feistytrader | empatheias IC CONTACT

And you've been teaching me to fight alongside you as an equal, with help from Fergie of course, so that one day I may be able to tame a creature of my own, haven't you?

[She's drawing the line from point to point now, metaphorically speaking.]

...Yes.

[And he sees where White's getting at with this.]

It's not that I don't think you're capable, White. It's just that I... Look, that's not a fight I'm going to pick anyway.

[Even if he wants to. Even if he probably should. That potion just gave him the drive to actually go and do it, didn't it? ...No, that's not it. It just clouded his head enough for him to not care about the consequences.]

Edited 2016-03-16 00:07 (UTC)

[Okay then. That's more reasonable.]

Told you I wouldn't let you out with one of these in you They're pretty powerful.

[Even if she still wants to help him with whatever it is. The centipedes, maybe? Sounds right.]

I also don't want you to overload your systems, so we can stop for today if you'd like. I just wish I could've tested the others too...

...We're almost halfway there. I'm not giving up.

[This is a challenge now, and as much as he isn't having the best time, he still wants to finish what he started.]

[Awww.]

You're the best. Okay, so we've struck out hatred, fear, and distrust. Want to get despair over with? You're supposed to be able to find a glimmer of hope despite whatever situations come to mind.

[But like, with this track record..........]

[Well, hatred did work the way it was supposed to. And so did distrust, kind of.]

Despair, then anger, then sadness, then envy.

[That... seems like the best course of action right now. He takes the bottle of despair and drinks it as quickly as he can, because there's no sense in dragging it out.

It's an emotion he takes quietly; there's ice on his shoes again, and the thoughts of how hopeless his struggle to help monsters or do the right thing or or protect people at home or fight the same fight over and over with his father come straight at him. But at the center of all those thoughts is an understanding, and one that he's all too familiar with. It's the understanding that no matter how hopeless things may seem, he has to keep fighting, because...

Because why, exactly? Because no one else will? Because the situations really are hopeless if he doesn't even try? Normally, he'd believe in that, but now, it feels like so much more of a struggle.]

...It could use a little more hope.

[He really doesn't like despair.]

[She figured envy would be last. He'd declined to have it at first, after all.]

I'll keep that in mind. It... was pretty hard for me to get out of it myself.

[To the point of things literally starting to go up in fire around her, because apparently that's how her brand of despair works (even if she's got a huge fear of fires like that), and the cleanser hadn't ever come to mind in her resulting panic. She's only lucky that she hadn't been anywhere particularly walked through when she was testing her first batches.]

I think I ended up just sitting the whole ten minutes with it, actually. [She purses her lips, but the bottle she sets down is bright enough that it practically shines with hope and courage.] That was fun.

[Silver just... decides to sit on the floor and not really do anything, because. You know. What's the damn point, anyway.]

How'd the other ones affect you?

[Might as well make some conversation so those ten minutes pass faster.]

[See, exactly. Exactly that feeling.

... She'll join him and Weavile.]

Anger made me really aware of my own flaws and what I've said to people in the past, because I'm really stupid, fear was pretty much that I'd... [White hesitates, hugging her legs and focusing on the wooden floor.] That I'd be alone. It did exactly what it should've, in essence, and I don't think I drank a single cleanser faster.

[Her hands had been shaking the entire time, the world seemingly drowning in darkness, and she'd been so afraid she would drop it too...]

Um, envy just made me really wistful for the things that'd go nowhere and how people can have such normal lives where they're from or be a better person than I am and-- stuff like that. Distrust did what it should've, sadness made me cry a lot, and hatred...

[White glances at him, then away.]

Hatred didn't really have much of an effect of me, [off-handed and casual,] kind of like how distrust didn't really have much of one on you.

[But that's a whooole crop of Issues.]

[Don't join him too closely, or you might get iced over.]

...That doesn't mean you hate all the time, does it? [...] It's like dunamis. You learned to handle it a little better. Maybe a little better than you should have.

[...]

Who do you hate, White?

[It's... really hard to say, but Silver knows pretty much everything minus her entire deal with that guy, so while it feels like ages before she speaks up it's not so long at all. It is quiet though.]

Myself.

Why?

[He asks the question casually enough, but there's some of his nice concerned warmth along with it, too. ...Which is melting the ice.

...Emotions are- no, don't even think it.]

For... a lot of reasons, I guess, but most of all for something I can't tell you.

[What would Silver even think of her? He'd hate her, right? Only fitting, considering she hates herself so much for it. It'd been heat of the moment and fine to tell Junko Enoshima, the fucking mess of Empatheias, about it all, but telling Silver feels like it's too...

scary. She's scared, and the room seems to darken in response.]

A lot of those reasons are connected to the thing I can't tell you. Sorry.

[...The thing she can't tell him. Well, that's fine, because there are things that he can't tell her too.]

Does it have to do with that other... No, I won't call him that. He called himself... Something with despair.

[Silver pushes up his bangs to give a proper impression.]

[From the flinch, it's hitting the nail on the head, and in tandem with the darkness there's a new heaviness pressing down as well. Her narrowed eyes and cautiousness don't help the situation either.]

How much do you know about that?

...All I know is that he's some pretentious jerk.

[Looks like he really nailed it, huh...]

Edited 2016-03-18 03:16 (UTC)

[Reaaaally nailed it, though whatever relief she has at the moment vanishes as she realizes that her reaction's given enough away as is.

At least hatred's a fond friend of hers or this would be worse off. There's still some of the wood rotting though. Just a bit of decay.]

He, um. He calls himself... the King of Despair, and for the past three years he's had free rein of my brother's body. By my brother's choice.

[There's so much more to this than just that, but it's coming out in bits and pieces.]

...They share a body?

[But White you said it was another- she lied.

Like a liar.]

Why would he want to share a body with that guy?

[She had to lie. It's not something she can speak so freely of, and even now it's obvious that it's something she's not wanting to talk about too much.]

To protect me. As long as that guy doesn't involve me in anything he does, he can do whatever he wants with Black's body.

[But it's-- kind of hard to understand, she guesses, without know why exactly.]

Before he was kind of a giant ball of blue energy. That's why they have to share a body. It was me or him, and I-- I couldn't move, I couldn't speak until it was already too late and he-- he--

[There's no way she's keeping it together, not when the memory's surfacing so harshly again, but breaking down now feels so stupid that she just buries her face away, shaking, trying for a deep breath and getting strained sobs instead.]

[On one hand, he should probably be appropriately horrified that some insane blue energy thing exists in Black's body.

...On the other hand, being horrified implies he has any capacity for anything other than accepting despair in him at the moment, so instead he just kind of tugs White into a hug and calls it a day.]

I'm sorry.

[For making her talk about this. For making her think about it again.

Then again, she probably has to think about it all the time...]

Edited 2016-03-18 04:18 (UTC)

[Every day she looks at Black she remembers that there's another thing inside of him. Every day she remembers how useless she was in keeping her promise to her dad, as silly as it was to ask an eleven year old to keep an eye on her big brother, how powerless she felt and the fear that asides in her still at the thought of blue fire. And every single day the King of Despair doesn't talk to her her fear grows more and more.

It should be a spot of happiness and hope that he's kept quiet. But it only serves as a thorn of worry in her side, since they'd been in contact before they'd come here, and no news is bad news when it comes to him.]

I'm sorry for lying to you. But how could I have ever explained that to a total stranger? I'm scared that if something happens, that if that jerk does something to hurt someone else, that Black'll be blamed and I won't be able to do anything again. That I'll just be on the sidelines as useless as I was that day.

[Silver's such a lovely tissue to use, and she's cried more on him than she's had on like, anyone else. She feels a mess and boy is self-loathing such a lovely constant in her life.]

I wouldn't tell something like that to a stranger either. You don't have to apologize to me.

[He rubs her back gently; it's the most he can do to comfort her at this point.]

...Do you have a plan for if something like that happens? Is there any way to prevent it?

[I mean it sounds like a pretty hopeless situation but he might as well ask- man, this potion is annoying.]

[Oh no that's not just the potion, apparently, because White's shaking her head.]

Not... really. If he wants to hurt someone, then he'll do it. There's nothing Black and I can do to stop it.

[She sniffles, closing her eyes to focus on the warmth Silver provides in comfort, and breathes out. As exhausted as she is, it's easy for the rest to spill out.]

... Mostly. That night when I lost my brother, I made a deal of my own with him: That I'd be willing to do anything to get Black back. No matter what it was, no matter who I'd have to hurt, I'd do anything I could to help him so that he'd keep Black by my side. As long as that holds, then he's more likely to come to me and ask me to do something than to do it on his own, I think.

[So... that's the second part of their deal. It's not the whole of why she hates herself, but it's part.]

And it holds here. He told me so when we first arrived. So that might help, a little, but as a whole it's hopeless.

...You're in a tough situation.

[Not that he would have done any better if it was Blue. That's just the way family is. ...Or most family, anyway.]

Let me know if I can help, okay? I'm not going to help that guy, but that doesn't mean that I can't help you.

[Even if it's with something as simple as this.]

How are you such a good person?

[It's such a weird question, she knows that, and a part of her wonders if he'd still feel the way he does knowing that she befriended someone just to use him. That, as tough as it is, she'd drop him in a moment's notice for her brother. That she really honestly believes she could.]

-- Nevermind, it's a stupid question. I'm sorry for being a mess. Thanks for the offer though.

[All she'd wanted to do was test her stupid experiments and she ended up dragging it down. Stupid, stupid, stupid.]

empatheias IC CONTACT

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