[VOICE] UN: [username not set]

[demonicbeauty]

[Ariadne hasn't been able to show her face on the network--or in person, really--since her meltdown in July. But she's starting to come back, as it were. Only on voice because she can't quite bring herself to share all of her feelings.

Feelings that are very strong right now.]

I don't believe in revenge. It's a messy business that doesn't ultimately fix anything. You can't always undo a wrong.

You can, however, be better.

I say this for two reasons now. The first is that I urge all of you not to take revenge against the user who goes by the name "NoMercy" on the Omni network. I don't know who they are and I don't know how they've suffered. But hurting them isn't going to un-murder Ezra or Oscar or any of the others.

The second reason why I'm talking about revenge is that...I need to know what happened to Dean Winchester. I need to know who burned down his house, who killed him. And...I want to reassure you--anyone who's listening--that if you know something or if you were, in some way, responsible...I'm not going to hurt you.

I...I don't believe in revenge.

And that's...that's all, I guess.

Comments

[demonicbeauty]

Retribution feels like revenge, dressed up in silks, Albert.

[She sighs softly.]

I think maybe the word we ought to look for is "justice."

[subject_013]

[He chuckles, sinister but even just a tiny bit nervous.]

A fitting image, like an iron fist in a silk glove.

The problem is, there are times when justice itself can corrupt into revenge with the backing of the law or the government.

[demonicbeauty]

Yes, well. We don't exactly have law or government, do we?

[subject_013]

Not really. We're governed here, perhaps, by the law of nature. Things might go better if the folk here could strike a balance with it, though that's a bit of a balancing act in and of itself, given how it seems to delight in unbalancing us at every turn.

Given how law can turn into legalism, and the power offered by government leads too often to corruption, we're at least freed of those follies.

[demonicbeauty]

When I lived in the forest, we all existed for the good of the community.

If you did something that harmed the community, you were punished for it.

[subject_013]

A model we would do well to follow here, though some people can't seem to confine their violence to practical purposes, rather than bothering the local forces of nature personified?

I suspect, given the Reckoning's tendencies, we almost have no need to punish the offenders. Give it enough time, the offender will find a way under her blade. [Something in his tone suggests he knows this too well.]

[demonicbeauty]

It's possible.

[She sighs.]

I just think it's wrong to answer killing with no killing. It never ends!

[subject_013]

I'm a firm believer in self-preservation, including the preservation of society, however defined, if someone has severely threatened its balance. There are times when that may entail violence.

I was raised to be a weapon, in mind and in body. It is what I know.

[A frank admission: he can only be that with her.]

[demonicbeauty]

There's what we're raised to be. And what we choose to become.

[subject_013]

...There is that. [Hesitation: Uncertainty? dismay? With his quiet affect, it might be hard to read.] Some of us have a harder time breaking free of how we were sculpted.

[demonicbeauty]

I believe in you, Albert.

[subject_013]

[...A weighted pause. This is giving him shades of The Doctor and even now, a year later, the hole left in the town by the Time Lord's disappearance weighs on his thoughts.]

You're one of the few who think thus.

[demonicbeauty]

And proud to be.

[subject_013]

I'm ...glad that you are.

[These words are hard to spit out.]