ximilialog | ( OPEN ) they say you grow,

Blue irises, [ joe repeats, knowing he will go back to the room he shares with nicky and start painting alina her very own bouquet of irises. van gogh he is not, but that will not stop him, already thinking of the shades of blue to give the flowers the right depth. manganese and red shaded phthalo, alizarin and ultramarine violet and blue, gold for the flecks of pollen, he'll have to ask for that. ]

If it is any consolation, I first saw a disco ball long after my first death. I have died so many times, the graveyards must be overfull of the men I used to be and not a single disco ball at my funeral. Tragic.

[ because he died in 1099 and it still hadn't been invented by the time his family learned of his death and mourned him. ]

[ it's so cavalierly spoken, as natural to joe as it is unnatural to her. no one but saints in far-fetched stories, spun to thread together faith in a country with a debt of hope, find themselves on their feet again after death. perhaps they'd idolize him, next, if he were to die and live again on ravkan soil.

her smile droops into a thoughtful line. ravkans only worship those who will go on nurture the earth with their blood. it might be comforting, if she were like joe — destined for a rebirth after ravka takes from her — but all she can imagine is welford branson's grief in scorpion's bend.

the curse of never being allowed to rest, going on forever alone. idly, she grips at a handful of simulated grass, plucking it out for the sake of busying her hands. ]

Doesn't it bother you? [ her brows furrow. ] The dying part, not the lack of a disco ball.

Yes.

[ it's been a novelty, to be so open and honest with the others about their gift. there have been others, of course, soldiers who had seen too much, friends they couldn't bear to part with despite their agelessness, lovers and informally adopted children, but none like the people on the ship who live with them day in and day out and crawl under their skin. even andy has made connections, despite their natural inclinations to solitude. ]

Death may not make a home with us, not yet, but every visit is painful all the same. [ the cognitive dissonance hurts the most: their bodies are repositories of violent obscenity but there is never a mark as a record, their bodies able to withstand memory because they are always being remade.

he exhales slowly, his hands catching together in the air in front of him, thumb tracing the thin line of scar that bisects his palm. that too is a novelty. ]

Our injuries may heal but our memories remain, unfortunately.

But you continue to live, in spite of it all.

[ not at its basest definition of survival, made deathless as though it were an obligation. he must have little say in how his body stitches back its damaged tendons and unraveled organs, but the choice to carry on — it's a conviction. a decision that must be autonomous when it would be so easy to move through life as a hollow body.

some ounce of bafflement bleeds into that statement, still. it's impossible to imagine she would have the will to continue onward as the world dies and is rebuilt countless times, to watch her friends return to dust through the centuries, if tearing down the fold doesn't make a martyr of her first.

a pensive frown pulls down the corners of her mouth, framed by a furrowed brow. she casts her eyes up toward the simulated sky, bright with clarity, despite the grim mood of their conversation. she half-expects to see it reflected there in looming, thunderous clouds — but the sunlight room's illusion never flickers. ]

There must be something that makes that pain worth it.

I will never regret the ability to help, to do good.

[ it's so simple and joe knows it makes him sound like a pollyanna, but he does believe they are still here for a reason. he believes he and nicky are together for a reason. the world is a cruel, harsh place, but they are living reminders that caring for other people is necessary and brutal and thoroughly human. ]

I have my family, my sisters and Nicolò. I had a brother. [ it is not enough for everyone, it's not even enough for his own family, but it is enough for yusuf. the hurt and pain is worth it for his beloved family, to have andromache and nicky, to now have nile, to have had booker before he sold them out like their two hundred years together had meant nothing at all. ]

The good we can do with our immortality has to be worth it, otherwise I would be a monster.

Edited (english is fake) 2022-08-24 16:44 (UTC)

[ had. the deliberate past tense nearly howls between them like a banshee's death knell. alina doesn't prod at the corpse of joe's grief, lets the matter rest intead; no matter how long-lived he may be, she knows some wounds are determined to stay fresh for an eternity. there's no need to bring up the loss that must litter the steps he's taken, always hounding his heels.

imagining the same for herself is an exhausting exercise. perhaps that's why she shifts the whole of her focus toward joe, body askew as she rolls on the grassy little knoll to face him more directly. ]

Immortality isn't what births a monster. [ can it? her mouth twists into a pensive frown, as though unhappy with the thought process this entire conversation is pushing her toward. ] I'm not so certain inaction makes you qualified for that title, either.

[ — or maybe that's just wishful, selfish thinking. there's very little she wouldn't give, somedays, to disappear from ravka's history books. ]

Some people in your position would think their gift means they, and they alone, have the right to change the world. If you were to ask me, I would say that's the final step in creating a monster.

People who think they alone have the authority to change the world... that is a symptom of power and pride, not immortality.

[ some limp-dicked pharma bro tortured them because he thought it was his duty, nay his right, to change the world at their expense. pope urban was not gifted with immortality but the divine right of hubris. how many very mortal kings and queens and dictators and leaders have decided their authority is the only authority, that they alone can change the world.

alone, may be the key. yusuf has never been alone, even without his small, precious family, his destiny has always been tied to a man that did unspeakable things and who has spent every day since then doing his best to be better than that man, to prove to himself and to god, and to yusuf, that he is not irredeemable for the choices he made when he was young man, a young, mortal man. it is because of that, because he has seen first hand how people can and will change if they choose to, that joe is constantly disappointed when people choose instead cruelty and pain and hurt.

his sigh is a heavy thing, weighted down by his years in ways he often isn't. ]

We can all do monstrous things, it is choosing not to do so that keeps us from being monsters. Perhaps I have not succeeded, maybe I am as much a monster as the people I see monstrosity in, but I hope... I have to hope I can be better.

Immortality is power.

[ it's self-punishing to envision what kirigan must see, from the pedestal he's placed himself and his own ambitions upon. ravkans he equates to cockroaches, no doubt — kings and queens and soldiers that he will outlive. a world that will always have the imprint of his boot crushing it for however long he walks the earth. with your enemies long dead, she imagines it must be too easy to seize an empty throne; you need only wait in the shadows.

she chews the inside of her ceheek until the pressure threatens to split it raw. there's no certain method of pinpointing a monster when most know better than to flash sharp teeth, but when her gaze swivels to joe's profile — she doubts he's hiding fangs inside of his mouth. doubts he could come close to unleashing all that she's had the misery of witnessing for herself.

instinctively, her hand grazes over her mangled collarbone, neatly hidden beneath fabric. ]

It's not about hoping. It's about doing. [ her lips press together, grim and tight. ] Hope isn't enough.

[ no, no, he doesn't like that. joe turns, rolling on to his side so he can look at this young woman the world has clearly tried its damnedest to step one. ]

Hope is necessary. If you have nothing to hope for, you have nothing to fight for.

[ joe is, fundamentally, an optimist. it's burned deep into his bones despite all the loss and sorrow and misery he has witnessed, because he's always had a flicker of hope burning in his heart. sometimes it burns to nothing more than an ember, but it can always be given breath to burn bright again. ]

Hope is... proof of defiance. Despite everything, all the cruelty, the worst choices people can make, the ugliness and pain, there is always someone fighting back. With compassion or kindness, sacrifice, courage, hope is in the people behaving magnificently. Defiance in the face of all of the horrors the world can throw at us is... [ he trails off, quiet for a long moment, as he rolls flat onto his back again, the full force of his attention leaving alina. ]

Stubborn hope. And I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

[ the breath whooshes out of her strangled lungs, once he falls back into the cushion of grass. oxygen held, for fear of blowing away his faith in one exhale, no matter how it strikes her as fundamentally flawed. a hole in a sinking boat that he's tried to fill with hope to keep the world afloat.

it's a nice thought. perhaps that's how she knows it's too unreasonable, too unrealistic; the world never makes much space for kindness and mercy. ]

Hope doesn't stop hatred. Hate doesn't fill starving bellies, or save your friends from a bullet.

[ what has hope ever gifted her? a pang pounds in her gut — envious, to some degree, of joe's ability to cling to it. ]

You don't need hope to fight back. Sometimes there's no other choice but the one in front of you.

[ and between rolling over, and continuing the fight — she knows which she would choose. has chosen. ]

Why do you think that is not hope? Anger at what is and courage to change it and the stubborn refusal to give up.

[ of course when joe is paraphrasing a saint he picks augustine of hippo in north africa. andy, noted pessimist, will remind him of this when they are fighting but alina doesn't know.

loophole! ]

Hope isn't wishing for things to change, it's knowing that if we do something, anything, it will change. Otherwise what is the fucking point?

Because.

[ the word snaps from her teeth as fallen boughs under a heavy weight, crisp and sharper than she'd intended. if hope had been ravka's savior, they would have long since been saved. if hope were enough sustenance to survive on, she wouldn't need to pay for her existence in blood and sacrifice, in strife and martyrdom. ]

There's no guarantee anything will change, no matter how hard you fight. Wanting to believe it will doesn't save you.

[ her elbows perch into the dirt like tentpoles, lending her the support to sit upright. no speck of dirt lines her clothes — another reminder of the illusion they're in, as though to complement the delusion of hope that's thick in her lungs. an irritating barb beneath her skin, for reasons she can't bring herself to elucidate.

regardless, she curtly brushes herself off as she moves to stand, tension looped around her spine. ]

Maybe you've lived long enough to see the world change, but not all of us have that luxury.

[ he knows better than to argue further, would not anyway, tongue stilled by the bitter taste of her words. it's no fault of alina's to have found the tenderest part of his heart, already cracked from betrayal and loss; her words are defensive but he still feels the point of it, digging into unhealed wounds.

he closes his eyes, lays back on the soft grass. ]

No, you're right.

Edited 2022-10-02 07:39 (UTC)

[ her defensive anger comes up short, sliced off at the stem before it can truly flourish to full capacity. alina's first juvenile thought is that it isn't fair — to be prodded and poke where her fading hope is most sore, only for him to withdraw when she's retaliated. but it's soon overshadowed by the unease of her silence, the unexpectedness of joe conceding; her mouth fumbles, the well of her bitter words drying up.

perhaps she's become too used to kirigan's lectures, the self-righteous digging in of his heels, if joe's surrender feels rare. less commonplace in a life that's been defined by rooting her feet into the ground and refusing to be moved, to be weeded out of the world. that, more than the awkward tension that lingers like a foul smell, gnaws at her until her skin feels itchy with discomfort. ]

I have a project that needs finishing.

[ if it's not her best excuse to take an exit, alina hardly seems to recognize it. she hovers for only a moment longer, and then begins her trek back up the small hill. ]

[ she could have said she needed to wash her hair and joe would have let her trundle off. he is used to opposition, andy doesn't believe him much of the time and booker clearly had so little hope he saw fit to take down his entire family simply to burn himself to ash. yusuf's experiences are not universal though and his belief was hard earned.

hope is vital but he can't force it upon someone. if he could, he wouldn't be here in the first place. so he lets her go and eventually slinks out of the woods himself, seeking out nicolò for comfort as always. ]

( OPEN ) they say you grow,

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