. It’s like if I ripped your arm or your teeth out. They weren’t yours to take.

I tell you there was a warden that did something unspeakable to me. That’s the last I heard from you. But I’m still under a curse that prevents me from saving someone if a warden is near. I have seen wardens demoted here for murdering inmates. I’ve been the victim of a warden’s shitty curiosity. But you want to keep believing that people aren’t shit because a necromancer hands you a leash and tells you.

Then I find out from Warren that I’m somehow a part of your pack? That somehow that makes me part of his responsibility as well as that of people I barely know? Fuck that. I have my own group of people I look out for. I’m not your pack and I’m not your friend.

Then I turned into a fucking entity of Death itself and murdered friends of mine. No one was there to stop me then except some random girl with a holy sword. I volunteered to go lock myself in Zero but it wouldn’t have mattered because somehow that fucking creature showed up with all his powers.

He was looking for my family. My son was here. He was eight and if that thing found him it would have sliced him apart. I asked fucking Dracula to be there to watch him. And he did, and I killed Dracula’s son instead.

Then, mercifully, someone kills us. And you don’t let me rest in fucking peace. I told you I want to leave this fucking place and you bring me back and then nothing. For what? You don’t have a deal. You aren’t around when I need you to help save my family. You just show up to tell me to do better.

And most of this shit I don’t even blame you for. Maybe you’ll be demoted if you don’t resurrect me. But you aren’t on this ship to help me because either you’d have looked after my kid or you would have let me stay dead. Guess I’m angry at myself for ever going along with any of this.

[ukan]

I know I've fucked up with you. With everything, every responsibility I have here and at home, with everyone in my pack. But especially with you.

I have conflicting goals and methods and, honestly, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. You're the one suffering for it.

You were wrong with Warren and Ulla. You made that situation worse. I need you to stop and let people handle their own shit sometimes, and I had no other way of making that happen. You're right that I had no right to disarm you, I swore I would never do that to an inmate, but you don't care what I think, or say, or do because when you see red you just run at it. If someone had taken my teeth from me when I started jumping into other people's fights, and I did, several people wouldn't have died.

But this isn't what I want for you. Or for me.

[atowncalledtreffy]

I know I was fucking wrong with them. I apologized to both. They both forgave me. But I think that even if I somehow magically learned whatever lesson you were trying to show, I would still be without weapons or abilities.

And I’m not the mercenary you want to treat me as. I don’t go into every confrontation hoping for a fight. I don’t even go looking for most fucking fights. But you don’t see that. You only see what Warren and Zack tell you.

And you’re wrong, because I did care, once. I’m not you. We’re similar but we’re not the same.

[ukan]

You're right. I don't see enough. For that to change, we need to spend an exponentially greater amount of time together.

Is that something you're willing to do? Because I'm going to arm you again. But something needs to change, for me. I need... To be better than I have been and I can't do that from a distance.

[atowncalledtreffy]

I don’t care. It’s whatever you want to do. I’m just the useless fucking inmate.

And why would I want to listen to you?

[ukan]

For the same reason you're talking to me now. You believe I'll listen to you.

[atowncalledtreffy]

I’m talking to you because I want to know why the fuck we’re paired. You just seem like a man who hates his job and I know there’s plenty of inmates dying to graduate and get out of here. If we stay together it’s going to be years before I disappear. Maybe decades. And I feel myself getting worse.

[ukan]

[So am I, he thinks. But it's better to focus on Trevor.]

Worse how?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Worse. Sadder, angrier. I don’t see a way out of here and anything I used to find purpose in is gone again.

[ukan]

Your purpose was protecting people. That's your only purpose?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Yeah. Even if they hated us or thought we were evil. Protecting and dying for them for five hundred years.

[ukan]

And what would you do to protect people from someone like Kirei?

[atowncalledtreffy]

Assuming he actually did what he did on purpose, and I read him right the first time?

He’s a warden. I could demote him.

[ukan]

You read him right. I looked into it.

He needs to go.

[atowncalledtreffy]

[There’s silence on the other line as Trevor sits with this information.

Then:]

Shit.

[ukan]

I will help. However you need.