deercountry | you can keep on getting better [open]

Entry tags:

you can keep on getting better [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: May catchall
When: May
Where: A bar in Cellar Door, other locations to come

Content Warnings: Light alcohol use, conversations about humanity and murder, blood, vampirism

a. if you want, you can buy yourself a drink [at the bar]

[anna's made plans with a couple people to hang out this month. it's not a tense environment at all, and sometimes she can even be seen on the tiny little stage playing some chilled out bass grooves for the patrons. no concrete songs, really, mostly just improv for vibes. when she's not on stage, and most of the time she's not, she's nestled herself down into a booth down near the end. it's quiet, well-lit but not obtrusively so. people around here know her and know that that's basically her seat, so any conversations that happen there are as private as they're gonna get.]

[she's expecting a few people to show up as she nurses a beer that's so weak she might as well not be drinking anything at all. probably for the best that she's sober for these talks, whatever they end up bringing with them.]

Hey. Glad you could make it. [she tilts her drink at her guest.]

b. no you'll never drink like me [for kainé]

[there's always been a few problems with going out and hunting beasts, no matter how confident and comfortable it makes anna feel. no matter how many lives she saves, she's always putting herself at risk of corruption or injury or beasthood or all three, and one of these days it's gonna sneak up on her. all at once, extremely loudly and incredibly close.]

[anyway, when she comes back home this time, it's clear that she's been in better shape. she limps her way into the house, and she's at least cognizant enough to fix her roommate/girlfriend with a sheepish little look as she holds her side. the cloth there isn't dripping yet, but it's clear that it didn't start as red as it is now.]

Motherfucker out there got the best of me. [she's talking like she's not in pain, or like she's trying very hard to pretend she isn't.] I think I stopped most of the bleeding myself. Don't suppose we've got anything here that can help seal it up before I go to the doctor?

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More than you could even guess.

[she wasn't sure if she wanted to go too deep into it right now. everything she had was theories until she could confirm it, and even then she still wanted to—god fucking help her, she still wanted to go to him to talk about it when she was done. no point in rumormongering. at least, not too much.]

We either come from the same world, or worlds close enough to each other to be the same. That's why I trusted him in the first place. But I think I'm learning more about him, and it's... not painting the best picture in the world. Which is weird, right? Usually you can trust people with jet black eyes.

[She made a Pfffft sound and snickered, shaking her head as she did so. Look, that statement about trusting the ones with jet black eyes just amused her. When the giggles settled, she nodded once and typed. Deep down, when she'd met him, he'd been performing necromancy pretty openly so she had never had an illusion that he was a great person.]

He seems like a guy with some seriously shady power.
And you don't get power like that without doing the shady things to get it.
That doesn't mean he can't be useful in the process.

Just gotta be careful.

Yeah.

[sigh. she won't go into the things she knows for a fact by now, nor the things that she's speculating very, very strongly about. she would love to, but... well. okay. dammit, fuck, maybe she will.]

I know this doesn't mean a lot to you because Remnant's not the same as where I'm from by a long shot. But I'm starting to catch a lot of similarities between the dead planets that Teacher calls himself the Emperor of and the very alive planets that make up my solar system back home. So I think he's a little more than just shady.

So, if I understand what you're saying correctly?
It's not so much that he's done shady things and has creepy, dangerous powers and iffy ethics.
It's the fact that it really sounds a lot like he's one of the creepy, dangerous ones from home?
The sort who made your world the way it is?

[she thought she had an idea of what was being said here. And... oof, that was a thing.]

He sounds like he's from my future.

[might as well say it. she's already broken the seal, and there's no point in hiding it any longer.]

He sounds like he's from my future, and he's... if he's not responsible for the death of my solar system, then he at least took advantage of it to build an empire in my galaxy's ashes. And I still haven't ruled out that he might be the reason A2's planet was destroyed.

...

[She was just looking at her for a moment, frowning and then finally nodding. Just once. Only once. Yeah. that was ... that was a thing.]

Are you deciding if you care enough to do something about it?

I know I care enough.

[still, that's a good question to ask. for someone unfamiliar with this dilemma up until about 20 seconds ago, NP is doing a good job cutting to the heart of it.]

I don't want to come after him without proof. And... if I'm right, and he can kill planets that easily, then what's stopping him from killing me, too? In a way that I can't come back from.

[Well... considering she'd lived her life seeking vengeance, yeah. She thought it was a possible way someone might have responded.]

So. I don't think that anyone can do that here.
I'm actually pretty sure that that level of power doesn't exist in Trench.
Otherwise, there's people that they would have tried that on already like Salem.
But I definitely get why you're cautious.

Besides, even if he couldn't make you not come back?
You don't want to risk dying, not when you have to actually get your vengeance.
And you want to be dead sure it's him that needs the vengeance.

You want help?

[she looks down at the words, then at her dim reflection in the shiny wood of the table.]

I'll want help when I go after him. He might not have all the power of a god, but he has enough of it. I just don't want people to be throwing themselves into a meat grinder, either. [a gentle thump of her chest.]

A2 wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we did that.

[A quick nod and she waved the concern away.]

I appreciate you worrying about me.
But just remember I've been in the revenge business for years.
So, I do know the risks if this ever happens, ok?

I know you know, NP. But it's... I don't know. It's a new business for me.

[it's not as new as she would want it to seem. but it's close enough; this is the closest she's come to ever actually doing something about it, instead of doing a lot of stupid posturing online about it to someone who wasn't listening.]

Me as Anna, I mean. A2 burned herself out on revenge a long time ago. I think... I think she might not like the things I might end up having to do, if I promised her some peace. [she pushed her hair back and exposed her eyepatch, then left her hand there at her hairline for a second or two while she spoke.] Don't know what I'm gonna ask of her yet but I hope she finds a way to forgive me.

I get it, I think.
And besides, you're being a good friend who doesn't want friends hurt.

Is it maybe that you're less interested in getting vengeance for this situation.
And that you're looking for a chance to find some of that peace one way or another.
And make dead sure he doesn't do the same thing here?

[It was a shot in the dark, but she tried it. Anna didn't sound full of wrath and spite, but deep caution and concern.]

Yeah... yeah.

[there went NP again, cutting right to the heart of things.]

I don't want to lose what we have. What I have, what you have, what... all of us have, you know? Even if it's not perfect. [she knew there was more for them all to want.] It's the closest to peace a lot of us have gotten, and the last thing I want is someone tearing it all down for some stupid gambit that he isn't even sure will work. You know, if that's even his plan. I could be the one out of my mind here.

Edited 2022-06-14 21:10 (UTC)

[It probably helped a lot that Neopolitan was just basically full tilt on the vengeance wavelength. She was just kind of used to thinking in this sort of way at times. Also helped that Anna'd opened up to her in the past. She nodded.]

So, I don't know with him, but you're not crazy, not really.
Some folks, like say Maul, occasionally just try to re-open their old wounds and plans.
I know I was pretty damned guilty of that from day one when I got here, for a while.
So, if he thinks this "plan" of his is something worth having wherever he is?
He might be crazy enough to try it.

But if, say, it really would have only mattered to him over there?
Most of the time, those sorts? They kind of just shelve their plans for later.
Most of the time.

And then there's Salem.
Who just couldn't take a hint that this place isn't Remnant and her pissing match?
It wouldn't do any good for her.

So maybe we just have to find out if he's seriously crazy, or just dangerous.

[anna takes a slow drink as she ponders what kind of crazy teacher could be. she doesn't think she knows yet. everything she's learned about him makes him just seem fake; if there is real pain behind his eyes, it seems like it might have been lost over millennia of following his own stupid quest to make the nine houses know him as god. but if there is that real pain, then she may... she may want to give more credence to that first point.]

I can't tell how real he is. That's the problem. I don't know how ruthless he is, or if he really thinks that he can get away with this shit here, or... if he's even trying to get away with shit in the first place. For all I know, this is all just stuff that happened already and he has no interest in doing it again here.

[she holds her beer up off the table; it's more or less empty by now. like she's debating whether she wants another, she tilts her head one way, then the other.]

He told me once that he doesn't see the point in dragging out old ghosts. That when something's dead, it should stay that way. [she lowers the bottle; it thuds audibly against the wood.] I don't believe him for a fucking second.

[She considered that for a moment. Yeah, that all made sense. basically what it translated to in her head, though, was a simple conundrum. It was a thing that she couldn't possibly say without knowing him intimately in a way that she absolutely did not know him.]

We can only know if he's lying if we know if his sleeping ghost is here.
You can know I'm not because Ruby's here, and I'm not trying to kill her anymore.
So the question is. What's his old ghost?

[she thinks back to the conversation she'd had with teacher. how she'd been so quick to offer to keep her mouth shut, to stop reminding him of the world he left behind. (the world he destroyed? euthanized?) and she inhales, and struggles with confronting the truth here. but as her thoughts move the pieces together into the configuration that makes the most sense to her.]

I think it might be me. [she lets out the rest of that breath.] Or, like. What I represent. A world that he left behind, or a world that just... doesn't exist anymore. I don't know what he wants to do with that. With me. If he wants to do anything with it at all.

[...]

Have you thought about talking with him about this?
on the one hand it's really dangerous considering that you're considering putting him out of everyone's misery.
On the other, there's a possibility he might talk about it to let that ghost lie.

What are you thinking might be your next step?

[She definitely had a concerned face talking about all of this. She didn't want Anna getting in over her head. Ironic, that both of their concerns there were nearly identical for the other.]

I still don't know what I'm gonna do next.

[she hates that she keeps having to admit that, but she doesn't know what she expected.]

I don't exactly know how to go up to this guy and be like "hey, I'm worried I represent a world that doesn't exist anymore and you're gonna go mad with grief and nuke this place because of it" or something. I think I'm just... I'm gonna try to talk to people who are close to him. I know he has a few, and I know that not all of them are all the way up his ass, you know?

If I'm careful about what I say, then I think I can get a good idea of where everyone's at. And that might help me make some hard choices later.

[Hmmmm... ok, yeah. Yeah, that sounded like a sensible idea. Neopolitan nodded vigorously at that.]

If he actually has people from his world?
Yeah, if you can find someone like that who knows him more closely than you do right now?
You can definitely try and feel out what they know.

You're not flying blind then.

Nope. Just half-blind, like always.

[she can make jokes. it's totally normal. but it also really helps to get the opinion of someone she trusts on this, and doubly so that it feels like NP is actually signing off on it.]

It's gonna be fucking weird. Like navigating a minefield. But I think I can pull it off. Just gotta be good at pivoting if shit starts going really bad, but, like. How bad could it really get, anyway?

[she has no idea.]

[She considered for a minute and frowned before shrugging. It could go really really bad, and she knew it.]

You'll let me know how this goes, won't you?
Like I said, I'm here for you in this, Anna.

Always.

[she puts her hand on the back of NP's and fixes her with a smile.]

You're on my short list of people to reach out to if I know I'm about to get my ass handed to me.

Hey, it's always good to know that I have that spot.
Even if that means I get sucked into all kinds of impossible fights at times, heh.
Not that I'd ever want it any other way.

[She gave her a nod right back and winked. Life was too boring if you didn't take risks like making friends with people who might end up fighting the apocalypse.]

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