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[ Gideon's face screws up at "what he sees as his" and the use of it to refer to her. Hello, friend, she's a whole ass person in her own right. Fully grown and independent. Harumph. ]

I'll add it to the queue. Plenty of questions for the guy, and in none of the answers am I going to be an it. Even if he has to learn that the hard way.

So you two were close? Before?

[It wasn't a kind way to put it but dealing with that version of John had ... been unkind.]

Good. You're not an it and deserve better than that.

Close is

not the word I would use.

He was dangerous to people I cared about and. Pitiful in a way. And I was interesting to him so I chose to stay nearby and be distracting.

See if he could be reformed from what he was becoming before he broke everything.

[He is more than a little traumatized by it but ha ha! What's trauma!]

Though we ended up with more. Distance between us after I dueled him over bringing you back as Kiriona.

Edited 2024-08-13 16:51 (UTC)

[ Gideon's not entirely sure how to take everything this person is saying. An interesting distraction? That sounds like, well, Gideon doesn't want to think too hard about what that sounds like. Thankfully, she doesn't know what they look like, so she can't really get a mental image she doesn't want in her head. Mostly. ]

That does not sound... close. Not exactly.

You dueled him? He dueled you? He dueled? Why didn't he just poof you into a fine pink mist of smithereens? That's more like him when he's angry.

[ This person dueled on her behalf? Over her being a zombie? Could her dad bring her back healthy and whole as a real person? Gideon knows he hasn't resurrected anyone since the beginning, but his own kid. Surely that could be an exception. Something.

It's a strange feeling coming over her right now. ]

It wasn't.

[It's worse than it sounds, but not in the way Gideon's imagining.]

That's what I expected out of it. That he'd simply kill me. I was fortunate or blessed and provoked him into fighting me

as fairly as he could.

[It still hadn't gone well but he had scored first blood, so technical win.]

As fairly as he could. [ Gideon's not sure what that is. What's fair from someone who's god? Sure sure, Thirteen and these Pthumerians are even more powerful, but still.

More importantly, or it feels more important at least, this stranger did it for her? ]

I take it we were close-ish before. [ It's much harder than normal to do a vibe check here, a vibe check on someone who knows her better than she knows them. ] Unless you were just offended in general.

He is a not particularly fit specimen of older humanity. If we'd gone just sword and talon he'd have fallen in the first exchange.

[That's half a joke.]

Both in the end. You

the you there needed someone who saw her as more than an object. More than what she could give. I had to try.

You were closer to others there and he ripped you away from them with what he'd done.

He had also lied to me. He'd said making

constructs like Kiriona was an abhorrent practice in his Empire. Not done.

Being such a construct myself I'd taken it for reassurance that he wasn't as bad as our necromancers back home.

Edited 2024-08-17 10:30 (UTC)

That's a fancy way of calling him physically weak *laughter*

Where the fuck was everyone else not seeing this other me as an object? You say he ripped me away from them, but I know that'd never stop *me* from seeing and saving my friends. [ Even if it sounds like something she'd dealt with most her life. Most her time in the Ninth House no one ever helped her. No one stepped in. No one stopped any of the punishments. Gideon knows and trusts her friends here in Folkmore however. They would. They wouldn't let anyone get away with that. She's sure of it. She's sure. ]

Also, hold it, I was going somewhere else, but you're a zombie?

It is, isn't it?

He's old and skinny. I could take him if he didn't cheat.

[That's more the register he should be trying for, but slipping back into formality is his refuge.

(He'd be corrupted to Nav and back in Trench, just talking through this. Trying to manage his unknownable, unguessable emotions about it through carefully distancing himself from his account. It's unfair to her, though.)]

Disoriented. Understand, I challenged him within the hour of him introducing Kiriona. And she put all her old friends

she even put Harrow off. Didn't want them close to her.

They were willing to do anything to get her back but didn't understand how she could have changed or whether it was somehow her own choice.

Yes.

He IS old and skinny. The original twig. Twigero numero uno.

A strong wind could take him if he didn't cheat.

[ Gideon chews on the inside of her cheek. Eren would accept her no matter how off putting she was, no matter how she changed, even if she got murdery. If she really needed help, it'd be great to have Eleanor and all of them around. So many of them have gone, have left Folkmore. Even Cam. It's not fair, but it's fine. It's fine. Gideon is here for the friends she has, and they can handle her issues. Beyond Harrow and Palamedes, she has Sharon and Senku and Gen and Zechs. And more. She's not on her own. She hasn't been on her own since she arrived in Folkmore. ]

I've got friends here who could handle me at my zombiest, I'm sure. Don't think I'd go running off to dad. Might help I've been aware it's a possibility almost two years.

Huh. Sorry for your loss? Sounds like you're not happy about it if you're starting duels over the matter.

What'd you want out of the duel? What'd you get?

Good. That's good. I don't think she had any warning. I don't know if it happens here that Star Children suddenly gain new memories of home. But that's what happened to her and her father at the same time and then she was Kiriona. Had been in her own mind for some time.

No. It's a wretched state. No one should be subjected to it unwillingly. Maybe not even willingly.

For him to acknowledge it was a

fucked-up thing he did to you. To her. That he'd hurt her friends and it wasn't his right to take her from them.

I did get that. Mostly. You know maybe better than I what his apologies are like.

That happens here sometimes. Star Children become a cocoon of starlight. I spent a month as one of the people looking after a pseudo father figure when he spent it in one, but it doesn't always take that long. Sometimes it's overnight. Like waking up from a really long dream. It hasn't happened to me, but I've been here nearly as long as this place has been around from all we can tell. So I've seen and heard a lot.

[ That's as far as she got before the second response comes in. Gideon has to take a moment to pause and consider that John apologized. For him, sure. But he did it. It's... she's not sure how she feels. It's weird. ]

I don't approve of what he'll do, what he did. Fuck that. Resurrect me like a real god, damn it. That said, Harrow went AWOL. I still don't know what happened to her, and I'll never sign off before I know she's taken care of. You can count on that.

I haven't asked for an apology, not in all the time he's been here. What good is an apology if I have to ask for it? (no offense) Besides, an apology isn't what matters most. It's actions. It's what anyone does now and moving forward, not what words they spew out like some dumb emotional magical theorem.

Much prettier than what happened back in Trench. Flesh and tentacles there. I never went through it myself.

No offense taken. You're not wrong. An apology means godspit in the wind without actions after it. But I meant to grind his nose in what he'd done get him thinking outside the frame where he was always right. Making him better

would be a long process.

Wishing the Fox best of luck with that.

Much as I'm prone to say ew, people here get grossed out by everything. Normal things. Like death. And bones. Not signing up for tentacles and flesh, mind you, but bodies are bodies. They aren't gross.

Dom away, dude. He could probably use it.

Can't say she's not ambitious. Talking with people here, I think at least half of them are opposed to change just because she wants it. That was me when I got here, so only a little judgment. Big ol' fuck you to anyone trying to change me. Pretty sure I got that from BOTH my parents.

If this place is anything like Trench most of the people here seem to come from times and places where they've lost their connection with death. With red-taloned nature. And their own bodies.

Saw it in the biggest cities back home.

[That's. That's sure something you've given him there, Gideon.

~~once he looked up "dom"~~]

We'll see.

I don't doubt you did. What made you change your mind?

Their worlds are chickenshits about it, a lot of them. It's strange when it's one of the only universal experiences in any given world, much less between them. I grew up where I grew up, so there's plenty I get weirded out by other people consider normal. Maybe they judge me for that.

What about big cities makes that happen?

Oh, that, well, I learned how to take what she does and make it my own. Get my agency over it. Rather than simply digging in my heels and losing and getting pissed about it, I make myself more powerful. Take that, all you gods out there.

Without judging them (too much) for it, many of them have been raised in cultures that deal with that great fear by ignoring it. Or believing they can somehow avoid their way into immortality.

From what I have witnessed, specialization. And convenience and comfort. It is more efficient (by some measures) to have all your animals penned up in farms. Then they must slaughtered away from where anyone with money or power can be bothered by it and the meat brought in to sell at market. So most will never touch death in a hunt.

It is uncomfortable and maybe dangerous to sit with someone dying of fever so she must be taken somewhere to die and have her corpse prepared by professionals. So most will never touch death in their homes.

To the man in me it seems a much worse way to live. But the Warlord saw many who were content and safe like that, and can't say It would be better for more people to live in fear and suffering.

Simply wish that the costs of their gentle lives didn't lead to so much fear and suffering elsewhere. Including with themselves for they get out of their element.

[Then he has to laugh at the impromptu lecture he's dictated.]

You asked a good question !

Well done. Do others receive that well when you tell them? I've already met people here who think the Fox is a tyrant in it for their suffering.

[Despite the absolutely insane generosity of the world Thirteen had made. Mindblowing, really.]

Edited 2024-08-31 10:56 (UTC)

[ Gideon sips a whole glass of water loudly while reading the rant about people uncomfortable with death. It's fascinating, like a non-sexy short story, except she's had enough interactions with people uncomfortable with death to have to remove that 'story' description. Non-fiction, not fiction. ]

It's always struck me as strange, but I don't have the experience to understand why the fuck people so weird about death. After all, death is kinda fucked up here compared to how it works in anyone's homes.

'Make it your own' isn't the kind of thing you can just tell people. They have to come to that conclusion themselves. Otherwise you'll only make them dig in their heels harder. Then it takes even longer.

I get being mad and fighting it, I really do, but have they never interacted with someone who's a tyrant in it for their suffering????????

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