un: karma (video)

[torpour]

[the view is not of nehan as the username attached to this video would imply, but of two different plants preserved in jars on a countertop. no erune on your screens today.]

I have a request-- more specifically, an offer for fair trade. If you have an abundance of unwanted plants in your house, please bring them to me. Or I can visit your dwelling and remove them myself. Name your price. [a pause, then his gloved hand comes from the top of the camera, pointing at the plants from left to right.] In particular, I'm interested in these. Lacrimosa, which only blooms in dark areas where no sources of light reach, reeds from an island from my world for healing.

[no one asked him what the plants do, but he rambled anyway because he's a nerd.]

But any plant you don't want will do. They'll be useful, in one way or another.

Also, Flynn, Richie: this is the best opportunity I can give you when it comes to learning and making your own medicines.

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[fogsong]

[ The question, whether rhetorical or not, earns a shrug from her. The cult may have made drugs from it once upon a time but after the burning of Alessa, chances were good the hows and whys of it were lost to the fog along with cultists themselves. Back then, to her, they'd just been pretty little flowers. Now, she can see the truth of it. ]

I may have gotten out of that town but I never really got away. I spent almost half of my life on the run from those fanatics. [ Not that she'd known that at the time. Her adoptive father had kept her in the dark in a misguided attempt at protecting her. A pause and then: ] You sound like you've had some experience with people like that.

[torpour]

Not many people in Trench know this, but. [he raises one grubby finger, as if to ask for silence.]

I was born and raised in a village far away from the rest of society because my ancestors decided that doing so was a good idea. And to keep outsiders where they belonged, out, they set traps around the mountains of our valley.

[it's a gross oversimplification of karm and its principles, but still, they did think it was a good idea.]

I'm sure you can imagine what life was like with them. [and as with any good lies, nehan can fill in the blanks of her assumptions with more tidbits of truth. he's not about to divulge that he's been trained as a murderer, after all.]

[fogsong]

I got a small idea, yeah. [ The Order was insular, the town of Silent Hill small and tight-knit, but they'd never sequestered themselves from the rest of the world willingly. ]

What made them decide that in the first place? [ He likely dealt with the indoctrination that comes from such a close, paranoid community. They had traps for outsiders, after all, and she's got a feeling it wasn't for catch and release. ]

[torpour]

There was a war, a few thousand years before my birth. [nehan continues with the flowers, like he's not talking about something that shouldn't actually be told to any outsider. but then again, who will censure him here? they're all dead.] Colonizers against their colonies-- my ancestors were among the latter.

The latter was also the victor, but my ancestors' methods in combat were considered so distasteful that they decided to become akin to hermits.

[he inspects the flower, stroking its white petals, before wrapping it up in brown paper for safekeeping.]

Assassination, brutality, to give some examples. They were willing to do anything to get the job done.

[fogsong]

[ The explanation seems to confuse Sharon and she shakes her head. ]

They hid away because they were too brutal? To the people that invaded their land? [ She scoffs. ] That seems stupid.

[ Unless she's missing something here. ]

[torpour]

I cant assume what the people back then thought. I can only recall what was passed down from word of mouth, and whatever memoirs were written back then.

[though he doesn't feel too bad about making her confused over the state of his family. he has shared the same views for a long time, and he was the only one who did.]

But I agree with you-- it's stupid. Unfortunately it's only obvious when you're well-removed from the situation, as I was growing up.

[fogsong]

[ He agreed it was stupid and she blinks, more curious now. ]

How'd you manage to be removed from it? [ He'd been born there, after all. Alessa would have grown up believing in the Order if she hadn't been the target of their abuse. Even then, it required them to sacrifice her to fully see what they really were. ]

[torpour]

[how to say that the clan made a child snap and kill everyone, and nehan was the only survivor because he ran away? you don't, he decides, because it's a tale that he'd rather not admit to someone he's just met. so he decides to tell only a portion of the truth.]

I ran away as a child. I found their overreliance and strict adherence to tradition too restrictive, especially when the village was heading towards its last legs. A dwindling population and no new blood... I was tired of it. [which is all true, but the erune's next words are mostly false.]

I learned to be independent quickly after that.

[fogsong]

[ That all makes sense to her. It's a bit of a surprise that a child would be willing to leave everything they'd once known but she can understand it in some ways. If things hadn't turned out the way they had for Alessa, she might've run away, too. ]

Damn, that's pretty impressive for a kid. It must've been scary to strike out on your own, though. Don't think it's something I could've done.

[ Sharon removes another flower from the ground. It's gotten easier and quicker now that she knows what she's doing after having paid attention to how Nehan worked. ]

[torpour]

It worked out in the end. [no it did not, but nehan has no qualms in lying now that this half-truth has been cemented.] I've grown to be an adult, I have life skills that I can use...

[he raises one shoulder in a shrug.]

I also had a job before arriving here-- but I also have a job here, as well.

[fogsong]

[ It seems to her that it more than worked out for him. Even if it was tough to strike out on his own, he got out; he didn't fall into the same trap the rest of his village had. ]

Did you ever think about going back?

[torpour]

Sometimes. [nehan pauses in his work to pat the displaced soil back into the holes they made, keep the ground even rather than let the holes grow bigger later.] I don't have unfinished business to fret over.

[then he sighs.]

I wont lie and say I don't have anyone waiting for me back in my home world, but I have people here, now.