fourth; video (trouble seldom sees what she leaves behind, there's a typhoon blowin')

[bekommen]

[Oddly enough, this broadcast doesn't seem to have anything wrong with it - just a video feed of Nick sitting slouched at Delight's bar with a half-empty glass in front of her, and it's clear from the slur of her words that it wasn't her first.]

Hey! Hadriel. All'a you. Listen, I got somethin' to say, if y'all can take five seconds to quit your shitposting and listen to someone else for a change.

[She pauses to take a sip of her drink and grins sharply into the camera.]

Shitposting - that's what you kids these days are callin' it, right? [She laughs.] See, Chris? Even Grandma here can pick up on the new hip lingo sometimes!

[There's something dark and unfriendly in her words, despite the too-tight smile stretched across her face. Nick waves her hand, a silent whatever. That isn't what she really wants to say.]

The point, dear Hadriel, is this: I hate you. All'a you. Yeah, Emily, that's right - you ain't anythin' special! 'Cause I hate everyone here. Y'all are the single worst thing that's ever happened to me, and believe me, that a fuckin' accomplishment and a half.

[Nick pauses again to take another drink, expression sharpening as the grin fades from her face.]

See, I thought the worst thing that ever happened to me was my dad dyin' when I was a kid. Shit, did that ever suck beyond the tellin' of it. And then, y'know, I thought havin' to live with my shitball mother for the next ten years, that was at least as bad, if not worse. But hey, I survived that. I had one friend in that shithole town I grew up in, an' we both survived it, together, an' we left that shithole town, together, and then after a buncha years of stickin' together in the city, you know what that fucker did?

[She laughs, a high-pitched, hysterical sound that's anything but funny.]

He fuckin' friend-broke up with me! Can you believe that shit? Man. Surely that was the worst thing to ever happen to me, right? But no - wait, it gets better.

[She leans in to the camera and drops her voice, conspiratorial, like she's divulging a secret - which she is.]

So I went on one of those great American roadtrips, right? And I ended up in fucking Canada. And hey, fuck Canada - right Chris? Because in fuckin' Canada, that's where I Became a Nightbane.

[Nick pulls both hands up for the camera in a silent, sarcastic ta-da gesture.]

That's right! Uh, what's your name - Dean, wasn't it? Yeah. Y'ain't gotta go crawlin' through the caves to find a monster, 'cause guess what? [She points at herself.] I'm sittin' right the fuck here.

[The grin reappears on her face, looking more like an angry baring of her teeth than a proper smile.]

So congratu-fuckin'-lations, Hadriel - that is what all you beat out for the honor of bein' the absolute fuckin' worst thing that's ever happened to me. Give yourselves a big fuckin' pat on the back. Cheers.

[Nick raises her glass in a mock-toast and throws back the rest of her drink, then reaches over to kill the feed. She'll definitely regret this in the morning, if not sooner.]

Comments

[ushahin]

Yes. But if I am a monster, it is their fault for helping to create one. They rejected me for being less than perfect. So did the race of Men. It is hard to have choices when all doors are closed to you.

[bekommen]

Yeah, no shit.

[She understands that idea of being created a monster better than she has the capacity to put into words in her current state of inebriation. If her mother had been less awful, if her father hadn't died, if someone would have given more of a damn about her than what she typically saw, maybe she would have turned out to be less of a grotesquerie herself.]

But you said they're all gonna die. Wouldn't you be included in that?

[ushahin]

No. They will die because they are unable to do two things. One is adapt to a changing world, something I have always been able to do.

[Even though his personality has not changed much over the course of a thousand years, he's learned how to survive no matter what life has thrown at him.]

The other is reproduce quick enough to replace their dwindling ranks. Their god denied them that gift.

[bekommen]

Huh. Sounds like a contender for worst god ever. Y'think he'll show up here someday? He'd prob'ly fit right in with the rest of these assholes.

[ushahin]

If he does show up here, I'll kill him. He ruined my life.

[There is rage in his voice now, twisting it from its usual soft tone to something darker and harder.]

[bekommen]

Seems like that's all gods are good for, really.

[ushahin]

I have known one who was good. But he's was unusual even for his kind. He's dead now like everyone else I have known in my world.

[bekommen]

Jesus. Seriously? Everyone you know is dead?

[ushahin]

Aye. That's what happens when you lose a war.

[A look of uncountable sorrow crosses his face.]

Compared to what I have known, you have lived a good life.

[bekommen]

Shit.

[Quite suddenly, Nick finds herself thinking of Kamina, the war he told her about fighting, the reality of that for him in a way that Nick can only imagine, since all she knows of war is from history books and television reports of far-off places. She swallows hard at the bile rising in her throat, disgust with her own stupidity, feelings of regret, the fact that she misses Kamina and can't get him out of her head.]

'Msorry, man. I didn't know. That's fuckin' awful.

[ushahin]

It was. But life carries on and I must carry my sorrow with it.

[It hurts and he doubts if it will ever stop hurting. What has happened to him would have killed a lesser being that what Ushahin has been warped into. The worst part is seeing the stretch of years lain out in front of him. He could live a thousand more years before someone finally killed him. The thought of living with such pain made his bones and mind both ache.]

[bekommen]

Yeah ... I guess especially in a place like this, huh.

[Death won't solve anything; Hope just brings people back.]