socialcapital | [ JACKSON HEART ]

"Solars were going crazy way before that, though, if the stories are to be believed."

So you agree that there's something suspicious about your moods -- something that resonates with the stories of other Solars.

"Well, I knew all Solars historically had gone crazy. That's what everyone knows about Solars. But I figured, like everyone else has, that it's just an inherent quality of a human channelling the powers of the Sun."

What kind of association does the Unconquered Sun have with guilt and penance?

"He... Doesn't? He's like... the god embodying supreme perfection. Isn't it kind of inevitable a flawed human vessel wouldn't be able to handle that? ... Is what the logic was."

I am trying to imagine you telling Harmonious Song that she's incapable of handling supreme perfection.

"I kinda think murdering her along with all the other Solars was a way of telling her that."

I meant you specifically.

That aside -- none of what you're doing has anything to do with supreme perfection, or a lack thereof. It doesn't even have anything to do with vengeance. At this point, I'm not even sure you understand what the feeling behind vengeance is.

"So what is it that I'm doing, wise guy?"

[He glances at Saida, just for a moment -- and looks back to Firuz, clearly deciding to continue anyway.]

The part of you caught in time will not accept this. But the part of you that is here now might. And that is the part I want to reach, more than any other.

I've said you are no demon. And I've said you are not moved by vengeance. Neither of these statements are empty, and neither are given without proof.

Firuz Mahalenka. The witch who murdered your family still breathes. The man who kept you enslaved still breathes. And yet, this is when you choose revenge?

No.

In event after event, as you showed me your heart, the same situation played out. A famine where you try to cause misery without death. Mercenaries whose deaths are only acceptable because that's the life they chose. Trade and misfortune moved around while your heart cries that it's not enough -- that you've done something you can't take back, that someone you cared for is dead because of you, because of the actions you took and the words you said, and there is nothing you can do to make up for that. Even now, it is not enough. And even when his entire house has been torn from their homes and shredded on the streets, it will still not be enough.

Demons don't know guilt. You do. And underneath the darkness, underneath the rage, your heart is drowning in it. For Rikiya, for the youth who died in the Golden Asp's stead, and for every innocent life you've caught up in this since.

Saida has turned back into a bird and hidden in Firuz's shirt, feathery little head and beady little eyes poking out. Just ignore me, her birdy little body language says, I'm just a bird!!

Firuz makes a face that's. Well, he knows all this is true. He knows he did literally ask for it. But hearing it said out loud is still difficult, because even the part of him that isn't stuck in Creation hovering on the verge of another breakdown wants there to be something he could do, some scheme that could be successful enough to satisfy him.

"So... so, then, what. I should have just given up? I should have let them get away with it?"

Of course not. Who do you think you're talking to? I would have hunted down every soldier in that party and left their bodies as a warning to any who would dare try the same in the future.

He is startled into being indignant briefly.

"Well. Well-- some of us aren't physically equipped for that because we have soft human flesh and die when stabbed!"

As Aster would say: "skill issue".

Besides, if you had been so inclined, you would have done something needlessly poetic like returning each of those arrows and spears to their bearers.

"That's not what I do! That's not how I do things! Running directly in to try to beat up every bad guy is how Solars get killed!"

See? And there's your good sense, right where it's always been.

I hope you remember this next time you try saying I have no reason to care for you.

"I don't understand the way you think at all."

I intend for you to have plenty of time to figure it out.

Cheek. Puff.

"Only because I'm not going to drag the accountant back to Creation."

I appreciate that. But as you said -- you still have loose ends here. Ones you can't just leave, any more than I could leave the responsibilities of my own life.

You have people you care about here. Saida deserves to know what's happened to you. Sky's children could no doubt use what resources you'd be willing to offer to ease their future, if you've not done so already. And she, and Talon, and Issei should all know that you're well.

"Yes, but I can't both leave and stay."

Weren't you the one who said Solars excel at whatever they put their mind to?

If a human girl can grasp forming an Idea Link in a matter of days, I truly can't see it taking you long at all.

"I don't know what that is, but..."

Magical trans-world cellphone service. No phone required.

"... I can probably figure. Something out."

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