hadriel | one ♔ audio

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I've been stuck in my rooms for three days. I don't have words for how incredibly bored I am. I may well go mad.

So! In the interests of getting to know some of you better, let's chat. I have a question to start things off. What is one thing you wish people could know about you without you having to tell them?

For example, I wish I didn't have to explain that I am royalty. It's a bit awkward, and sounds like bragging, when really it's just the fact of who I was born to. So I'd choose that - or the fact that I prefer red wines to white. Then no one would ever have to worry about serving me the wrong thing. Actually, that one might be even more convenient.

What about you? At least some of you must be just as bored as me.

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Likin' the name has only a bit to do with it. It's 'bout identity, you know? Back home, identity's got a lotta power over people because it's so easy to lose it. 'sides, most people back home don't exactly got parents to hand over a name.

It sounds like a difficult place to live. You must be quite tough.

Can I ask what you mean by losing identity?

No more than anyone else.

There's a group back home that had ways to hollow you out. Drugs and devices to keep you from thinkin' and feelin'. But the Drac masks- if they got you in one of those, you stopped bein' you. Forget who you were, what you stood for, and fall in line with who they told you to be. You couldn't be saved from it. People were afraid of losin' themselves to that.

That would be terrible.

[The thought of it is... not something Rhy wants to dwell on.]

In a world like that, no wonder you would hold tightly to your identity, and feel strongly about defining it yourself. It would be far too easy to lose.

It is. It's not all bad, but a lotta people still find reasons to hope. If they didn't, it would just be depressin'.

But that's the long of why I don't keep a name. Kinda hard to lose an identity when you don't gotta name to lose.

That does make sense. I hope that you are in a safer position someday, one where you can choose a name that fits you.

Someday, maybe. It's not really at the top of my list, to be honest. But thanks.

What are your priorities right now, then?

Stayin' alive is always a big one.

That is a good one. Easier here than in some other places, though.

Easier than where you're from?

My home is peaceful sometimes, but not always. I thought it was safe, but nothing is ever really that safe.

Did something happen to change your mind, if you thing nothin' is safe anymore?

I died, back at home. It's hard to believe in safety after that.

Did you come back after dyin' or did you just come here? Either way, 'm sorry. It's pretty much the worst than can happen.

I came back. I shouldn't have - it should have been impossible - but it happened. And now I'm here, more or less alive.

It wasn't very pleasant.

No one else in your world has ever come back from the dead? [It was rare enough in her home she'd never met anyone who had come back, but she wasn't surprised when she saw first hand that the Witch could do it.]

Dyin' rarely is. You happy to be back?

Not as far as I know. Not like that.

[He doubts anyone else has, ever.]

I... don't know. I should have died. I don't know if I'm exactly alive now, and I don't know if I would have chosen to come back. Maybe not.

Kinda of a weird thing to be one of a kind at, huh?

I don't think that it matters much what we'd choose. Fate's not all that big on choices anyway. If you were brought back, it's because someone up there had a bigger plan for you. Kinda shitty of 'em not to tell you what that plan was.

[He laughs.]

I was brought back because my brother wasn't willing to let me die. It was magic - all his. I suppose that counts for something, at least.

If someone loves you enough to drag you back from death, it counts for everything. A lotta folks would call you lucky, having someone like that.

I am incredibly lucky to have him. But I didn't ask for him to do that, and the cost was high. He should have thought of himself first.

If you don't mind my askin', what do you mean by a high cost?

I'm not sure it's something I'm entirely comfortable talking about. Suffice to say, I wish I had been consulted first. But of course I was dead.

Right. Didn't mean to pry. [She clearly did, but she's not bothered at being told to back down.] Comin' back really didn't work by regular folk raisin' ghosts where I'm from, so I was just curious.

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