driftfleet | [Open Moons Mingle Log]

[Felix almost flinches at the question, but not quite.]

No it isn't. And...no, I didn't. For me it was...the end result rather than the cause...

[He's babbling a bit under the stress, as his mind plays out the chain of events this leads through until he's dizzy with it, and at last he blurts out the one simple truth that started it all]

My mother was a prostitute. She sold me when I was four.

[Oh. Isabela, comes to mind, of course. She'd had to deal with a similar situation, and it's a truly dreadful one.]

I am sorry. To be betrayed by someone who is supposed to take care of you...it must have been awful.

[He tries to smile, but the expression kind of betrays him partway through and tugs downward instead]

Yes. But I've never particularly blamed her for it.

[Partly because he knows, by experience, what life in a brothel is like and what pressures the owners put on their charges. And he could explain that, but he sees an opportunity to skip over the messy details in between. Malkar isn't an easier subject, but he's managing his misery at this point, and soldiers on with the rest of the answer]

In any case...Malkar bought me when I was fourteen, shortly after my magic manifested. He took me out of the city for two years and taught me everything he wanted me to know. His training was...insistent. Cruel. But effective. He spun me a story as a noble and molded me to fit the image, then took me back to the city and got me inducted. Without that, I would likely never have been able to take the oaths, much less rise to the ruling council.

So he made you feel like you were getting everything, while you were still trapped by him. That everything you did, was his bidding, even if sometimes you allowed yourself to believe otherwise?

[That is...hauntingly familiar. ]

[Unconsciously, he starts to hug his arms against his chest, and nods]

Yes. Especially early on and I was...convinced that he loved me. It didn't take for me to figure out that he was using me, as literally as you might imagine, and I broke away from him when I was twenty. Or thought I had.

In the end I was nothing more than his cat's paw.

[There it was. He hates it, that someone else understands this way of life. He's sure it's the same for all slaves, though. He's already seen it in Nel. ]

The lies we tell ourselves, to make it all more bearable.

[It presented differently for many, but there was always some kind of common thread. The things you learned in order to stay alive. The things you learned because you stayed alive. All of them left scars]

Yes. Except sometimes we can't tell if they're lies anymore.

[Some things went too deep to ever go away. The same way he could never go back to being the boy he was before Malkar made him what he is.

He laughs, a trace bitterly, and turns a wry smile on Fenris.]

Not the kind of thing you would have expected to hear from a near stranger, I'm sure.

[Fenris is lost in his own thoughts, for a while. This has hit rather close to home, as has a lot in this place, recently. Eventually, he exhales, long and slow. ]

No. I didn't. These other worlds continue to surprise me.

[He's content to let Fenris think it over. It gives him as much time to collect himself as it does to second guess his move to confess this much so quickly. It seems selfish, because it's only to him that it feels like they are picking up from where they left off]

The only thing I try to assume is that anything is possible. It's not always an easy task.

It isn't. I saw many, many worlds during my time with the Initiative, saw half of them destroyed, in fact. It has given me a...wider understanding than I once had.

[One, single thing to thank the Initiative for. Oh, and stopping Thedas from getting destroyed, he guesses. Yay.]

Any amount of time in these places tends to do that. The very existence of certain people brings that to light in the very least. [Talking animals, for instance]

I am sorry your experience wasn't any more pleasant than mine.

Mine was the same as any who were taken by the Initiative. The final goals were reached, even if many lost their lives in the process. It could have gone worse.

[He settles back in his chair a bit, looking both slightly more relaxed and contemplative at the same time.]

What was their goal?

There was a planet called...Earth. Something happened, and there became a power on it called United Earth. They were planning on destroying other worlds, to gain their power, the Initiative were a force fighting it. They brought us in from our home worlds, in order to protect them.

[He still sounds bitter. He did what he had to, but he never asked to be there to save Thedas. It was never offered to him, he was just taken as an unwilling soldier. Again. ]

[He's heard of Earth, of course, and the idea of different versions of it, but a conflict of that scale still surprises him. Some of it, however, does not]

Without your permission.

[It's not really a question. It just seems to be a theme]

Without our permission, or our ability to leave. They gave us weapons, which grew with us, attached to our minds, and then sent us to war. They worked with things called time machines, it allowed us to go to varying points of Earth's history, and alter them, to reduce the United Earth's stranglehold in the future.

[Simple on paper, but... ]

A lot of people, even some worlds ceased to exist in the process.

Powers... [He looks a bit paler in the face as he processes that particular idea, along with the uncomfortable thought that there might be a reason he didn't get to go home]

And I thought my existence the last few years was complicated.

[See? The demented magical castle is a cakewalk compared to the goddamn Initiative.]

The war was won, in the end, and we were given the right to return home. Merrill and I left together, and ended up here instead.

Then we were both robbed of our return home.

[Another unhappy thing they share, and he's not sure that makes him feel better or worse.]

The place you were in, the castle, it did the same?

[He nods solemnly]

Yes. It was true that for nearly everyone, the only way to return was when the castle decided it wanted to send them back to where they came from. Usually at an inopportune time, I might add. There were a few of us, however, that were there long enough that we were given what appeared to be a chance to make the decision ourselves. A door we could walk through to our own world.

Ah, yes. The Initiative had a transporter. Much like the ones the Fleet use, really. They could be set to our home worlds.

[He sits up slightly, unable to hide his interest despite the dreary subject]

They let you go back whenever you wished, or was that simply the last time?

The last time. We were only allowed to leave once the war was won. It was supposed to be our reward.

I see. [He pauses, head tilted in obvious thought]

I wonder if our mutual presence here has to do with our former captors, or simply that leaving allowed Atroma to intercept us.

[Open Moons Mingle Log]

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