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[Saturday is rubbing sleep from her face as she talks, hair disheveled and her bunk in the background. The sounds is slightly unsynced, just enough to be annoying, and the image is tinted purple. Still, it's coherent]

Hey, crew. We've all had a real fucking night an' I'm sorry to add more, but this might be useful. I think I just a clue from like, some kinda supernatural dream-traveling hint-dispenser? Called themselves Cain and Abel, gave me a choice between a secret and a mystery, I picked mystery 'cause it meant I could tell you guys about it.

Man, I hope this sounds familiar to someone.

It was Cain I talked to, he told me a story about two brothers who uh - fuckin' hell - one killed the other because they were both in love with some invisible chick named Bell but she hadn't picked him. Their parents thought the one brother just flipped out and did murder for some fuckin' reason, because they thought Belle was fictional? Someone who knows what they're doing, start asking me some questions because I don't know how this is supposed to be relevant, but the dude said it was and he was for real. I got some experience an' I know when the dream I'm having didn't come outta my own head.

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I chose to. Pops couldn't stop me sneaking out to do it, so he figured he'd teach me to do it right. It was the bargain, I'd stop til he said I was ready, but he had to let me, once I was taught.

[There's a defiant set to her chin, like she's expecting and ready for a fight about this.]

Maybe the kids that come after me won't have to, if I can get the job done.

If you have to get a job done to give them that chance...it wasn't a choice.

[He waves a hand vaguely.]

Sometimes it's like that. Circumstance. The fight comes to you.

And you hope it stops with you. I enlisted to fight in the war at 18...hoping it meant others wouldn't have to.

[He shakes his head, slightly more open than he might have been because of the pain killers.]

Didn't go much better...for me being an adult.

It ain't a bad thing to learn how to fight. It happens, and you never really get to pick when. So you fight, or you die.

Wishing it was different then doesn't change that.

[Guts is sitting in the opposite bunk of Saturday's room, with his idea of helpful life advice. ]

It's not so much wishing as just...intensely judging the entire worlds around you all.

Can’t say I feel any affection for mine.

I’d still rather have been taught the sword than left without it. You can choose your own fate that way.

I don't begrudge you that.

I've had a weapon in my hands since I was 18.

Then you know, in your own way...

[Guts pauses for a moment, cagey about providing details of his particulars. It's different, that much is clear, but he's not going to argue about it. ]

Even if all you remember is a rotten battlefield, living through it is proof that you existed. At least... you can decide what you do with it.

I coulda opted out. I didn't want to. [She's insistent on this point; it matters to her. Maybe cause's it's one of the things she leans on to keep it together.]

...but yeah. It sucks.

When you're that wrapped up in a bad situation, choice is an illusion. You either survive or you don't.

[Ray of sunshine, even while hopped up on morphine, isn't he.]

I wasn't. I got rescued. I went back. You can believe me or not, but you weren't there.

I'm not high enough for conversations about the pressures that drive us to fight things, so I'm going to shut up and also push my happy juice button a lot more.

[He waves the button around, the one that goes to his pain pump. And then hits it a few more times until the automatic safety cut off based on the dosing he's gotten so far kicks in.]

[And here comes the morphine rush yay.]

Juuuuice.

Edited 2020-10-16 08:19 (UTC)

Probably a good idea.

[She cracks a small but real smile, so he knows there's no hard feelings.]

Been a fucking night. At least you get drugs.

But I also got stabs. Nooot entirely worth the trade off.

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