primrosella: (Fragile)
Princess Rosella of Daventry ([personal profile] primrosella) wrote2009-09-13 05:40 pm

Quest 120

[Private//Hackable by Friends]

They didn't come for me.

I killed a witch in her sleep and they didn't come for me. I stole from an ogre, I blinded a set of three hags, I robbed graves...and they didn't come for me. They left me alone. They took the others, they took my friends, but they never came for me.

Am I any less guilty for it?

Maybe I am. Maybe I am different. It'd fit, wouldn't it?

Don't go trying to rescue anyone. Don't come to the prison. Don't look. Don't become one more thing for your friends to worry about. Don't end up like the rest of them.

Is that it? Am I really so different after all?

I think I understand now, Megumi.

[/Private]

I see, now. How very clever. First make the animals attack us, then set the stuffed ones on us, and now treat us all like animals. That's terribly clever, isn't it? Three bad things, all in a row, just as we'd all been expecting, and all to do with animals.

But it begs questions, doesn't it? Why this? Why now? Why are some people taken and others left alone? And who could possibly deserve the things being done to the people in there? Prison, punishment, seeking repentance for sins--that's all well and good, but if you have to resort to torture to seek it, how are you any better than the ones you intend to punish? What does it solve? Where does it stop?

This isn't justice. It makes me sick-- This is suffering for the sake of suffering. Fuel for the clock again, is it?

And now it's said that the island is sinking. The deities have as good as confirmed it, in their roundabout ways--"rats drown with the ship", "tick-tock, get out quick", "time is not on your side". Is it so hard to guess what the "exciting conclusion" might be? And what does that mean for the people that haven't or won't or can't accept the parole that's been offered, I wonder? Or perhaps I don't have to wonder at all.

But perhaps the question that's most important of all is this: do the ends always justify the means? Is it worth it to become a monster to defeat a monster? To punish people with the same methods that they themselves are being punished for? Or does answering evil with evil only result in twice as much evil at the end of it all? When is it poetic justice, and when is it just plain cruelty?

Perhaps it's the reasons behind it, in the end, that make all the difference. And no matter what anyone might say, I have a difficult time believing that any of this is truly being done for our sakes.

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-13 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Try everything you can to get in touch with them. If it really is sinking, after all...try everything you can think of.

They're out, and that's something, at least.

[identity profile] horrible-penny.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
I will. I am.

They have you to look after them, too. That's got to mean just as much as being out.

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
Good. And...let me know if any of them are still on the island, won't you?

I hope so. Some of it, though, only time will heal.

[identity profile] horrible-penny.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
Of course I will.

Well, at least we have plenty of time here. Everything will be okay. Not immediately, but eventually it will be.

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
Good. If I'm to go there, I'll need to know who to look for.

It always gets better. And awful things like this have happened before, and we've gotten through them, too. Still...well.

[identity profile] horrible-penny.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 05:02 am (UTC)(link)
This is pretty horrible. I don't remember anything like this happening as long as I've been here--nothing that hurt so many people in ways that the hospital won't be able to help. Nothing like this happened at home, either. Not on this scale. It's... I don't even know what it is.

Just try to keep looking up, okay? Even the awful things in life can have some good in them.

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
It was something like this in May. When the hair monster came? We couldn't fight that, either, and so many people got hurt, and...

It's hard to hold on, isn't it?

[identity profile] horrible-penny.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Sometimes we can't fight or keep people from getting hurt. The most we can do is help where we can and pick up the pieces... keep smiling, maybe, when no one else has it in them to smile.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. But someone has to hold on.

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 01:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I wonder if it's enough, just holding on. There ought to be more, somehow.

[identity profile] horrible-penny.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Just do what you can do. That's enough. It's more than enough.

Is there something else going on, Rosella?

[identity profile] primrosella.livejournal.com 2009-09-14 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
If you can't do everything, do what you can. If only I could, but no one will--

I'm--no, I'm fine. Just fine. Don't worry about me.