envy_the_sinners | IC contact

[All right, here goes--]

You said a while back that "Scar" isn't your real name.

[Of course it isn't, in retrospect, who would name their child Scar.]

...What...happened to stop you from using your name?

[There's an uncomfortable pause. Although people comment frequently on what a strange name Scar is, a scant few have ever actually bothered to ask him about it.

Maka makes two, that he can remember.]

I renounced it when I took up a life of malice and revenge.

[Well, that certainly sounds like a long story. Is it rude to inquire further? Scar's her friend, but that doesn't mean she has an automatic right to know everything about his life.]

Someone hurt you, is that right?

[Another pause.]

Many people have.

[Drama queeeeeen]

[Well, of course, there was a war going on in his world, too. So asking "who" would be redundant, many people have, probably more than he remembers.]

How much are you comfortable talking about with me?

I do not mind speaking on it.

Okay. Well...I can already guess that things weren't happy, so...what are you trying to get revenge against? Why did you feel like you had to give up your real name?

[Scar takes a breath.]

It was a government-sanctioned genocide of nearly my entire people. I did not even know if any others survived until nearly ten years later. So I... started killing them. The soldiers who had distorted our natural world and destroyed my home. Even after the war was over, the violence continued, and as long as it continued, I carried on that path. My actions were a disgrace against God, regardless of their necessity. Such a person does not deserve their holy name.

[They just...they just killed people because the government commanded it? That's horrible but--

Something catches in her throat as she remembers back on an incident--a tall, burly man much like Scar, tattooed like Scar, speaking bitterly about the school's genocide of his people--immortal wolves like him.

Magical creatures were considered an abomination to Lord Death, they would harm humans. At least that's what was said.

A cold feeling washes over Maka, the horror of realization--she is no different than the soldiers that killed Scar's people, that harmed him so horribly.

--Stop. Don't do that, Maka. Think instead of how you'll change the world when you get back. A world where people are killed for their very existence--otherwise harmless--is unacceptable. Kid wouldn't allow that even if his father did. Have faith.

Her voice sounds a little thick as she responds:] You were hurt. Nobody should blame you for being hurt. You might be banged up a little, but your soul's still good.

Regardless, that does not excuse my actions. I had a reason. I did not enjoy it. But I still took thousands of lives, and I cast out-

[He hates facing this fact, but he rejected Lust just as he had rejected his brother.]

I cast out those who were my family in blind hatred. I had no right to condemn them, after what I had done.

...I've killed, too. Monsters, I tell people here, so it just gives them the impression I'm some slayer. But that's not true, those monsters...used to be people. I never considered if there was a way to save them from their corruption, I just did as I was told and killed them. Then I would harvest their souls and feed them to my Weapon partner.

I'm no better. I have no right to judge, Scar.

Nothing can be placed on such a black and white level. I know little of your home, but I have learned enough to know that you were fed through a school to drill these things into you from a young age. You have learned differently for yourself, now. That is far more important than the corrupt intentions of a misinformed child.

[Her wording strikes him... quite personally, though.]

When something you used to call a person begins acting like a monster, there is only so much you can stand until you begin to believe that they must be one. There reaches a certain point where there is very little left to salvage, where any resemblance disappears. Rejecting them becomes the easiest option.

Do you think that about yourself? That you're a monster?

I know...I know now that it probably wasn't right to condition kids like me to fight witches. Or anybody. That the adults should have held more responsibility for the war that they started instead of recruiting us to help them fight. But I'll never consider myself a monster for doing what I thought would protect people from being hurt. I just want to continue protecting people, because I know it's the right thing to do.

So I'll ask again, do you think that you're a monster?

I was not referring to myself.

[Well then maybe you shouldn't be a vague baby, Scar.]

I mean the people whom we have seen as monsters. It becomes easy to call something less than human when it has failed to meet some personal expectation for what a human truly is.

I don't think it's that complicated, to be a human you be yourself.

...And don't let yourself get corrupted and warp your body and soul into an inhuman creature because you want power.

It is a complex subject, where I come from. People do not chose to fall from humanity. It is through no fault of their own but out of the foolishness of others.

[He imagines it would be easier, if it were the other way around.]

I think...this may be an issue of metaphors versus literal speech.

[Only just now she's bringing this up??]

Being a human is seen as the weakest and most undesirable thing in my world, by...a lot of people. The gods that supposedly ruled over us were totally indifferent to us as individuals, and so let bad things start happening all over. People started growing afraid and felt like they needed to become like gods in order to have strength, not necessarily courage. So...they would...kill good people and eat their souls, their bodies change and they become what we call "Kishin eggs"--the precursor to becoming a demon god.

I think...even if humans aren't physically strong, they have something gods don't have. They have courage and they have persistence, it's just some people don't realize it and give up on humanity.

"Human" is only a way of describing a person who is born naturally and mortal, in my world. There are some who think they surpass humanity by being something else, but others seek humanity. A dead person must be transmuted to become something else. A distorted and stripped version of their former selves.

[He hesitates for a moment.]

That is how the homunculi came into existence. Lust, and the people she calls her siblings. Their nature is not their doing.

Miss Lust was...?

[A corpse revived? Without consent? That's so cruel, who could be that selfish to do that to another person.]

Homunculi...I know the term, but I never thought any could exist. Kishin eggs are living people, and they revel in what they've become.

Neither did I, until I met them. They sought to regain humanity. At the very least, Lust did.

I trust I am telling you these things in confidence.

Of course you are, I wouldn't...you're both my friends, I wouldn't tell something personal like that.

I trust you, I simply needed to be certain. The subject is sensitive, for reasons that are obvious. It simply serves to explanation for their sometimes strange ways.

Well...you know, I trust you too. If you're sharing something like this out of trust, I couldn't betray that, then I'd be no better than--

[A pause. She was getting a little off topic. No, steer it back to the subject, Maka.

...Except now she's thinking of the kishin eggs she was sent to kill actually being homunculi like Lust and feeling ill.]

[Scar's eyebrows twitch slightly up at the pause.]

Are you all right?

[A breath of a sigh comes as an answer.

All right.

He shared with her, time to reciprocate.]

I've only let myself call two men in my whole life here and at home "father." They've both hurt me, betrayed my trust somehow. First my natural father by abandoning me and my mother to sleep around, then this found father by leaving Johto.

I know it's irrational, but I take trust seriously.

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envy_the_sinners - 2015-07-29 06:51 (UTC) - Expand

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soundmind - 2015-08-01 02:10 (UTC) - Expand