I want to believe it can be done. Maybe it's not easy, but we shouldn't have to carry the burden of what we were forever if we don't want to. People can change and overcome their demons.
...Though, I'll admit, even if it's obvious. I'm barely talking about Sariel at this point, though I'd still hope he could make his own happiness.
[ There's a pause in the messaging before Hugo sends another. He had to deliberate on it, but he imagines at worst, Silco will just refuse to answer. That's fine. ]
Let me rephrase the question a little. Don't you wish your past didn't haunt you?
I fill my time wishing for something bigger than myself.
[ Quite frankly, Silco wouldn't be the man he was, without his trauma. What would he do? Give up? He needs it. It is the motivation and the fire behind everything he does. He couldn't remove that from himself any more than he could become a different, softer person.
Why would he bother, when he doesn't hate himself. He just hates the people around him. ]
What happened to me, made me. I can't remove myself from it, and I could hardly hope to. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without it.
I don't completely disagree. Obviously there are things from my past that I wish had never happened, but that's not something that can be changed. It's stating the obvious, but it's still easier said than done to accept that in the first place.
Maybe this is comparing apples and oranges. Who knows? But I'm still curious.
Has it ever bothered you? Being shaped so heavily that way? Maybe it allows you to do what you do, but... Why did you have to pay that cost?
[ He doesn't even mean men like Benzo and Vander, who were dead because of him. The men he'd killed. He means the rest of them. Bodies at the bottom of the river, the ones the enforcers slaughtered before this all happened. ]
If it wouldn't have been them, it would have been someone else. I let a weak man die that day, but I am still alive. The price I paid was less than others, and I refuse to let the prices paid by countless Zaunites be paid in vain.
It had to be me, in short. None other could have weathered it, and marched on.
[ As always, when he asks Silco questions, he gets answers that are complicated. He understands the mentality that Silco describes here immediately, because itās easy to see those impulses in himself. Heād just been lucky enough to have never had his hand forced like Silcoās had. Thatās even what Silco had said the night that heād drowned him.
ā¦It probably says something that heās returned to this topic, even if itās in a more roundabout way. ]
Mm, it is a bit of apples and oranges, but in the sense that your stakes are much higher. The past that shaped me doesnāt have much of a body count. Or those that exist are ones I donāt mourn.
[ Save for one, but Serena is still a topic heās keeping locked up tightly. ]
Itās admirable. Sad, because I wish it werenāt circumstances you had to face, but admirable.
[ Thereās a pause, since he considers whether to send another message or not, be decides to just ask. ]
Those are the kinds of stakes weāre facing here, arenāt we?
Being here is not easy, or simple. What is happening to us is not welcome, but required all the same. We are forced to now either hold steadfast, or we do not.
Those that crumple will not be able to pay the price to stand in opposition.
I know I will be able to. I have already been forged in this fire. Hopefully I will not be the only one.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
...Though, I'll admit, even if it's obvious. I'm barely talking about Sariel at this point, though I'd still hope he could make his own happiness.
[ There's a pause in the messaging before Hugo sends another. He had to deliberate on it, but he imagines at worst, Silco will just refuse to answer. That's fine. ]
Let me rephrase the question a little. Don't you wish your past didn't haunt you?
no subject
[ Quite frankly, Silco wouldn't be the man he was, without his trauma. What would he do? Give up? He needs it. It is the motivation and the fire behind everything he does. He couldn't remove that from himself any more than he could become a different, softer person.
Why would he bother, when he doesn't hate himself. He just hates the people around him. ]
What happened to me, made me. I can't remove myself from it, and I could hardly hope to. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without it.
no subject
Maybe this is comparing apples and oranges. Who knows? But I'm still curious.
Has it ever bothered you? Being shaped so heavily that way? Maybe it allows you to do what you do, but... Why did you have to pay that cost?
no subject
The people that were with me that day are.
[ He doesn't even mean men like Benzo and Vander, who were dead because of him. The men he'd killed. He means the rest of them. Bodies at the bottom of the river, the ones the enforcers slaughtered before this all happened. ]
If it wouldn't have been them, it would have been someone else. I let a weak man die that day, but I am still alive. The price I paid was less than others, and I refuse to let the prices paid by countless Zaunites be paid in vain.
It had to be me, in short. None other could have weathered it, and marched on.
no subject
ā¦It probably says something that heās returned to this topic, even if itās in a more roundabout way. ]
Mm, it is a bit of apples and oranges, but in the sense that your stakes are much higher. The past that shaped me doesnāt have much of a body count. Or those that exist are ones I donāt mourn.
[ Save for one, but Serena is still a topic heās keeping locked up tightly. ]
Itās admirable. Sad, because I wish it werenāt circumstances you had to face, but admirable.
[ Thereās a pause, since he considers whether to send another message or not, be decides to just ask. ]
Those are the kinds of stakes weāre facing here, arenāt we?
no subject
Being here is not easy, or simple. What is happening to us is not welcome, but required all the same. We are forced to now either hold steadfast, or we do not.
Those that crumple will not be able to pay the price to stand in opposition.
I know I will be able to. I have already been forged in this fire. Hopefully I will not be the only one.