... Eight people died by our hands. [ said very, very softly. ] Four of whom we had promised safety - there was some sort of hallucinogen, and they warped, and changed into monsters, and... before any of us could get our wits about us...
[ it was too late, and those four people died. taair the pacifist has never harmed anyone else - until he came here. until he was forced to, and... was he? living that life, was he forced? does that make it any different? it still happened in some falsehood or not. the bloodstains feel like they'll stay on his hands even now.
he lapses into silence after that, just kind of staring down at his lap. ]
[ he says - there's a little irony laced through it, a bit of a joke, because like. you could tell that by looking at him, but it's true. the only people he ever met at home were mercenaries, and while one was a person he holds above many, the other was not, and he was there to witness a conversation when miguel reminded the leader of the very same. oh, i'm sorry! i forgot that you, a man who kills for coin, is allowed to tell me what's right from wrong. just because you have your reasons... that doesn't take away from what it really is. murder.
he looks down. his thoughtshare reflects red on his hands, and he looks away again. ]
...Both. [ comes the answer, quietly, and taair shakes his head. ] The only ones we saw of you all were people who left us.
[ four faces briefly move through his thoughts. zhongli, yves, claude, and neverah. they move briefly, unnaturally, their faces angry, and then disappear again. ] The others were strangers.
S'pose they figured they had to cover all their bases in case one approach didn't hurt enough.
[ he frowns at that imagined red and reaches over to put his own hand over taair's to help obscure it — though given the size of his hands, it only actually covers so much. ]
...Don't beat yourself up over it too bad, though. Maybe it was part you, but it weren't all you. We both know you're no mercenary, so that's your proof right there.
[ it helps, though - not because of the size, the red still visible around the edges of taair's long fingers, but the contact itself. it's a reminder, an anchor to reality, and the thought diminishes, the red, the awful faces, all at once, and he turns his hand a tiny bit, enough to gently link their fingers. ]
Mm.
[ the noise is soft in agreement. it will take a long time to leave him, but... fidelio's right, and he exhales out, a little shaky, bolstered as he sets his composure back into place, takes the logical explanation in line with his own. She would tell me it was a good thing, that I defended myself against her.
... ]
...I wanted to live. [ like an admittance. saying so makes him feel a little guilty, but - in the fuzzy haze of his memories in that room, his instinct for the first time was to fight back, not to just -- not to just take it. maybe it was facing caris, or maybe it was miguel, or maybe it was knowing there were good things to come back to. ]
[ ...hearing those spoken words makes him think briefly of firefly, though it somehow feels like the meaning behind them is very different. she always said that line like it was the core of her identity, while taair says it like it's some foreign idea he shouldn't even be thinking. ]
Nothin' wrong with that. Acts of self-defence are usually considered justified for a reason.
[ once again, as drastically different as their own situations were, this was something they'd sort of had in common. fidelio had never cared about his own life beyond its potential use to people he considered more important than him. he'd wondered sometimes, as he threw himself into danger over and over, if maybe he really did have some sort of death wish.
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... Eight people died by our hands. [ said very, very softly. ] Four of whom we had promised safety - there was some sort of hallucinogen, and they warped, and changed into monsters, and... before any of us could get our wits about us...
[ it was too late, and those four people died. taair the pacifist has never harmed anyone else - until he came here. until he was forced to, and... was he? living that life, was he forced? does that make it any different? it still happened in some falsehood or not. the bloodstains feel like they'll stay on his hands even now.
he lapses into silence after that, just kind of staring down at his lap. ]
no subject
[ to him personally, it doesn't really sound like much, but this is one of those ways in which they're very different people — a good thing.
...
then again, he knows how these incidents seem to work. it probably wasn't actually that simple, was it? ]
...Was it just strangers, or people you knew?
no subject
[ he says - there's a little irony laced through it, a bit of a joke, because like. you could tell that by looking at him, but it's true. the only people he ever met at home were mercenaries, and while one was a person he holds above many, the other was not, and he was there to witness a conversation when miguel reminded the leader of the very same. oh, i'm sorry! i forgot that you, a man who kills for coin, is allowed to tell me what's right from wrong. just because you have your reasons... that doesn't take away from what it really is. murder.
he looks down. his thoughtshare reflects red on his hands, and he looks away again. ]
...Both. [ comes the answer, quietly, and taair shakes his head. ] The only ones we saw of you all were people who left us.
[ four faces briefly move through his thoughts. zhongli, yves, claude, and neverah. they move briefly, unnaturally, their faces angry, and then disappear again. ] The others were strangers.
no subject
[ he frowns at that imagined red and reaches over to put his own hand over taair's to help obscure it — though given the size of his hands, it only actually covers so much. ]
...Don't beat yourself up over it too bad, though. Maybe it was part you, but it weren't all you. We both know you're no mercenary, so that's your proof right there.
no subject
Mm.
[ the noise is soft in agreement. it will take a long time to leave him, but... fidelio's right, and he exhales out, a little shaky, bolstered as he sets his composure back into place, takes the logical explanation in line with his own. She would tell me it was a good thing, that I defended myself against her.
... ]
...I wanted to live. [ like an admittance. saying so makes him feel a little guilty, but - in the fuzzy haze of his memories in that room, his instinct for the first time was to fight back, not to just -- not to just take it. maybe it was facing caris, or maybe it was miguel, or maybe it was knowing there were good things to come back to. ]
no subject
Nothin' wrong with that. Acts of self-defence are usually considered justified for a reason.
[ once again, as drastically different as their own situations were, this was something they'd sort of had in common. fidelio had never cared about his own life beyond its potential use to people he considered more important than him. he'd wondered sometimes, as he threw himself into danger over and over, if maybe he really did have some sort of death wish.
he gives taair's hand a gentle squeeze. ]
And I'm glad you wanted to.