[ There's no answer for a minute because this is all understandably horrifying to read. Her expression darkens and twists the more messages pour in.
She needs some time to scroll back, reread everything, and try to fathom these situations with her limited knowledge. She connects events with what Yuji's told her. She tries to slot Choso into her visualizations and it's like threading the head of a needle with a piece of rope. ]
[ Marcille already has a traumatic relationship with death. Her whole body is tense, her eyes wide and afraid. The group of curses—Choso included, meaning he himself is a curse too, she realizes—did all of that. They wanted to wipe out humanity. In all of their efforts, lives were just numbers and a means to an end. Bile rises in Marcille's throat. A invisible weight crushes hard on her chest.
She thinks back to their first conversation. Choso knows and regrets his mistakes, and he'd said he'd killed countless people too. Marcille chose to accept him then anyway. This shouldn't be a surprise, should it? It hits harder because she has more context now, but it's clear that Yuji holds no malice for Choso at all, even blames himself for these deaths rather than the curses that goaded him. That alone tells her she may not have all of the details of the situation.
And hadn't Marcille killed the Canaries and others, if indirectly? Didn't she kill Mithrun with a direct blow to his head, set a stampede of monsters on the entire dungeon, thinking it all necessary steps to getting what she selfishly wanted?
Her panic slowly subsides the longer she thinks on it and draws on the few similarities they have. Even if it may be the smarter decision, she doesn't want to be afraid of him. She only wants redemption for herself. Why doesn't Choso deserve the same? ]
You wanted vengeance, but you think you were the one ultimately responsible for their deaths? But you didn't do that on purpose, right? Something else killed them
i did not know he was my brother until i nearly killed him. the reaction of my blood to his while he teetered on the precipice of death is what told me the truth of it.
maybe if i had chosen differently, there would be four of us here today.
But why blame yourself for something you didn't know? I'm not saying you and your brothers did nothing wrong but Wouldn't you say the same thing to Yuji if he did what you did?
[ he’d been so quiet the entire time, upright and still as a buddha where he sat in some overgrown public park. (it was easier, see, to fuck around with the optics against the empty backdrop of the sky.) recounting his crimes was less a painful ordeal than it was a bleeding out, mechanical, automatic; a laying out of his bones for this little mage to pore over.
but something of her pressing and her prodding manages to slip through like fingers in his chest cavity, knuckles brushing up featherlight against his living organs. something in her words cradles the raw muscle of his heart, has the whole of him shuddering from the danger of it.
they’re just letters, simple little letters hanging against the blue of a later afternoon, highlighted in bubbles with every raggy cloud that scuds by. they are just words. ]
[ Now they're both crying! Two sensitive crybabies.
The words are still just floating text, so Marcille can't parse the real gravity of them—only that his answer sounds a little raw. ]
See? That by itself doesn't sound evil to me The way you all went about it wasn't great, I won't lie about that... But I think you have a good heart, and I think Yuji would say the same thing. I'm sorry about your brothers, Choso. I really am.
[ it’s a long little while before choso responds again; such is the joy of e-mails and text, or would be if he put the conversation down, could put it down, if he could even bring himself to. but he doesn’t. he reads marcille’s words over again, lets them drift along in the placid, fathomless lake of his psyche like leaves to pluck up and examine. as choso levers himself up to wander and snuffle on the go, he turns each leaf over, imagines her little voice saying it and wonders why it’s such a comforting echo.
choso, he wonders what evils stain marcille’s hands in turn.
eventually, some twenty-four minutes later: ]
thank you marcille i will remember this
[ when he’s feeling down and needs a reminder that there’s a kind little elf who smells like soap out there who has such good words, he means. ]
anything you ever need i will do my best to provide
[ Marcille leaves him be in that time. While some small, inescapable voice in the back of her mind says she may have overstepped or upset him, she ignores it in favor of dressing up her room, doing her hair (again), hanging flowers and herbs to dry near her desk, talking to her golden hummingbird while it zips and spins circles in the air.
So maybe she's self-soothing. She's learned so much about Yuji and Choso's universe that it makes her head spin. It sounds relentless, bathed in blood. If she'd met them at an earlier time in her life, she probably wouldn't have accepted them at all. The recent events in her life back home stripped down her righteousness like a seed, down to its small and selfish core.
Or is she just lonely here, grasping desperately onto whatever small connection she cobbles together? The thought flashes in her head, and then Choso responds.
She's relieved. She sits on her bed and replies: ]
Same to you okay? Yuji needs help but you should take care of yourself too!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
and the deaths of the countless humans we trapped within it
evil has many faces marcille
yours is not one of them
1/2
She needs some time to scroll back, reread everything, and try to fathom these situations with her limited knowledge. She connects events with what Yuji's told her. She tries to slot Choso into her visualizations and it's like threading the head of a needle with a piece of rope. ]
2/2
This is what he was talking about, isn't it?
no subject
1/2 dungeon meshi spoilers
She thinks back to their first conversation. Choso knows and regrets his mistakes, and he'd said he'd killed countless people too. Marcille chose to accept him then anyway. This shouldn't be a surprise, should it? It hits harder because she has more context now, but it's clear that Yuji holds no malice for Choso at all, even blames himself for these deaths rather than the curses that goaded him. That alone tells her she may not have all of the details of the situation.
And hadn't Marcille killed the Canaries and others, if indirectly? Didn't she kill Mithrun with a direct blow to his head, set a stampede of monsters on the entire dungeon, thinking it all necessary steps to getting what she selfishly wanted?
Her panic slowly subsides the longer she thinks on it and draws on the few similarities they have. Even if it may be the smarter decision, she doesn't want to be afraid of him. She only wants redemption for herself. Why doesn't Choso deserve the same? ]
2/2
But that's not how you are anymore.
You all did this because you weren't free?
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but by the time it happened i was just doing it for myself
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i never hated curses, nor sorcerers nor curse users
i only wanted to see my brothers avenged, but i chose the road that killed them
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But you didn't do that on purpose, right? Something else killed them
no subject
i got jumpscared by that icon
:3c
we and yuji were meant to fight together, i see that now
but because of my decision, i let my precious brothers kill each other
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the reaction of my blood to his while he teetered on the precipice of death is what told me the truth of it.
maybe if i had chosen differently, there would be four of us here today.
no subject
I'm not saying you and your brothers did nothing wrong but
Wouldn't you say the same thing to Yuji if he did what you did?
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but yuji’s is a good heart
my choices have brought him only suffering since
no subject
It doesn't sound like you're an evil person, Choso
You just love your brothers a lot.
1/2
but something of her pressing and her prodding manages to slip through like fingers in his chest cavity, knuckles brushing up featherlight against his living organs. something in her words cradles the raw muscle of his heart, has the whole of him shuddering from the danger of it.
they’re just letters, simple little letters hanging against the blue of a later afternoon, highlighted in bubbles with every raggy cloud that scuds by. they are just words. ]
no subject
all we wanted was to live
all of us, together
[ now they’re both crying. ]
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The words are still just floating text, so Marcille can't parse the real gravity of them—only that his answer sounds a little raw. ]
See? That by itself doesn't sound evil to me
The way you all went about it wasn't great, I won't lie about that...
But I think you have a good heart, and I think Yuji would say the same thing.
I'm sorry about your brothers, Choso. I really am.
no subject
choso, he wonders what evils stain marcille’s hands in turn.
eventually, some twenty-four minutes later: ]
thank you marcille
i will remember this
[ when he’s feeling down and needs a reminder that there’s a kind little elf who smells like soap out there who has such good words, he means. ]
anything you ever need i will do my best to provide
no subject
So maybe she's self-soothing. She's learned so much about Yuji and Choso's universe that it makes her head spin. It sounds relentless, bathed in blood. If she'd met them at an earlier time in her life, she probably wouldn't have accepted them at all. The recent events in her life back home stripped down her righteousness like a seed, down to its small and selfish core.
Or is she just lonely here, grasping desperately onto whatever small connection she cobbles together? The thought flashes in her head, and then Choso responds.
She's relieved. She sits on her bed and replies: ]
Same to you okay?
Yuji needs help but you should take care of yourself too!
no subject
She's putting a pin in that for now. ]