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Soldier,
If Loid didn't decide to intervene on our behalf and your mother didn't decide to intervene for her many mysterious reasons, you'll get this around the time I fall through the mirror again. To answer; yes, it hurts like a bitch, no, I won't do the Helminth jump again. That is a nightmare you live through once and never risk twice.
Look. I don't mind being your punching bag. Hell, soldier, I'm everyone's punching bag, in more ways than one. But you called this easy, and I got… so angry. I had to leave. I knew better, and I didn't want you to see me go down that spiral.
I get it. You're hurting. I'm overjoyed that you're still brave enough to let yourself hurt, and terrified of the day you get numb. But this shit, on this side of it? This is a different hell. It just happens to look more fun than it is.
Remember to sleep.
-D.
d /
you look like its easy / you never cry or yell or scream or bleed / how do I tell when you struggle / how do I tell when you fail / battlefields have blood and bone and you do not bleed /
you have friends family loved ones / your hair turns blacker your eyes glow more / I saw the way the Orokin devil looks at you / I saw the way the Stalker unhates you / I see the way Lotus trusts you /
you do not weep you do not bleed you do not break /
tell me how it is hard then / if you do not sound the creaking the knocking the knocking under the weight /
op /
Soldier,
I do creak. I just don't let you see it.
You know how I wear those really thick sleeves on my right arm, and how I don't let Lotus touch me on the right side? I don't have an arm on that side. It's all Sentient flesh and Void shit, now, all the way to the shoulder. But her hand split mine open, flesh and bone, to take its place in Duviri. It hurts constantly, day in and day out, and I learned to live with it.
Stalker dragged me out of a stupid injury. He doesn't unhate me, like you said, we just… met under different circumstances than you and him. He… trusts? Me? I guess? That's what happens when you pick Archon teeth out of a guy's shoulder and help him patch himself up. He watched me sleep. We have an accord, I guess.
Lotus trusts me because I waged a war for her with nothing but a pistol and Ordis. Less, sometimes, when he had to avoid being involved. I… kept you from the camp, for a while, but you can go there now. All that's there was all I had. And I waged war for her, and I killed Archons for her, and the ache in my shoulder will never let me forget. It doesn't go away with the loop. It just stays, like all the hurts from before the loops.
I… wish I could explain Roathe in a way that wouldn't make you angry. Just know that you should talk to him, really talk to him, face to face. He's proud, sort of like a kavat, but he's… not what the Empire was. He's glad it's gone. Still an Orokin, yeah. Just go talk to him—really talk to him—he'll make sense. I can't tell you he doesn't look at me the way he does. I can tell you it's complicated.
You're asking to know how I creak. I creak in private. Everyone treats me like I'm some… mythical creature, some fairy tale brought to life, and they're oh so interested in Duviri, that land of dreams, that universe woven whole cloth from me. It's all anyone looks at. I fought a war, Hanzo. Alone. I didn't have other Tenno, I barely had Ordis, and it took Natah—Lotus—whoever she is, it took her being on the brink of unmaking before I could risk going to Hunhow. I run between paradoxes to keep the sands of time going the right ways, plastering fucking Peely Pix stickers all over the little cracks until it mends itself.
I go round and round in Duviri. A crownless king, Eleanor called me, and now Mathila calls the same. The thing is, though, I don't get to let my guard down, or that kingdom burns. Ever. I tried, once, I got so comfortable for a moment. It was between the Sanctum and the mall, I was so relaxed, my spirals getting a little better, he got in. He got in and he sent me on a spiral of emotions that left me hollow and… empty, on the inside, even after I threw him and his puppet out. Happens every once in a while. Not indifference, no, just… emptiness. Like he made dust of it all, that I still care yet I have nothing to care with. Horrid thing, that.
And in the midst of it all, I die. Over and over again, a dozen times to patch a paradox, a dozen more to keep things out, a dozen more to stabilize myself. Over and over. And it hurts, and my body hurts, and there are days that I wonder if I could just stay in bed and rot.
-D.
d /
you bleed /
op /
Soldier,
I bleed.
-D.
d /
your lovers / your friends / the family you made /
do they know / do you not lean / do they not help /
op /
Soldier,
They try. Truth be told, they do their best. I'm just worse than they know. Ask Ordis about the early days of me trying to function outside of the Void. Wasn't pretty.
They're fascinated by Duviri. They… forget that I hurt too, I think, because I try so hard to appear normal. They forget that the reset thing sucks way more than I let on. Sometimes they'll ask me, beg me, to reset them. And I oblige them, every time, because I love them too much to deny it. Sometimes I die a little too hard, and it happens… Somehow.
And I'm a stranger again. And I know more about them than they know about me… again. And I try to pretend, and they try to pretend, and they have to work through their hesitation… again. And I am an outsider. And I will always be an outsider. Even as I fall in love over and over again with two souls I thought would get tired of me eventually.
It is, you know, a little fucked that you look at the fact I fell in love, even a little, and assume the rest of this is easy because of that. You ever go from having nothing to lose to being terrified of losing anything? I've got you, Loid, the Cavia, the Entratis... all this, in one hand. I've got the paradoxes, all of them, in the other. I mess up, I die a little too hard, and one or all of you forget me for a while. Every time I die, even for a second, even in a flicker of a mistake... and it's all gone, again.
-D.
d /
they hurt you / you carry on loving them / is it worth the blood /
op /
Soldier,
Every drop.
-D.
d /
I am sorry for hurting / I did not mean to / you are safe to blame sometimes / you do not leave strike starve cut cut cut c /
Lotus tried to cut my hair /
the rebellion drowns me out / my friends are dead and gone / Adis / the Vanguard / they die and die and die and die / but you die and stay and they die and go /
it is hard to understand / it is hard to not hate you for dying and staying / my friends are gone and I forgot / she made me forget and I forgot and I dreamed / everyone who loves me dies and dies and dies /
it is not your fault / it is not her fault / I feel /
alone / guilty /
op /
Soldier,
It's not your fault. I know it doesn't change much to read it, but it isn't. You were kids. You should have been playing adventure games, not solving interplanetary war.
Adis would hate to see you blame yourself for this. He gave you his light. That means it's a part of you, which means any hate or guilty judgement you feel toward yourself, you're giving to him, too. Could you try to be kind to yourself, even if it's for his sake?
-D.
d /
for his sake /
op /
Soldier,
Good. Thank you. That's all I can ask.
I think we can talk again. In person. I think I owe you a hug, and we can try to let Lotus trim your hair together, okay? I'm with you, now and always.
Before you ask; no, I'm not mad at you. You hurt me, sure, but I think you just kind of needed to know you're not alone in hell. You can I can discuss the Rebellion over some snacks, and we'll call this even, okay? And yes, you're allowed to cry. Aoi tells me it's healthy or something.
-D.
d /
can I bring my floof /
op /
Soldier,
Sure. I'll get Loid to set out an extra plate.
See you soon. Love you. Love you.
-D.
d /
thank you /
love you /
op /