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[sleepingstar]

• My brother left.


• Hamlet forced me to get out of bed this morning.


• I'm the only one of my kind here.


• I might as well be dead.


• Being dead here wouldn't do any good.

[Guess who's cursed and not happy? Oh yeah, this girl.]

Comments

[text]

[dragonofalthena]

It's okay. There's not really any of my kind here. I mean, there are others, but they don't seem like they talk or anything.

[text]

[sleepingstar]

What makes that okay?

[text]

[dragonofalthena]

I just mean that you're not alone even if you're the only one of your kind here.

[sleepingstar]

That doesn't make sense.

[She could make an entire list of logical reasons why that statement was patently ridiculous, but the truth is, she's a sulky child who refuses to be comforted.]

[dragonofalthena]

Sure it does. There are a lot of other people here.

[sleepingstar]

Humans. [No text could convey her disdain.]

[vicodincrutch]

Can you explain to me how being the only one of your kind means that you should not exist?

[sleepingstar]

What's the point?

[Of explaining. Of existing. Of a lot of things, honestly, although Pai certainly doesn't expect this random stranger to have the answer.]

[vicodincrutch]

Your existence happened without meaning to begin with. The same as everyone else's. The point is that there isn't a point. So if it makes you feel any better, it wasn't like there was a reason for existing to begin with and you lost it.

[sleepingstar]

[An almost Contractor-ly worldview. Pai would find it comforting if she were in any mood to be comforted.]

You don't understand. [Unwittingly the quintessential teenager.]

[vicodincrutch]

Discontent, apathy, self-isolation?

What's not to get?

[Who knows why he wants to play the misery game with a very clearly upset, odd young lady but once engaged the game can and unfortunately will go around and around.

No, House, no.]

[sleepingstar]

I did have a purpose once. [She fought, she killed, and she had made the choice to die in order to protect her people. Her every action had significance. What she did mattered. And now it doesn't. She doesn't know why she's telling him this. It doesn't matter to him. Nothing. Matters.]

[vicodincrutch]

You're implying that you're only capable of having one purpose. If you did one thing so successfully who is to say that you can't do another?

[sleepingstar]

Like what? Help humans? I refuse. Humans tried to eradicate my people. [This is a level of honesty & emotion she never normally would have offered, and even as she does, it feels wrong. But she can't stop herself.] I don't have any reason to help them.]

action;

[candothat]

[Pai doesn't get to post this kind of thing without getting a visit. Nope. Chekov is knocking at her door as soon as he's free to check on her.]

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[never_very_good]

Sorry about your brother.

[sleepingstar]

Why bother? [Unless this is lingering guilt for harming her, which would be ridiculous. Then again, humans have always been ridiculous.]

[never_very_good]

[It can be more than one thing. Frankie's complex like that.]

Losing family's rough. Especially here.

[sleepingstar]

[Unnecessarily complex, in Pai's opinion.]

Have you lost family?

[never_very_good]

My brother was here a while.

[sleepingstar]

What happened to him?

[never_very_good]

He went home.

[sleepingstar]

[Like Hei.]

Is home a safe place?

[never_very_good]

I dunno. Safe, not really, but he can take care of himself, mostly.

[sleepingstar]

I thought humans didn't like being alone.

[never_very_good]

He's not alone.

[Even if Frankie isn't there to keep an eye on him. That's a whole other can of worms, though.]

What are you?

[sleepingstar]

A Contractor.

[She would leave it like that, but the curse kicks in and sends her into a bitter invective.]

Humans need us and fear us. They use us to fight their wars while they plan our extinction. Every time we kill each other, they win.

[never_very_good]

[That means basically nothing to him, but okay. Frankie is pretty hard to freak out with species weirdness. He understands better than most the fine and blurry line between human and not.]

Is it safer here?

[sleepingstar]

It's pointless.

[She doesn't mind death or killing. She'll murder whoever she has to. But she misses her actions having consequence.]

[never_very_good]

Doesn't have to be.

[sleepingstar]

I'm not helping humans.

[never_very_good]

Half the City isn't. The ones who are, who knows what they'd do where you're from.

[sleepingstar]

[And here is the proof that Contractors are not completely rational, particularly when they're only 14 years old. Because while he makes a perfectly good, logical point --

She just scowls at her device and shoves it under her bed. He doesn't understand.]