It's not my first time staving off an infection with minimal supplies. If I've survived with less before, so can you.
[said like it hasn't been a terrible experience each time. it's fine.]
... I was taken hostage by the borisin. They let me go to have me scout the gates of a great ship, fully under the belief I would return to them. [still a bit pissed off by it.] ... And then I ran into Childe. He was alive, and mara-struck.
[Richie looks to him with a brow raised. Okay, fair, considering his whole era, but also no thank you?]
You're putting an awful lot of faith in a soft child-of-the-future like me. Who knows! Maybe I'll die right next to you in this conversation. We're just not built for hardship anymore.
[But ah, we are getting serious. He quiets, head tilted as he takes it in. It lines up with a few of the wisps and flashes he saw while in his own personal hell. Still, it takes him by surprise.]
Childe? [Not like he was bosom-buddies with the man, but he knew he'd meant something to Mizu. And the illness itself was no joke. He blows out a breathe and shakes his head.]
Don't be. [PLEASE DON'T BE SORRY FOR CHILDE..........] Considering we saw Marcoh there and he has no recollection of any of it, it's possible Childe wasn't even a real person in the first place.
[not to mention ringo but mizu is still "........." about that.]
dead, but not here. and being sent back is unlikely to let him change anything about it, since it happened minutes before... for once, mizu's expression softens. just a bit.]
[hmmm... hate that! mizu is quiet for a moment, lips pressed together in a fine line.]
Perhaps there is some truth to that. [drums fingers against the cushion, thinking.] Perhaps there is a god or a devil who has decided we are escaping our punishment by being participating in this program, and they have decided to take matters into their own hands.
Richie lets his head roll to better look him over. He's weary of course, but even then oddly reserved. Mulling over something with dire implications.]
Could be. [Seems to be. Even so, the idea doesn't sit right with him.] Have we all sinned so much we're deserving of this?
[This being their wounds. The salt poured into them, the lunacy and the weekend ballyhoo. A rug pull just when they though there was a helping hand to reach for, flicking the off switch on the guiding light.]
Maybe you or me. Sure. By some divine force's measure, maybe we need to get raked over the coals. I can't imagine someone like Koharu has earned that kind of judgment.
I am a murderer. I'm not surprised to be punished for my deeds in life. But there are others who are... soft. Kind. Children, like Koharu. [a sigh.] I was told we didn't make the cut for arbitrary reasons. I assume the same applies to those like her, too.
[It's not as if he thought Mizu carried the sword for show. Even so, it's a blatant admission. Not even couching it in self-soothing words to ease his ego. Less high-minded morals than a lot of others maybe, or just realistic enough to know it doesn't matter.
Richie, on the other hand, is forever outclassed and outdone by his fellow souls. If you wanted to squint at the issue, you could call him a killer. You'd catch him more handily on vice, but since when did that warrant being literally eaten alive?]
...I suppose if making the cut is arbitrary, then maybe punishment is too.
[Not looking forward to that. Seeing kids pay for things grown folks would shudder to pony up for.]
Why did you? Kill, I mean? [He's feeling a little woozy from the day. It's a bad one, and he'll need to rest soon, as will Mizu no doubt, but he's got a mind to chase a few threads before he goes.] You're free to tell me to go fuck myself for asking, by the way. I'd get it.
[sometimes... you even tell multiple people on the intro mingle and the npc intro post about it. acknowledging you're a murderer and feeling remorse are two very different things.]
I have killed many men. And I will kill many more if I am sent back. [very bluntly.] I made a vow. If god expects me to abandon it as part of my redemption, they will be sorely disappointed.
[Richie is quiet a moment. Out of his time, out of his depth, even out of his damn mind.
He could ask what for. He can imagine things. Wrongs to be righted, slights, family members cut down, Shakespearian betrayals. It won't be pretty, and it might sour whatever small concession is being made to have this conversation. Either for Mizu's patience or his own morals.
If you told him you were a stone cold killer back in Los Angeles, he'd be looking for an exit and calling the cops. Here?
Richie sighs and shakes his head.]
My goodness, Mizu. You really are straight out of the myths of old. Nobody commits to the bit so hard in my day — not with such a cool head, anyway. I can think of maybe two: the one is only after a single target, and the other is nuttier than a sack of peanuts. One-man-armies are hard to come by in peace times.
[He shrugs.]
Hell, maybe there is a legend about you somewhere. I'll check the library if I ever make it back.
[sometimes, the guy who has been threatening to kill you as a joke for weeks is, in fact, a serial killer. mizu watches his reaction carefully for a moment, before scoffing.]
Hah. I doubt it. Even if we both came from the same worlds, centuries apart, there is no man out there who would record my deeds. A creature of shame would be considered better off forgotten by history.
[And yet, he will continue to not take a single threat seriously....meet me in the murder doc quynn]
Oh, you'd be surprised. People love a bloody sensation.
[He tilts his head though, eyes closing a moment as a wave of dizziness pulses through him. He grimaces and puts his hand to his bandaged shoulder. Keeps a pressure there. Steels himself through the wave of pain.]
...I don't get what's so "shameful" about you, though. Or "creature"-like, for that matter.
White men, such as yourself, are banned from entering my country. It has been the law for decades now.
[looks at him, holding his gaze for a moment like the problem here should be obvious. but, well, they've got so many people here with a variety of eye colors, regardless of their race. it's not as blatantly obvious here. not like mizu is used to.
sighs and settles a bit more into the cushions. richie should probably settle down, too, because he's about to get hit with so much internalized racism.]
... There were four white men in the country at the time I was born. Traders in opium, weapons and flesh. One of those men took my mother and impregnated her — with me. My very existence is considered monstrous in the eyes of men.
Richie meets that gaze. And suddenly, it clicks. Oh sure, on meeting him he'd thought "Oh that's unusual", looking into glassy blue eyes, and then moved on without a second thought. But genetics played more footloose and fancy free than you'd expect. You had biracial babies sprouting ginger hair when red genes ought to concede to champion heavyweights like black or brown. Sometimes you got amber eyes, or albinism, or any number of things in between. Taair had the colouring of a Scandinavian but the features and name of a South Asian noble. Not to mention Elysia's hair was cotton candy pink. An unexpected blue was not thing too shocking at home, and certainly easy to overlook here.
Mizu, on the other hand, is of a very tempestuous time and place. Richie's gut sinks as the details come in like whacks from a hammer. Decisive, hard, and damning. He's quiet in their wake. Lord, what could he even say?]
...Yeah. That sounds about right. [He lets his burning shoulder go, tentative, to right his glasses on his face.] We have...a long and storied history of being the worst thing to ever happen to a place. Any place. There's still fallout happening centuries after the fact. Maybe a lot of us have wised up but it's not the sort of thing you can smooth over with a bouquet of roses and an apology card.
[Hoo boy, could they get into it. Mizu you have no idea what all you've missed.
Except that's only half the problem. He purses his lips, chancing meeting his eyes. Icy blue. Barely a chance to disguise it, huh?]
Maybe it's pointless to say, but people have eased up about it. Being mixed race. Or any race for that matter. Sure you still got your bigoted assholes — there was a real piece of work in my hometown — but they're fewer and further between. Anybody with a lick of sense and half a heart knows a body's just a body. No matter the shape, size, or colour.
...Still. I'm sorry. [He sighs heavy, and lets his focus flick back to his own knees.] I can't imagine what it might have been like.
[quietly. obviously mulling over those words, and for more reasons that richie could possibly know or understand right now.]
Sounds like a pretty lie. Though... perhaps not an impossible one, I suppose. At home, everyone knows my shame as plain as my face. Yet none of you seem to care, or even notice. [hmm.] This is a strange place.
To be fair, it's also a place where guys have dog ears and Wis'adel has that thing floating behind her at all times. Hell, Koharu has wings. Easy to overlook anything more subtle than that.
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[said like it hasn't been a terrible experience each time. it's fine.]
... I was taken hostage by the borisin. They let me go to have me scout the gates of a great ship, fully under the belief I would return to them. [still a bit pissed off by it.] ... And then I ran into Childe. He was alive, and mara-struck.
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You're putting an awful lot of faith in a soft child-of-the-future like me. Who knows! Maybe I'll die right next to you in this conversation. We're just not built for hardship anymore.
[But ah, we are getting serious. He quiets, head tilted as he takes it in. It lines up with a few of the wisps and flashes he saw while in his own personal hell. Still, it takes him by surprise.]
Childe? [Not like he was bosom-buddies with the man, but he knew he'd meant something to Mizu. And the illness itself was no joke. He blows out a breathe and shakes his head.]
Already in rage? Or still stable?
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[KIDS THESE DAYS... "richie is older" not chronologically it still works......]
Stable, but starting to go. [...] I hastened its progression.
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[omg mizu is a cradlerobber...it is best they were divorced]
Mm. [He purses his lips. Easy to read between the lines, there.] That's a real pity. I'm sorry.
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[not to mention ringo but mizu is still "........." about that.]
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[He mulls it over a moment. Then, hesitantly.]
Eddie was real. He was my friend from home. Used to be.
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[His eyes lock firmly on the floor, mouth a prim line.]
He passed about three to five minutes before I did. Both in reality and in...whatever the fuck that was.
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dead, but not here. and being sent back is unlikely to let him change anything about it, since it happened minutes before... for once, mizu's expression softens. just a bit.]
I see. My condolences, Rich.
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...Thank you. It's all right.
[He'd had a bit of an episode earlier. He's not keen to repeat it with anyone else. Just—]
You know what the real kicker is? [He points to his own shoulder with the one hand left to him.] In real life, he lost the other one.
If there is a god or a devil behind all of this, they've got a hell of a sense of humor. I'll tell you that.
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Perhaps there is some truth to that. [drums fingers against the cushion, thinking.] Perhaps there is a god or a devil who has decided we are escaping our punishment by being participating in this program, and they have decided to take matters into their own hands.
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Richie lets his head roll to better look him over. He's weary of course, but even then oddly reserved. Mulling over something with dire implications.]
Could be. [Seems to be. Even so, the idea doesn't sit right with him.] Have we all sinned so much we're deserving of this?
[This being their wounds. The salt poured into them, the lunacy and the weekend ballyhoo. A rug pull just when they though there was a helping hand to reach for, flicking the off switch on the guiding light.]
Maybe you or me. Sure. By some divine force's measure, maybe we need to get raked over the coals. I can't imagine someone like Koharu has earned that kind of judgment.
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Richie, on the other hand, is forever outclassed and outdone by his fellow souls. If you wanted to squint at the issue, you could call him a killer. You'd catch him more handily on vice, but since when did that warrant being literally eaten alive?]
...I suppose if making the cut is arbitrary, then maybe punishment is too.
[Not looking forward to that. Seeing kids pay for things grown folks would shudder to pony up for.]
Why did you? Kill, I mean? [He's feeling a little woozy from the day. It's a bad one, and he'll need to rest soon, as will Mizu no doubt, but he's got a mind to chase a few threads before he goes.] You're free to tell me to go fuck myself for asking, by the way. I'd get it.
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[sometimes... you even tell multiple people on the intro mingle and the npc intro post about it. acknowledging you're a murderer and feeling remorse are two very different things.]
I have killed many men. And I will kill many more if I am sent back. [very bluntly.] I made a vow. If god expects me to abandon it as part of my redemption, they will be sorely disappointed.
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He could ask what for. He can imagine things. Wrongs to be righted, slights, family members cut down, Shakespearian betrayals. It won't be pretty, and it might sour whatever small concession is being made to have this conversation. Either for Mizu's patience or his own morals.
If you told him you were a stone cold killer back in Los Angeles,
he'd be looking for an exit and calling the cops. Here?
Richie sighs and shakes his head.]
My goodness, Mizu. You really are straight out of the myths of old. Nobody commits to the bit so hard in my day — not with such a cool head, anyway. I can think of maybe two: the one is only after a single target, and the other is nuttier than a sack of peanuts. One-man-armies are hard to come by in peace times.
[He shrugs.]
Hell, maybe there is a legend about you somewhere. I'll check the library if I ever make it back.
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Hah. I doubt it. Even if we both came from the same worlds, centuries apart, there is no man out there who would record my deeds. A creature of shame would be considered better off forgotten by history.
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Oh, you'd be surprised. People love a bloody sensation.
[He tilts his head though, eyes closing a moment as a wave of dizziness pulses through him. He grimaces and puts his hand to his bandaged shoulder. Keeps a pressure there. Steels himself through the wave of pain.]
...I don't get what's so "shameful" about you, though. Or "creature"-like, for that matter.
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White men, such as yourself, are banned from entering my country. It has been the law for decades now.
[looks at him, holding his gaze for a moment like the problem here should be obvious. but, well, they've got so many people here with a variety of eye colors, regardless of their race. it's not as blatantly obvious here. not like mizu is used to.
sighs and settles a bit more into the cushions. richie should probably settle down, too, because he's about to get hit with so much internalized racism.]
... There were four white men in the country at the time I was born. Traders in opium, weapons and flesh. One of those men took my mother and impregnated her — with me. My very existence is considered monstrous in the eyes of men.
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Richie meets that gaze. And suddenly, it clicks. Oh sure, on meeting him he'd thought "Oh that's unusual", looking into glassy blue eyes, and then moved on without a second thought. But genetics played more footloose and fancy free than you'd expect. You had biracial babies sprouting ginger hair when red genes ought to concede to champion heavyweights like black or brown. Sometimes you got amber eyes, or albinism, or any number of things in between. Taair had the colouring of a Scandinavian but the features and name of a South Asian noble. Not to mention Elysia's hair was cotton candy pink. An unexpected blue was not thing too shocking at home, and certainly easy to overlook here.
Mizu, on the other hand, is of a very tempestuous time and place. Richie's gut sinks as the details come in like whacks from a hammer. Decisive, hard, and damning. He's quiet in their wake. Lord, what could he even say?]
...Yeah. That sounds about right. [He lets his burning shoulder go, tentative, to right his glasses on his face.] We have...a long and storied history of being the worst thing to ever happen to a place. Any place. There's still fallout happening centuries after the fact. Maybe a lot of us have wised up but it's not the sort of thing you can smooth over with a bouquet of roses and an apology card.
[Hoo boy, could they get into it. Mizu you have no idea what all you've missed.
Except that's only half the problem. He purses his lips, chancing meeting his eyes. Icy blue. Barely a chance to disguise it, huh?]
Maybe it's pointless to say, but people have eased up about it. Being mixed race. Or any race for that matter. Sure you still got your bigoted assholes — there was a real piece of work in my hometown — but they're fewer and further between. Anybody with a lick of sense and half a heart knows a body's just a body. No matter the shape, size, or colour.
...Still. I'm sorry. [He sighs heavy, and lets his focus flick back to his own knees.] I can't imagine what it might have been like.
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[quietly. obviously mulling over those words, and for more reasons that richie could possibly know or understand right now.]
Sounds like a pretty lie. Though... perhaps not an impossible one, I suppose. At home, everyone knows my shame as plain as my face. Yet none of you seem to care, or even notice. [hmm.] This is a strange place.
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Yes. And there were many people who didn't even find any of those things strange, either.