imatreenow | ✘ appointments

[He stumbles to his feet when Frey yanks him up, coughing water and discreetly adjusting his pajama pants because honestly he's lucky the ocean didn't steal them in its retreat.]

[Don't worry Mithos, Frey won't be peeking to see what sort of damage the water might have done to your dignity.

Nevermind the fact he's just as wet and just as pathetic looking. He's ignoring all those observations, though, in favor of tugging Mithos onto the sandy beach.]

[As they stagger onto the beach, splashing through the wet sand still touched by the fingertips of waves, Mithos attempts to straighten out his hair somewhat. In its wet limpness, it's difficult to make it hide the tips of his ears like it's supposed to.]

[Frey doesn't even bother with his hair, simply shaking it out of his face and behind his shoulders. Though the act finally snaps the clinging hair tie, it doesn't really matter much.

He does notice Mithos' awkward attempts to cover his ears, though.]

[His hand falls from his hair because that's as good as it's going to get right now. He shakes some of the water from his dully aching wings. Okay, so they're on the beach. Having only been here once before, he doesn't know the area nearly well enough to even begin to know which way to go. His eyes search through the darkness as if he might find something to point the way.]

[Luckily enough, Frey does. At least well enough to know where the teleporter to town was, and he starts heading off over the sand with Mithos' hand still in his.]

Are you going to be ok?

[He submits to Frey's tug on his hand, following along.] I will be as soon as I can get back.

Hopefully the teleporter will send us to the right place.

[That's something they can agree on. He's annoyed by his forced reliance on Frey, and he can't not be confused by Frey expressing concern for him. The unfamiliarity, the sense that something is inherently wrong with the picture, presses down on him as he follows.

He'll be silent for several more paces before breaking it.] ...You never answered my question before.

[When Mithos demands answers Freyjadour wasn't sure he wanted to give, it becomes his turn to be slient, mulling over whether to tell him or not. Surely Mithos would laugh at it, mock him for such sentiments.

But what did it matter if he knew now?]

When you were a child... you were so full of life and happy. You'd thought your sister still alive. Your world was whole then, wasn't it?

But losing her took something irreplaceable from you. Perhaps it was more then just that, but I know you couldn't handle those events and became who you are now. It doesn't justify anything you did. It doesn't mean you couldn't take other paths. you could have chosen to honor her memory by living life in a kinder manner. You are sad and angry at the world, and violent and cruel, and I won't turn a blind eye to it.

But I can understand how you could become the way you are. And you still have it in you to love people. You care for Sayo and Kaori. There is no capacity for hate without an equal capacity for love. The problem, Mithos.... Is I do not know if you will choose that kinder path.

[Whole. He scoffs derisively. He's gone through life always knowing something was missing, and his childhood was no exception - he can still remember his hunger for acceptance, the strong craving to belong somewhere. It's one of the many childish things he never quite outgrew.]

I tried that path a long time ago.

As far back as I can remember, I've known how cruel and unfair the world can be. It's impossible to be ignorant of the truth, being what I am. Even that child you remember as being so happy knew he was inherently denied certain things solely because he was neither fully elven nor fully human.

Even knowing this, I believed people could learn to change. ...Maybe I needed to believe it was a possibility. I labored under this delusion for years alongside my sister. We were rejected countless times by the same humans we tried to help...but because of the support from my sister and my former companions, I could always find the strength to stand up and keep moving forward. The path was difficult, but I believed it would be worth it in the end.

A world where humans, elves, and those in between could live peacefully...that was the goal. Through my efforts the war that had embroiled the land in conflict for nearly a thousand years was brought to a peaceful resolution; the Great Seed was preserved and scheduled to germinate, thereby restoring the world's supply of mana. I was celebrated as a hero - me, a half-elf.

I knew we still had a long way to go. However, before we could get there, Martel's life was taken. The path I had followed for so long had brought me nowhere, in the end. I was done with handing out second chances and receiving nothing in return. Perhaps I turned my back on the world, but it turned its back on me first. Given the choice between the sister who loved me unconditionally and the world that despised me unconditionally, I made the only logical decision. I had to follow the path that would lead me back to my sister.

Edited 2012-08-22 18:40 (UTC)

[Frey takes in everything Mithos says, listening carefully.

As he had thought, Mithos had been capable of hope for a better life, once. He had trusted people once. But to that extent? Betrayed by the people he had saved....

He would like to say he was surprised, but he knew very well people didn't trust easily. Hatred didn't fade easily. And Martel had paid the price for it, it seemed.]

......I would say 'I am sorry that happened', but it means nothing in the end, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't. You're at least right about that.

However, I'm no longer the naive fool I used to be...so to say that you might trust me based on a choice I will never make again? It is stupidity on your part.

Perhaps it is stupidity, on my part. But I still believe that you are capable of trusting others again. Perhaps not in the same way, but such a generalized view of humanity is.... [He shakes his head.] Humans are not a single entity. They are many, with many views and values.

Haven't there ever been any humans who have treated you kindly at one time? What about Sayo?

And what did you mean.... about a path that would lead you back to your sister?

[It sounded like.... but no, Mithos didn't seem to wish for death.]

Edited 2012-08-30 21:16 (UTC)

[He pauses, wondering which question to address first. It's tempting to speak of his love for his sister, but he knows Frey well enough to know that he won't understand. He needs to clear up the human's misunderstandings over his inability to trust before diverging to a different argument. But there's a backwards comfort in knowing that the gap of misunderstanding will remain securely between them.]

There have been very few. For a long time, one of my most trusted companions was a human. I regarded him as a teacher and an ally, but he too betrayed me in the end. I had even given him a second chance, something he clearly did not deserve - each time I depended on him, he only turned his back.

[He takes a breath before too many feelings come tumbling out, the kind the betray just how hurt he was by Kratos drifting away from him all that time ago.]

...Sayo is different. [His voice softens almost imperceptibly.] She isn't like other humans. [The same insecurities still linger. A part of him still expects her to abandon him any day. But she's proven herself to him over and over again, and he's learning to believe in her.]

[A companion....? A human friend. But then why would he have....

That made no sense. Then again, much of Mithos' views ended in the game general hatred.]

If he was human, he must not have betrayed you based on what you are, though. Otherwise he would have not associated with you from the beginning, correct?

She is a kind woman, I think. She is the biggest reason I suggested we try keeping you under house arrest, instead of jail. Because I knew she would feel sad if you were locked away, and because I knew you viewed her as family.

But Mithos, here in Luceti... race doesn't matter. People cannot even tell the difference. Perhaps not everyone here is as kind as Sayo... but I do not think many people here would wish ill towards someone, as long as they were given no reason to feel that way.

Edited 2012-08-30 22:36 (UTC)

Why he betrayed me is not the point. The point is that humans can never be trusted.

[Which would make it difficult to explain Sayo, and he knows it; he's just accepted that she defies explanation. He tries to ignore the deja vu in Frey's words, echoing what he had said to him as a child. He had accepted Frey's reassurance so easily back then, holding onto it and hoping it could be true]

Race matters more than you could possibly know, being on the other side. My life has been defined by it. It's not as easy as you think it is to believe that anything could be different.

But that belief lays with you and you alone in this place. It might not be easy to accept, but surely you understand that people here are not of the same views as those of your world?

I'm not saying it is simple to let go of.... The past is difficult to cut away, and it would doubtlessly be difficult after living your life in such a way. But you have a chance to live your life differently then you have until now, if you want to try. You have a chance to rise above those beliefs.

That chance is nothing but an illusion...it's a choice I don't have. I hate humans. I will never forgive them. ...I don't want to forgive them. [He doesn't want to admit that he was in the wrong. He doesn't want to acknowledge that he spent all those years hating and decaying for nothing, even though he's already aware of how painfully true that might be.] You speak of impossibilities. I can't believe that humans are capable of change, not anymore.

[It's supposed to be a definitive statement, but his tone quietly betrays the confusion that boils underneath the surface. In the time he's been here, living in a village of humans as he could only dream of doing long ago, nobody has targeted him for being what he is. The fear, disgust, and contempt he expects are conspicuously absent even when he makes plain his non-humanness. None of it makes sense. His old beliefs are slowly becoming less sturdy, but he doesn't know what else to cling to.]

You could never understand how difficult it was for me to learn to trust Sayo. She was kind, but I couldn't let myself believe it was real. Every day I waited for it all to fall apart and reveal the truth: she would realize she had no reason to care about me, because she's a human and I'm not. I thought that eventually she would reject me and abandon me.

✘ appointments

......nothing

Didn't sound like nothing.

innocent whistles

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