video; un: shiro

[shiro2hero]

[Oh hi Shiro, long time no see on the network. That's because this is a last-ditch effort. He looks pretty darn not great, despite the fact it's Sleep Season for Warmbloods. Maybe it's the Arena. Maybe it's the River. Something honestly, sincerely traumatic that's happened already.]

[His face is in his hands, hunched over the counter in his kitchen. The omni in front of him. Voice haggard and quiet. Like he has a migraine.]

I will pay... however much anyone wants. For coffee beans. Espresso beans. Don't even have to be cooked. Roasted. Doesn't matter.

[... Or it's caffeine withdrawl.]

Or tea leaves. I don't care.

[Please, he is Suffering.]

Comments

[survivalthroughhate]

That is what I am here for.

[Sorry Shiro, Maul is a gadfly sometimes.]

If you do find anyone who has tea, be sure to let me know. I have been out for quite some time.

[shiro2hero]

There has to be tea.

It's just - everyone has tea. Aliens have tea.

[survivalthroughhate]

Is the lack of caffeine causing you to say obvious statements?

[He knows very well aliens have tea, he comes from a galaxy full of them after all!]

I haven't explored every nook and cranny of this city. Perhaps there is some hidden shop that has some.

[shiro2hero]

That's the point. If worlds other than Earth have it, why shouldn't this one?

Maybe someone's growing some.

[survivalthroughhate]

Because this one is run by sadistic Pthumerians who enjoy watching us suffer?

[shiro2hero]

Not all of them are sadistic.

Cynthia wasn't.

[survivalthroughhate]

As far as I can tell, she was the exception to the rule. And even then she was unable to do much to help us until the very end.

[Still, given how she'd defeated Mother Superior and how he'd been able to participate in the act, Maul can't find too many faults what Cynthia had been able to accomplish Deerington.]

[shiro2hero]

Julia was the same.

She wasn't purposefully malicious. They can't all be Mother Superior.

[survivalthroughhate]

[There's a brief flicker of expression that crosses Maul's face when Shiro mentions Julia. He'd failed the girl. They all had. He'd told them all to spare her but noooooo, no one wanted to entertain the possibility Maul might have actually known what he was talking about.]

I don't know about that. Didn't you ever break your toys when you were playing with them as a child?

[shiro2hero]

Not purposefully.

I don't think she did, either. A kid with power she never learned how to control. With no guidance. Just left there alone as an experiment?

She didn't have bad intentions.

[survivalthroughhate]

Maybe not. But everyone thought she did. All they saw was a monster, not an innocent little girl. And they let her die!!

[His voice goes up about six notches on the volume dial on that last word, showing what Maul really felt about personally failing the girl.]

[shiro2hero]

Don't.

[Flat, cold. Immediate. Like the migraine is just gone.]

I'm not happy about it either, I'm upset about it too - I have been since it happened. Not everyone made that choice. And even then, there were people just as hurt and scared as she was.

[survivalthroughhate]

For all that people here like to claim they are kind and compassionate and give second chances, they are very judgmental in deciding who, where, and when that applies to others. How very convenient.

[shiro2hero]

I'm finding that kind of thinking hard to accept from someone who's been attacking other Sleepers.

Look. What happened was awful. What happened was wrong. But it was the actions of scared, traumatized people. And it's beside the point. Which was, originally, that not all the Pthumerians want us dead or insane.

[survivalthroughhate]

I haven't done that yet here, which is more than some have been able to say. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf but most of you do not make it easy.

[But Maul's also notorious for never taking responsibility for his own actions, so he's also got his own role to play in this.]

I'll believe that when I see it here. More than a few them will view us as little ants to be crushed beneath their boot, mark my words.

[shiro2hero]

Forgive me if I have to say I'll believe that when I see it, too.

[Shiro's a forgiving man, but that forgiveness and tolerance goes out the window in certain situations. Like when you've adopted one of the teens hurt by the aforementioned actions.]

Guess we'll see.

[survivalthroughhate]

Who knows? I might end up surprising you all.

[Maul was very unpredictable in a lot of ways. Maybe he'll actually turn over a new leaf for good this time.]

Or maybe the Pthumerians will.