I have died every day waiting for you

[lovelikeyou]

[That was, in Rose's opinion, even worse than last week. Any loss of life is an awful waste, but for it all to come of some horrible accident...

This week, she doesn't retreat back to her room. She knows now that the people here, or at least enough of them, like to gather after these experiences. Many of the Crystal Gems were the same way; she remembers their post-battle huddles well. It's not a party, really, but...it's good to be together. To have friends around. Maybe, to remember those who were lost.

So this time, she'll go to the cafeteria herself and request some food for everyone. It's just basic snacks, the kind of human food she knows well enough to ask for. There's some hot chocolate provided, too. She definitely knows people enjoy that. It doesn't take too long, since she isn't making most of it, and then she goes to invite everybody she can find.

She doesn't slip any notes underneath doors, for the people she doesn't happen across. Some Crystal Gems didn't join the groups, or maybe did after one battle but not another. Sometimes they wanted to be alone. She never really understood that...but it wasn't her place to tell them otherwise. Weren't they all about freedom?

Everybody probably knows something like this is going to happen again, anyway. It's their choice to come.]

Comments

[blackmass]

That is also the stance of the Holy Church to which I belong. But we of the Eighth Sacrament...our view is one of further nuance.

God is absolute, and the world of His creation a perfect one. In such a world exist Dead Apostles, vampires, demons, other such creatures that defile the will of God and turn man who is made in His image to heresy and evil themselves. The contradiction is a clear one, I am sure you see. But it is simple; the work of the holy is to strengthen the goodness of man, and of the demonic to strengthen the evil within them.

[He spoke as if it were an old recitation; simple facts Kirei had known for most of his life. Casual, even--he stretched out his arms as he spoke, even though he showed no intent or desire to change into anything less restrictive for exercise than the black uniform.]

Which is all to say, in simpler terms, that even such monsters were created for a reason. I wonder, then--in a world where Alice Cullen was not made, but born as a vampire while retaining such capacity to regret and apologize, such capacity as to lead others to care for her...

[Kirei stopped moving then, eyes locked on Rhea in an unreadable expression.]

Is she, in this hypothetical, 'a monster' for existing?

[archboxer]

I see.

[She steps back from the punching bag, hands held behind her as if they were back in the chapel discussing scripture instead of in a gym discussing a murder.]

In that situation, no. She is not. She is simply not a human. If she leads a life that brings no harm to others despite... such a need for sustenance, that does not make her a monster. A human, even with a short life, can do equal harm. After all, for example...

[Her eyes do not move away from Kirei's.]

The Professor is likely to be human, is he not?

[blackmass]

[There was something different about the smile Kirei wore now--it was very similar to the expression he wore every day, the pleasantries that didn't reach dark eyes. Except this time it was almost as if he merely forgot he hadn't been smiling for a moment, and did so now with nothing behind it. No enigmatic confidence, cold calculation, or passive-aggression.]

[Just emptiness.]

His actions are monstrous regardless of what manner of life he may be. The quandary, for me, lies in whether he chooses to be so or if such acts against God and mortal alike are merely his nature.

[archboxer]

[...Huh. She doesn't like that. It's not as if her expressions aren't always honest but the one thing you could say about her was that she was an emotional person, even if she tried to be one of reason.

They were similar yet not.]

It could be one or the other or both. The flow of time is a strange thing. It might simply be that his fate is to exist in this monstrous way to test us as much as a disaster might.

[blackmass]

A fascinating possibility. But I wonder this: if it is his nature, are the acts committed his fault, or is he acting as he was made? Can one blame the hurricane for the devastation left in its path?

[archboxer]

Certainly one could blame the hurricane. It is not a question of 'can' but whether one should. Who is to blame for a famine, after all? Is it the drought for ruining the land or the farmers who were not prepared for said drought?

[blackmass]

It was the drought which ruined the land, as you say. But one can not ask a drought if it acts maliciously or does only as it is meant.

[archboxer]

No, certainly one cannot. The farmer may blame other things--his workers, providence, his neighbors for cursing him--but in the end it was the drought.