hadriel | four ❀ text

Hey. I spend a fair amount of time in the orchard, weeding and taking care of plants and stuff. It doesn't need as much work as it would if we were growing it entirely ourselves, but that's no reason not to keep it in good condition. I know I'm not the only one - maybe we could start working together? Coordinate our efforts, I guess.

Plus, I don't even know if half the stuff that grows in there tastes good. I'm wondering if some of it might even be things people would recognize, but there's just so many different things it's impossible to tell. Anyway. Let me know if you're interested.

Oh - and I guess I'm on Sorrow's team. So take a couple minutes out of your day to think about what a waste of time being here is. All the stuff you should be doing at home, all the people you miss, all the shitty things that have happened since you came here and all the great things you're missing out on. Go tell your best friend - sorry, your best cave friend, since your best friend probably isn't here - so you can feel terrible together.

There. Job done. This is ridiculous, I'm pretty sure it's making me sadder than I'm making anyone else.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Weeding isn't difficult. I've done it before.

[... Yes, you read this right. If you squint and look sideways, Mello is volunteering.]

Thinking about what I should be doing instead of pissing about here doesn't make me sad. It makes me angry.

Do you want to come by and help out sometime?

And yeah. I'm not too good at this - it would be a lot easier to make people mad.

I suppose I could do that. There's not as much here to occupy my time. It would be a change of scenery, at least.

It's not hard to make people here angry. Most of them are already angry that they've been brought here against their wishes.

Yeah. It helps to have things to do - or it helps me, anyway.

Angry is easy, but to make someone sad you usually have to know them pretty well. And then it's going to be a real dick move to use anything they've confided in you.

It seems that the smart move, then, would be not to tell anyone anything about you that they could later use as a weapon against you.

Sure. I did that for a long time. It makes it hard to make friends.

[The Mello who was first brought to Hadriel would've had something dismissive to say on the topic of friendship - that it's overrated, that friends are nothing more than a liability. But Mello has been here nearly a year, at this point, and his attitudes have changed. He's seen firsthand the value of allowing yourself to grow close to another person; he has learned that it is possible to find strength in friendship instead of weakness.]

You're right. It's difficult to make friends without offering a certain degree of honesty about yourself. That's the gamble - weighing the risks of giving that other person information about you against the benefits of friendship, which is deeper and stronger than a mere alliance.

What was it that changed your mind?

It just ends up being a choice. Get close to people, and they'll eventually start learning things about you that you might not want anyone to know. Keep your distance, and you'll be alone.

I met people who were worth getting close to, that's all.

Here? Or before?

Before.

There are good people here, too. But for me, it was before.

I see.

[For Mello, it's only since he's been kept here that he's allowed himself to grow close to people. In his life before, there were too many factors standing in the way, too many higher priorities on which to focus his energies.]

There are good people here. Better people than most of the people I knew before here, actually.

You must have known a lot of terrible people.

[It's not really a judgment. Adam just knows there are a lot of awful people here, too.]

There were a lot of terrible people in the world I came from.

[And Mello himself was more or less one of them. He knows exactly how awful the things he's done are, but he strategically chose them, and he doesn't regret his choices. Mostly. It's only since he's been here in Hadriel that he's begun to reconsider all of the things he's done.]

Harsh conditions drive people to take drastic actions.

Not everybody. There are a few good people out there.

[Not that Adam is one, but he's met them. Gansey might be a genuinely good person.]

Was your world that bad?

A few, yes.

[Very few - he can count on one hand the number of people he's met who he believes are genuinely good. At least half of them are dead.]

The world I'm from was under the thumb of a tyrant bent on shaping the rest of the world in his image, ridding the world of all crime, acting as judge, jury, and executioner in order to achieve this so-called perfection. As you might imagine, it was a nightmare.

That does sound unpleasant.

Was anyone opposing him?

Not many. I was among those who were, though.

Did it have any effect?

Not yet. Not for me, at least - I'm told my efforts did contribute to his downfall, but it's after my time.

That's something, at least. It would be worse to know that you'd accomplished nothing.

You would think so.

[It was satisfying, yes, to hear from Near that Mello had been right, for once. But at the same time, it was something of a hollow victory, coming at too high of a cost and not enough reward.]

That isn't the case?

It's not a victory claimed on the terms I wanted.

Well, I mean. If you weren't around for it, it's hard for it to feel like a victory.

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private text, because no one else needs to know about this 8|

private text, because mello's a nerd

private text, there is no lie here

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