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[unheeled]

[Sorrow's revival 2.0 hits Rita pretty hard, and the only way to move on from her regret is to set herself up for public humiliation.]

i really need to get something off my chest

[Okay. Here goes.]

once, i wore jeans and a jean jacket. i went outside in that outfit

god, what kind of monster am i

[Rita Du Clark, everybody.]

Comments

[unheeled]

[Oh Serah. You sweet summer child. You're too good for this and any world.]

For most of my life, everyone I knew was a selfish jerk bent on protecting themselves and their property at any cost. [A brief pause, for a quick, spiteful chuckle.] That's how I got scratched. Someone put their safety over mine.

[odinbolt]

( ... Okay, there are definitely people like that in any world. Serah likes to try and think the best of people, but even she has to admit that sometimes...

Well, everyone's selfish, right? Wasn't it a bit selfish of her to run away from Snow and the others after she became a l'Cie, thinking she was protecting them? Or that she started her journey through time only to find Lightning, and the desire to save the future came later? )

That's horrible. ( But, at least she thinks she wouldn't have done that. )

[unheeled]

I can make it worse.

[ Like this is a game. She kind of has to laugh if she wants not to be angry about it. ]

It was my dad.

[odinbolt]

( The immediate response of you're joking catches on Serah's tongue before she says it. Despite the fever and the illness shuddering through her body at the time, Serah can still recall their conversations huddled in a building, terrified of everything around them and believing it all to be a trap.

And Rita mentioning Vaughn, mentioning that her dad was trying to kill her for what she'd become. It curdles something in her stomach to know all of this, to know that a father would abandon his daughter for his own safety. When she thinks of what Sazh did to try and save Dajh, or of what she learned about Hope losing his mother. When she thinks about the fact that her only memories of her father are of faded photos on the walls and bits and pieces of stories told by her sister and mother.

Her hands ball into fists at her sides, expression flickering between horror and anger at the very idea.

Why? Why would someone do that? )

I don't understand.

( She does. She just doesn't want to. )

[unheeled]

[ Messed up family relationships 101 stars Rita and Vaughn tbh. ]

That's because you're not a monster.

[ And neither is Rita, for all that she's literally something out of a horror movie, to say nothing of all she did before she got scratched. Somehow, against the odds. She managed not to be a complete loss. Sure, it's a low bar, but she could easily have failed even at that. ]

No matter how bad the Purge was, you're not a monster.

wailing about this cr, the song, the dance, the five act musical

[odinbolt]

I--

( Sorrow's influence is still strong, but hearing those words from Rita - and Serah doesn't know her that well, but she gets the feeling Rita isn't the kind of person who offers empty comfort to be nice. That she doesn't particularly care about being nice - cuts through it just long enough to stop the spiral of thoughts about how she could possibly make up for such an awful thing. )

... Thank you.

( It may take some time until Sorrow's influence disappears, but she'll hold on to that assessment as best she can. )