i'll be dreaming of the day we meet again

[innocentloveholic]

[ After she gets Fern patched up, Aligula starts on what might be her Best Party Ever.

...until her next one, anyway. It's no surprise where she's hosting today: it's the dormitory area. Throughout the hours of setting it up, it gets more and more colorful—the doors of the dead (both newly deceased and old) get childish paper cut-out flowers (think the daisy looking ones), while the living get stars. They're all in different colors, with no real discernible pattern! Long strands of ribbon decorate the walls along with more colorful party hat-looking cut-outs, in and out of the little cul-de-sac areas. In the center of the area are blankets laid out with plates of pancakes and trays of tea, stacked on tables made out of books. (There are also parfaits in wine glasses, because of course there are.)

More importantly, there are pillows across the floor of the entire hallway and especially stacked around the center, and in every little room area there's a nice note posted to one of the walls, in Aligula's ever familiar curly handwriting:



Apparently, today's after-party is the slumber party type to even help people who might not want to wander the hallways tonight. ...and look, Luca, she even took your advice. ]

Comments

[oasisrose]

[She gives a sad one back. They can pretend they're happy and not on the verge of breaking down together.]

I don't suppose you could teach it to me? I mean...

Being raised by assassins has its perks, too, but a cool temper isn't one of them.

[Now that she's admitted about all the people she's killed in the past, there's not really any reason to lie or dodge the subject.]

[notaccurate]

I am surprised you do not already have the skill, if you were raised by assassins. But alright, I can teach you a few tricks. If nothing else, they might prove useful when we leave here. You will never have to worry about being taken for a fool by a merchant again.

[oasisrose]

You'd think that, right? But... that wasn't the sort of philosophy my teacher taught. He encouraged hatred and anger... cultivated our bloodlust. He told us that the more we killed, the stronger we'd become.

... I would love to never be taken for a fool again. By anyone.

[notaccurate]

Ah, well. I cannot promise that. Even with all of my experience, I still fell for Ferid's tricks.

[oasisrose]

... same here. I even had so many reasons to distrust him, and I still...

[She trails off. When she sighs, it sounds like she's deflating.]

I wanted to trust him anyway.

[notaccurate]

"For the lips of the snake drip honey, and his speech is smoother than oil; but in the end he is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword."

[Yeah he modified that slightly. 'snake' fits Ferid better than 'adulteress'.]

Or so I have been told.

[oasisrose]

[That's debatable. We all saw that execution. That uncomfortable, vaguely sexual execution...]

Do you suppose there was any humanity in him at all, in the end? Or was it all truly an act, a charade he put on for his own entertainment?

[notaccurate]

I think he was a man of pleasure, and that made him quite selfish indeed. His humanity was likely limited to how he felt about himself and how he felt about getting his needs and wants fulfilled.

[oasisrose]

That would make sense... I suppose in the end, there's ordinary mortals like that, too. Ones who crave all the bounty of humanity without bearing its burdens.

[Not that she can think of any. Even Walter, for all his depravity, had something human in all his actions -- hadn't it taken the most unsettling motive of all to uncover the worst pieces of his nature?]

... I really wish that punch had done more. That... something had sunk in. Someone who can't feel the weight of his own actions is never going to take the right ones.

[notaccurate]

Unfortunately, words and well-placed punches cannot get through to someone who thinks they are doing nothing wrong.

[He. He might sound a little guilty there. Because he has experience with this, whoops.]

[oasisrose]

Yeah. Of course he didn't -- in the end, he didn't value our lives...

[She frowns.] He said once that we humans were to him like animals are to our kind. But I think he might have underestimated how much we care about animals. If he had done that to a dog? I would've punched him twice as hard.

It probably would have been more accurate if he compared us to insects. Like a child that pulls the wings off a butterfly...

[notaccurate]

What, is this place his terrarium?

[oasisrose]

I'm not sure if it's better or worse than the last comparison I drew.

I mean... remember the fashion show? In light of what we know now, wasn't it sort of like dressing up like show animals?

He might have participated, but...