dreamsallotted | Hadriel IC Inbox

It used to be. Not anymore.

Somedays I'm not so sure.

[A pause]

How could you stay with them Cal? I've always wondered.

Feeling nostalgic?

[He sighs.]

They wanted me, Seel. I could be what I was without complaint, without worry. They took us in when humanity gave us up. I owed them.

[Seel was feeling quite nostalgic actually. Until Cal opened his mouth and Seel realized again just how angry he was.]

You owed them? After what they did to us, you owed them?

I can't believe I'm hearing this.

Yes, Seel, I did. And you wouldn't be where you are now without them, either.

[Seel was silent as that hit a little too close to home. He wouldn't be. What happened to him was the reason he started Saltrock. Everything snowballed from that event.Shit. He hated that. Fuck.]

Just because that's true doesn't make it okay.

They were monsters, Seel. I don't deny that. But that's where I belonged. For a long time. I needed them and so did you. Maybe we don't anymore but that doesn't change that at some point we did.

I hate that. It's been fifty years and I still hate it. How can you be so calm?

I learned to love the beast until I didn't need it anymore.

[There were so many things in that one sentence Seel almost didn't know where to begin. He fought against that damn thing every moment and still had trouble containing his temper. And Cal just.....let it go.]

I'm not even sure I know how to respond to that, Cal.

That, I think, is part of your problem.

How the hell did you get so damn wise?

[It was the epitome of not fair as far as Seel was concerned. Cal went crazy, kills an amazing har, and somehow finds himself, gets all with it and together and inherits the world.]

Practice. Or maybe I actually learned something staring at walls.

If you're going to suggest I stare at walls for thirty years, I don't think I'm up for that.

Neither was I.

What were you going to suggest then?

[he didn't want to spend the rest of his life with leashes around his neck.]

That you find your own way.

What do you think I've been trying to do for the last thirty years, Cal? Do you think I enjoy feeling like I need to hold back my temper?

[For someone thinking himself self enlightened, he really did need to work on knowing himself more. Gelaming, indeed.]

You won't like the answers I have for you. And they may not even work. I can't tell you how to be, Seel.

Really? You seem to be doing a good job of it anyway. I thought that was how this relationship worked now. You tell me how to be and I comply.

[Seel was back to sniping, because well, he wasn't getting his way. Go figure.]

I can tell you what to do, not who you are.

[Cal really was something, he wasn't falling for any of his baits or traps. How different this may have gone just thirty years ago. Seel remembered a time when their positions had been reversed. Things hadn't gone so well then either. Orien had ended up dead, and Seel hadn't been able to see that Cal needed more help than he could offer. And now....]

Fine. What were the answers I wasn't going to like?

I had to be torn into pieces to find what I have now. I was stripped of everything and broken down to nothing and stared into my own soul. It was, at the very least, unenjoyable. I'm not certain you'd appreciate the experience.

I'm fairly certain I wouldn't. And while that was rather poetic, I'd rather not go through the same thing.

[To his effort, he at least did not add ' I don't deserve it.']

Then I suppose this is the dance we'll do.

So long as you continue to take the same steps, anyway.

Hadriel IC Inbox

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]

Re: [Audio]