video; un: an.exorcist

[likethelight]

[ Deep breath, come on, you've got this. ]

...just because someone becomes a beast, it doesn't mean they stop being human.

[ The video comes on and it's an older, slender teenager with stark white hair; pale grey eyes and a strangely delicate bright red mark slashed across the left side of his face. He seems to be in a courtyard of sorts, one of Amaterasu's guardian saplings is behind him in full bloom. He's only visible from the chest up, but the chair he's sitting in has handles behind it-- looks like a wheelchair. Whatever is taking the video also appears to be a flying sort of thing that bobs slightly. It's trying to hold this video still, but really... ]

Most of you probably already know this. [ His head cants to the side with a lightly apologetic smile. ] Some of you might even be able to still hear or reach them despite that form.

But not everyone does, and it's still too easy to say "oh, it's safer and quicker to just kill them. You don't save monsters." [ The official creed of the Hunters... but he's diplomatic enough to not say that aloud. ] Or "oh, a Sleeper can just come back." Except it isn't just us. Someone else who isn't... most of them who were human... they aren't like us. [ He smiles softly, but in a way that doesn't reach his eyes. They hood, bittersweet. ]

They're just dead then. The soul suffers until the end. Maybe beyond.

It doesn't have to be like that though. [ He seems a soft-spoken sort with a lilted voice, but his tone shifts then and becomes more certain. ] They aren't just a monster, and they don't have to stay one. Even with what they've become -- the soul is still human. Some part of them still wants to be saved; to be themselves once again. And they can. [ Mostly. At least so far in his experience. ]

Some of us have abilities that can let us purify or reverse what corrupted them and bring them back. Some of us-- [ he pauses, looking for a moment just a touch overwhelmed as his eyes drift to the side, the smallest curl of a touched sort of smile at the corner of his mouth ] ... a number of us, we're trying to do something to change things. At one of the old monasteries in Crenshaw.

[ But he closes his eyes. Deep breath, you can do this.

He lifts his eyes back up to the "camera", his expression schooled now with a quiet sort of determination. Chin up, eyes forward. ]

My name is Allen Walker. I'm an Exorcist. [ Clearer, more certain: steady. Rung like a quiet bell. ]

Who's been able to save someone who became a beast?

[ More importantly: ] Who wants to?

[ It's more determined and clearer still. ]

[ ooc: for those who want to poke around in person, there is also an open mingle log for Sanctuary!
CW: mentions of prior character death throughout ]

Comments

[the_obedient_servant]

[Their intent is actually benevolent, in a sense. They have experienced what it's like to be held up as a saviour and then discarded as a tragedy after failing, with nobody having learned anything except how to use their name to justify the slaughter of children just like them. All to fuel a lie, all to keep the lie going.

They don't care what happens to Allen, or to any of his followers really (that they know of.) They're all strangers to Chara, some abstract number that is making a mistake. But some hidden sentimental part of their broken soul wants them to continue on informed, if they really are determined to seek this course of action, really are determined to crash and burn.]

It isn't, but humanity is always keen to make it such. If things aren't simple and categorized in neat little boxes according to their worldview, they don't know how to do anything at all.

You are welcome, Allen Walker. Whether you are blinded or not is no concern of mine, but you have been warned.

[likethelight]

[ Truly... he does believe and get that sort of sense, not because he does genuinely need to find a way to always believe in the humanity of someone. It's a neutral sort of honesty he can respect, even if he kind of hates what they're saying too. If they wanted to just be an asshole they would have been an asshole like he first presumed they might have been, making snide remarks. But, from what he can tell... it's just a flat sort of honesty of some sort. One offered without malice or, it seems, even really judgement.

But it's curious, too. What kind of life leads a person to have that sort of outlook...? To feel a need to warn a stranger when they're obviously really jaded about it? They sound like they're young, too. But it's hard to tell. It's why he pauses for a long moment, before he responds. ]

It's kind of you.

[ It's clipped and soft both, firmly but gently said and he lets that sit for a moment, burying itself into the distance between them. Considers it. ]

Why do you care if I'm warned or not?

[the_obedient_servant]

Hmm...

[They don't agree that it's kind. They can't attribute such a word to any action they've taken, both here and in general. It's... principled, perhaps. Honorable, if you want to really stretch the meaning of the word.

But why do they care? Is it sympathy for themselves? For Asgore? For Asriel? For Toriel? For Alphys? For all these people who dangled hopes and dreams in the faces of strangers, unaware of the consequences that their actions would follow?

Or...]

It gets dull, watching the same story turn out the same, over and over again. The mistakes of the well intentioned leave mass graves in their wake.

Besides that, to guide is the purpose of my existence. That's all.

[likethelight]

[ Stories? He blinks a little, finding that statement odd. It's spoken as if by someone who's timeless, but that statement has him quickly sobering. "The mistakes of the well intentioned leave mass graves in their wake."

They aren't wrong. He'd already been learning just how dire the consequences of his own confusion and indecision could lead to the deaths of friends, and that's why his mouth runs a little dry before he responds. ]

What kind of existence is that? Being a guide?

[the_obedient_servant]

[What kind of existence...? They'd say it's the only one they've ever known, and while that's technically true, they remember what it was like before. Before they died. Before they were named.]

It's the role I've been given. That's all.

[It's the role that involves guiding their reflection over the graves left by their mistakes, when they thought they could be a hero, when they thought that it was their tale, and that they could be an angel.

They were, of course, as it turned out. The prophecized saviour of the Underground. Their salvation was extinction.]

I try not to question it too much. [A lie. They question it constantly, and always end up kneeling their head before the shackles placed upon them. I, YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT...] It's easier that way.

[likethelight]

[ He's quiet for a moment, processing that very cryptic sort of answer. Trying to read between the lines, not that there are many at all even there.

"It's easier that way." ]

That sounds lonely.

[the_obedient_servant]

Of course it sounds that way to you. It's human nature to project your own feelings and expectations onto others.

But the truth is... I'm the only one in this world that truly isn't alone. [I, your humble servant...

* Who are you trying to convince?]

[likethelight]

[ "Human nature", said as if they aren't human.

But that isn't the part that Allen hones in on: there's a very key distinction that was made there. ]

Someone doesn't need to be "alone" to be "lonely."

[the_obedient_servant]

So what's it like to be both?

[And then, like a child throwing a tantrum, they close the communication entirely.]