deernet | Video; UN: seeingtheworld

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Video; UN: seeingtheworld

[When the video comes up, it shows Reaper and Luca on the cold and frozen beach together. Whoever's filming them is standing back and very low to the ground, seeming almost like they're trying to stay out of sight. Luca is bundled up just in case, even though he's wearing Fern's sun pendant which keeps him warm, and is starting to do some stretches.]

You know...I know I've seen people on the network call you a monster before, but I think they're wrong. I think you're actually really nice. You're teaching me how to defend myself, and you helped me get around all those traps when people were hunting vilebloods, and when you lived in the house with us you cooked food for us every day!

[He shifts positions and goes into another warm up stretch.]

I think they're just scared because you look scary. Like how people are with sea monsters back ho--

[With one of the stretches, he turns his body enough to spot the individual broadcasting this.]

Camilla? What are you doing?!

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Oh come on Reaper. It's sweet and you know it. If some people know about it, what will it hurt?

[Of course Luz had seen this. She would eat this nonsense up. She definitely was the 'friendship is magic' type from what he had gathered.]

It will hurt. It's already hurting. By associating with me and making such public statements, it could put you, Luca and everyone else at risk.

[Her Pthumerian was Doorway,of COURSE she'd think that].

And who exactly would we be having to worry about?

[There was no escaping her honestly.]

If I crossed someone with the right inclinations, they could seek to destabilize me by hitting against those I protect.

Right, but in that case they'd probably go after...Darth Maul, right?

And if anyone went after Luca, it wouldn't be just you they'd be fighting.

As if anyone would choose Maul over some kids. Harming children always brings vehement reactions.

If anyone harmed Luca, I would eviscerate them.

Oh no, that would be the worst choice they'd ever make, of course. But it would be direct.

Ok, I wouldn't eviscerate them. But I would certainly make sure they never even breathed his air again.

It would immediately draw my attention, which might be the effect they may want. It will be a choice that they pay dearly for.

I assume you mean distance rather than murder.

I figured that would be the case.

Of course I...ohh. Wow. I just realize how sinister that sounded. Yes, I definitely meant distance, more like a restraining order!

Yes, you should definitely leave the murder to me. You're a bit too young to be taking a life.

Yeah. That would be crazy, wouldn't it.

Your silence tells me that you've endeavored where you shouldn't have.

It isn't...accurate to say it like that.

More that it was something I didn't feel like I had any choice but to do.

Go on.

[Oh boy. She was going down this road again. She LOVED going down this road].

Remember in Deerington, when all those earthquakes were happening, and those horrible work things starting coming out of the ground? Well around that time I got kidnapped by some strange cave dwelling cannibal people. I was taken down to their cave where my magic was dampened, and I was tortured for a good several hours, with them going over in detail how they were going to slowly take me apart piece by piece and eat me. They prolonged it awhile, enough so that my sister Margot at the time was able to pick up my scent, went down into the cave and managed to get me out.

After that, I pretty much decided I wasn't going to let them do that to anyone else, so I laid in wait as a bird for a while, booby trapped their cave and. Well. I set the whole place on fire, with them in it.

[He keenly remembered those strange cave cannibals. He wasn't a good meal, but he had paid them a good few prices as well.

He didn't find her actions alarming at all. He was a bit more perturbed by the fact that she had been tortured. That often left considerable psychological scars.]

Are you alright? That isn't an easy situation to experience.

[Funny enough, Reaper had an open-door, no judgment policy when it came to people needing to talk.]

[Luz had never liked reliving that particular day, as it still had left scars she knew had been somewhat untreated. It had happened at a pretty bad time too: soon afterward, Eda and her witch teacher had woken up, pretty much leading to Luz and Margot needing to find a new home afterward. Luz recalled putting her feelings on autopilot at that point, though talking with Vira, the Doctor and Korra had certainly helped later].

I'm pretty sure I wasn't! Afterward I kept thinking that something about that night had somehow dirtied any of my innocent childhood frolicking, you know? The idea that I needed to be protected from stuff just seemed sorta dull and hollow afterward. I didn't...FEEL like the person I used to be before that.

[And honestly, that feeling had never really gone away].

What you experienced is a multilayered traumatic event, and the normal services to assist in working through those experiences isn't present. What you did was a reaction to your experience. People do bad things for the right reasons.

[He knew what that was like, and while his voice was his normal damaged growling, it was calm and soft still. Like he'd talked someone through such experiences before.]

If you aren't who you used to be, who are you now?

[Luz knew that. Luz KNEW that. Yet even still, she kept wondering if she should have just called someone and had them tie up the cave dwellers...but of course that was impossible, there were too many of them, it would have risked them being killed. There hadn't been room to let those things pass, and Luz knew that. She just hated that it was something that weighed on her no matter what she said or did].

You're not wrong about that. There isn't even so much as a psychiatrist around here to sort of talk to these things about. I guess if you were religious, you could talk to a pastor, right?

[Luz wasn't religious in those terms].

That's a good question. I'm still trying to find the answer to that. I don't want to go solving my problems by killing again, but now that I'm in Trench, I know it's an option that might be unavoidable. There are some things here that just want to hurt you, and things you can't reason with, no matter how much you try.

Pastors are good listeners, and they can offer comfort but that's about it. They don't often offer coping mechanisms.

[He didn't have much faith these days. He tended to spurn religion as a whole, viewing it as cults out of touch with daily reality. Good concepts usually to keep people from descending into chaos, but in war, any real God would stand for the shit humanity and nature did.]

You understand that what you did was self defense, right? That you are not at fault. You took a difficult situation and made the best decision based on your experiences at the time.

[He wasn't certain if anyone that told her that. He expected someone to offer platitudes, but it was necessary to reinforce that the situation was the cause of her reaction, and it didn't mean she was a bad person for it.]

It will take you time to sort it out. You're suffering from a psychological and emotion wound, and like all wounds, it requires time and rehabilitation to make the most of. You may wish to learn new skills to better prepare yourself if there ever is a 'next time'.

I do remember that, yes. But I can't see how a pastor's experience would be able to help me through mine.

[In other words, Luz sort of thought a therapist would be better in this regard, at least in her whole reasoning and her headspace after all of that. It would certainly help her work through her feelings about it].

Reaper, I feel like I can't even say it was self-defense. I got away thanks to my sister at the time, and I could have left it at that. I didn't. In my head, all I could remember was what happened to me and what they did and know that they could do that to someone else. I was too weak to fight them when I escaped, but I recovered a little, waited, and then went and set fire inside the caves.

[People had told her that: Varian, Korra, even Vira. Luz's biggest problem would always be that what she'd done had been, to an extent, premeditated. She supposed she could have let it stay at that, but the more she thought about it, the MORE she was at war with herself, because how could she allow them to do that to someone else? To some other KID]?

I want to. I-I take fencing lessons with Vira, and I train with Fern. I don't think I'll ever be as strong as them, and that's fine, magic is where I'm best. But if there comes a time I need to protect myself, I want to find a way to keep going somehow. I don't ever want to be as weak as I was that day.

Some pastors have seen shit. I served with one during the war; he provided a comfort to many of those around me.

[He knew what she meant, but he didn't want her to close doors on where comfort and relatability might come from. It was a good way to isolate oneself, and there was little good that came from that when in mental distress.

He actually laughed at her case against herself. He knew that road, had seen it more often than he could count. Everyone had their way of dealing with their traumas, and that didn't make it any less a case of self-defense in his books.]

In some circles, that makes you a hero, pequeño. What about the situation makes you think that you had tainted yourself? The fact that you burned their places of refuge? Or the fact that you burned their place of refuge while they were in it? Because you do realize that you burning it with them out could have lead to their deaths? Perhaps you saved them a far more greasily end thanks to smoke inhalation. Believe me, it's not the worst way to go.

[Reaper could see it from her perspective, but he had also seen far worse manners of dealing with an enemy than that. Likely they had all passed out long before they had died; it had been a painless end, and she had saved many the same suffering that she had endured for her efforts.]

If you need more training, I would be willing to supplement what they are teaching you. Vira is very skilled with a blade, and depending your magic, she could potentially assist you with that.

If you find comfort in religion, then that makes sense. Then again, I am finding myself more and more aligned with Doorway, so maybe I shouldn't talk?

[It was a funny feeling, honestly, finding herself gravitating toward a being you could consider a god she'd never known before. Then again, she had never felt more aligned with a higher being than one that prioritized relationships and loyalty. That was something she could get behind and understood].

Hey, don't laugh! It wasn't burning their stupid cave! It was them, obviously, them burning in there that makes me feel like that! I'm a kid! I'm not supposed to go around doing things like that. Sure, everyone considers doing that to their enemies, but no one's supposed to act on it! And once you do that, you can't act like you're the same person! Not after you heard their screams and their anguish and smelled that fire and the smoke! You just...you just...you can't even feel like anyone should protect you, because you start to wonder if you'll ever feel like you deserve it.

[Luz had gone over this over and OVER in her mind, she'd had people tell her she wasn't evil, she did it in good faith, but Luz couldn't forget, and that was why it never really went away. Worst, now she didn't think of them as much anymore because that was the last real time she saw Margot, and afterward they didn't see each other much and then she was just GONE, gone back home and was no longer her sister.

So just guilt aplenty].

I think...I think I do. I don't want to find myself captured like that again if I can help it. There won't always be someone to save me. I was lucky back then, and lucky in November.

[Well, lucky in that she didn't DIE anyway].

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