hadriel | Video 9 - Sewing Shop (dated an hour after Lance's post)

Entry tags:

Video 9 - Sewing Shop (dated an hour after Lance's post)

[while Margaery may be in her usual place in the Sewing Shop, that's not what she's choosing to address. not this time.

sure, she's dressed up as usual, she has her sword laid across her lap and visible in the frame of the video.

she's also not wearing her usual bright smile. instead, her expression is deadly serious]

As I'm sure we're all aware, the demon has been temporarily been . . . put out of commission. Now, this is not the place to debate the wisdom of vigilante justice. Dr. Sweets appears to have that well in hand. No, what this is is the place to discuss what measures may be taken to prevent the demon from taking its rage out on the entirety of Hadriel.

The gods will do nothing. Tranquility told me himself that they will only take action if they themselves are threatened. So we're left to fend for ourselves. We must make our plans ourselves and it would be far better to have those plans coordinated well in advance of its release.

So I am directing this to anyone who has ideas for what to do when the demon is inevitably released back into the populace. Surely there are those with powers or skills which could prevent it from going on a murderous rampage. Now is the time for those people to step forward and offer their ideas.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It doesn't matter what anyone calls her. It matters what she is, and what she can do, and what she will do.

It matters that they learn to put aside their differences. Caedra might try to kill us all; the Null will. If they can't even come to an agreement on her, if they want to stand about and play word games, how do they expect to defend against a greater threat?

What we want is for her to fight against the Null with us, but we can't rely upon it.

They don't. The last time the Null came, tens of people were slaughtered. Hope was so strained by so many resurrections at once, people came back unable to see or hear or speak and it took weeks for their maladies to be cured. They'd rather fling themselves into the chasm than come to any sort of consensus on what is to be done, be it against the demon or against the Null.

Even that is not guaranteed. The last time, the Null offered the chance to go home to any who fought on their side. While I doubt that the Null will offer any such concessions the next time we meet, they can access the network without the so-called gods' knowing about it.

And there's no way for us to cut the network off if they do. It's not like shooting down a raven. I don't know what it is like, and it wouldn't be good for us to silence our own voices.

But if we can think of a way of silencing the Null, it would be better.

I can get Northmen to work with Wildlings, but they're groups, not individual men. They can agree on a common goal. These people can't even agree. The gods rule this place, then pretend that they don't. Duty goes with that kind of power... more duty than they're showing.

You know they keep her here because she feeds them.

Nor I. And there have been occasions where the network has proved itself useful to those in distress.

I wouldn't even begin to know how.

No, they can't, even when danger is staring them right in the face and we only have thirty days to make plans. And so far as I know, the so-called gods have always been content to let us slaughter one another without intervention. There have been killers among us before, though they were mortal and had much shorter stays.

I know too well. Sorrow, Rage, Confusion, Fear. The demon must provide them with feasts regularly.

And if we refuse to feed them -- well, we can't cut out our hearts. We can't stop feeling just because we want to. If we could, then it still might not help, because if the Null do come, I can't imagine that weak gods are what we want.

Do you know anything about what happened to the killers who were here before? I'm not sure anyone is really mortal so long as Hope is bringing them back. [And he's not sure he should be speaking on mortality anymore anyway, though being killed once and inexplicably brought back is only proof that you can be killed, not that you'll always return.] In Caedra's case, it's a matter of her power.

But the fact that someone has been able to stop her twice means that she's not unbeatable, and there has to be a reason that she hasn't really tried again. Maybe because she knows she can be beaten. She went out hunting for parts of the Door because there was something in it for her: she's trapped here as much as anyone else. So there are limits to her power, and in most ways, her lot is the same as ours. Thinking of that may help in coming up with a plan. Her seeing that people spoke for her may help too, but I don't know how she thinks, I don't know if that matters to her.

The last time, the gods only came to the defense of one another, not to the defense of the community as a whole.

The same thing that happened to this killer. The victim's friends chose to bring them to justice themselves.

Thrice. When I was killed and Curufin was gravely injured, Maglor and his brother killed her in retribution. And of course it went looking for parts of the Door because it's trapped here, too. Don't think the demon did it out of any sense of altruism, it was entirely self-interest on its part. The demon would happily strand the rest of us here, given the opportunity. That's how such a being works, you cannot reason with them the way you would another human. From what I've been told, the only thing that matters is whatever whim occurs to it in the moment.

No, I don't think she did it to help anyone. That's incidental. But I have some experience with monsters who kill [he sounds mildly reproachful here], and killing isn't all she does. It isn't even most of what she does, it's only that she does it whenever she pleases. So how do we make it undesirable to her? How do we do it without the gods' help?

The first thing that comes to mind is to work together to find a way to strand her here with them. Just her and them. Do we have a way of doing that? Do we know anyone who does?

When you were killed and the elves took some kind of action -- that's one of the things I was thinking of. What's the third?

[she draws her injured dignity around herself like a shield] I, too, have experience with those who kill, lest you forget my time with Cersei Lannister. Before the Sept of Baelor was destroyed and we were all of us gathered inside, I knew that somehow she had schemed a way to avoid justice and rid herself of her enemies and I tried to warn people, but none would listen. [just as none will listen now goes unsaid]

The elves have a kind of magic, but I'd imagine that if they knew of any such methods, they would have gotten us all out of here by now.

The leader of the Guard, Nick Valentine, was apparently able to intervene somehow. I've already contacted him to ask him how it was done.

That's not what I meant. [This is said a little apologetically.] What I mean is, Caedra is more Cersei than the Night King, and there's a little of Stannis's Red Witch in her too. She's willing to kill, able to kill, but she has things that interest her other than killing. The question is what interests her more than killing, and how do we keep her interested in it?

It isn't that I want to spare her life, it's that killing her isn't a helpful plan if it's the only plan, and if it's impossible.

A plan to strand her need not involve rescuing all of us. It could be something like taking her to one of the islands we found while she's in her current state, and leaving her there. The gods wouldn't be stuck with her, that's true, but she wouldn't trouble the rest of us, and if the city moves again, it might move without her.[But a few things tug at him: a plan like that seems needlessly cruel in some ways, there is no surety that Caedra would be forced to stay on whatever island they left her on, and there are clearly those who are protecting her regardless of the welfare of others, people who might only go and retrieve her.]

You know that if Valentine thinks he can handle it himself, there are measures he'll try to put an end to. He won't be happy about this conversation.

I'm not sure. What made Cersei happy was ruining the lives of other people and fucking her brother. I'm not sure anyone would be willing to fuck a demon, but I suppose it's worth a try. Ruining the lives of others, on the other hand, isn't an option.

Yes, unfortunately the demon will simply be revived to wreak havoc on the lives of those responsible for killing it in the first place.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are those determined to protect it, whatever the cost to others. I suppose they think they're safe from the demon's darker impulses, but they're not. No one is. It has the power necessary to kill whomever it pleases and those who are more willing to quibble over what the demon is called than they are to put in a solid plan to keep the rest of us protected.

The reason why I went to him is because I knew he was able to stop it once. As it seems that none are willing to step in, so I thought perhaps he might have an idea of how to proceed.

[All right, so fair enough about Cersei. Jon doesn't really know what she wants other than power either, or to preserve her power; he only has a faint sense of relief that there were no Northerners at court the day she blew up the Great Sept. And even that relief carries a hint of guilt, because so many others died.]

So Valentine stopped her and she hasn't made him her quarry yet -- yet. The same is true of the elves.

Does it cow her? What makes her decide to kill to begin with?

[power seems to be Cersei's driving motivator. more than love for her children, even more than love for her brother. she spent years in Cersei's presence, but she's taken care to not be in the demon's presence since she was murdered, so all she has to go on is hearsay and rumors]

Yes, on both counts.

I don't know if it's cowed or if it's simply biding its time. But as far as I can tell, the demon kills on a whim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Video 9 - Sewing Shop (dated an hour after Lance's post)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(cw: incest)

no subject

no subject