I'm Just A Soul Whose Intentions Are Good | Video| OTA

[ushahin]

[The first thing is that the phone has been propped between two branches on a tree in the orchard. Ushahin needs both hands for the task at hand. He's trying to peel a piece of fruit that has a bright purple skin on it. The problem is that if he tries to use his good hand to peel, his bad one can't hold onto it firmly enough, so it falls. If he tries to use his bad hand to peel while his good hand holds, his crippled fingers don't have enough force to break the skin. He'll be trying both methods alternately as he speaks in his usual soft tone.]

I was thinking tonight. A dangerous pastime, to be certain, but what I was thinking was this. How many of us who have been brought here are good? [He pauses, trying to get his nails under the skin, and he fails.]

I would ask how many of you here think you are a good person but-- [And there goes the fruit again, falling out of his bad left hand. He sighs and picks it back up.] --I don't think many of us have that high of a opinion of ourselves. I know I don't. [He's shattered too many minds and killed far too many people to think he's still got a soul anywhere close to being pure.]

So I will ask this. How many of you think those who are here with you are good people? Your family and friends, how many of them are good souls? [The fruit slips from his grasp once again.]

Damn. [He's given up trying to do this the nice, neat way. He ends the video by using his good hand for support, then biting down into the peel, and using his teeth to tear it partially off. It's not the most dignified method of being able to peel the fruit, but at this point, he's too stubborn to give up.]

Comments

[ushahin]

Yes. I know myself well enough to know if I have gone too far or done something wrong.

[Of course, his mind is also tainted by madness, so he doesn't always notice when he's hurt people or pushed past their boundaries without any regard for their wellbeing. He does get points for trying, if they are keeping score of such a thing.

He withdraws the fruit, biting down into it, completely unruffled by the idea she can't eat it. He doesn't ask her what it is she does eat. She's a wolf and wolves eat meat. He won't ask what kind of meat that is. Instead, he listens as she speaks of her packs.]

I understand that. The packs I have chosen have always been the ones that were best for me.

[hasitsthorns]

I wish I knew myself well enough. Seems like I'm still surprising myself after three years in places like these.

[ That's an A for effort in Rose's book, anyway. Sometimes she thinks she's too considerate of others; she doesn't allow herself the same freedom she does to others. Two sides of the same coin, maybe. ]

Glad to know it's not just me. I used to think I was a terrible judge of character [ she is, actually, but that's besides the point ] but hey. My packmates now haven't let me down yet, so.

[ushahin]

Once you live a thousand years, you shall know your own mind very well too.

[Assuming she lives that long. A place like this had made the old immortal doubt even his long-standing luck in avoid the claws of death.]

I like the one I have formed in this place. They have kept me sane after I lost everything in my own world. It is so tempting to give into madness when that happens.

[hasitsthorns]

I'll be lucky if I live to a thousand, honestly. That's about the lifespan of my kind.

[ The gods know she loves to dance with death; Rose will be surprised if she actually makes it passed five hundred. Three hundred some odd years isn't so bad, she thinks... Still barely an adult to her people, really, but at least she made it that far. There were times she was sure she wouldn't.

Technically, she hasn't. Hadriel is a third chance she doesn't deserve. Yet, she's going to take it to keep a promise. ]

I know about losing everything and I know about giving into madness. [ She supposes this would be the time to say something poignant. Instead, she continues with- ] Both really, really suck.

[ushahin]

I am young for an Ellyl and extraordinarily old for a Man. Quite the paradox, wouldn't you say?

[Just another way the two sides of his nature are always at war without one another. He would never find perfect balance, though he'd long since accepted that about himself. Her words, so blunt, make him smile a little. He reaches out and pats her hand gently.]

Indeed they do. But I have found they have an advantage. Once that happens, there is very little to be afraid of anymore, for everything you have feared has come to pass.

[hasitsthorns]

Seems like it. But it makes you that much more interesting, dude!

[ Rose admits that the uncertainty of the future can make her anxious, but never afraid. She's afraid of men like the one who captured her all those years ago, Kite. She's afraid of losing the battle with her mind on the worst ideas she has about herself. Those things scare her more than anything unknown the gods here could throw at her. ]

We don't fear the unknown, we fear the worst things that have already happened to us. Some famous human said that, I think.

[ushahin]

I believe that was a very wise man. For it is true that what I feared most was loss and it has all come to pass. Now, here, all I fear is the loss of those I care about. So the pattern continues onward.

[It's always comes down to patterns with Ushahin. It's how he views the world, everything interconnected like a spider's web.]

[hasitsthorns]

[ History does have a tendency to repeat itself. Humanity looks to the past to prevent it, but... That doesn't seem to work very well, does it? They learned about the first world war only to have a second one, and so on.

But mortals are flawed. And so are her kind, despite them not wanting to admit it. ]

Yeah, I think I fear kind of the same thing. I don't want to lose my friends again.

[ushahin]

Well, you won't lose me. I'm not going anywhere.

[There was nothing left for him in Urulat but to know the final fate of the Were. He was glad not to have to watch his adopted people wither and fade away.]

[hasitsthorns]

[ Ah. The smile that lights her face at that is an earnest one full of sincerity. It's a rarity most people don't get to experience. ]

Good to know. I'm in it for the long haul too, so. Not going it alone will be nice.