I've been turning out these little drabbles (well, drabbles-and-a-half) lately, just trying to capture in words some concepts that have been flitting through my head regarding AT. They're not my best work ever, and I'm not sure why I'm a little off my game, but regardless, I thought I'd share.
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Diary of a Reluctant Conscript (original character POV, Reyvateil War)
She said he would have betrayed me; even though it was awful at first, I believe her, because she looks like one who would know. No, it's nothing I can explain, not really - just that there's no malice in her eyes, only that same haunted rawness that, every time I look at my reflection these days, I see staring back at me.
Is that enough to justify killing a man, killing the one who'd meant more than anything to you? It doesn't seem like it, some days, but what can I do? If we falter now, they'll round us up and exterminate us, like vermin, like non-people. That alone should be enough to quell my doubts. Our races are at war, and Mir did not begin it, not truly.
If any god out there can hear me, don’t let me fail. Let us have victory, so we can know peace.
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Heart of Your Sun (Mir POV, near-endgame)
I've been hearing that song so long I'm starting to think it's serenading me.
So this is what it's like to finally crack under the strain. To see the chinks of light coming through into a mind split open; to gaze for a blinding second upon the chaos that churns, out there in the real beyond your house of cards, and think it's the light of God. To stare into the heart of the sun as you're flung spinning helplessly towards it and think it's the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine.
Or maybe, just maybe, it is true what they say, and death is the ultimate bliss.
No, I cannot cave; my duty is to more than myself, after all. I will stare into the heart of your sun. And perhaps, in my blindness, I'll love the lie I see shadowed there before I tear it all apart.
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(Yep, I totally went with Thunder's idea that the Reyvateils and their partners turned on each other. It made sense; after all, their two races were in conflict.)
Letra - Eldharia ~Inori Saku Mori~
2 months ago
7 comments:
Seems like a pretty reasonable depiction of the situation. Though I personally would rather die than turn on my reyvateil partner.
Oh, and in the other comment I made. I didn't mean that Shurelia's partner turned on her, but that the regular people turned on each other. Then picked a side. The game never said that all reyvateils faught on Mir's side...
Ah, that makes more sense, since like you said, not all the Reyvateils fought for Mir. Shurelia certainly wasn't about to.
I imagine there must have been a lot of pretty difficult situations... I mean, I'm sure sometimes the Reyvateils turned first. Other times I'm sure Reyvateils had cruel partners who didn't support them in the war, and tried to eliminate them as soon as they threatened to rise up and form an army. And still other times I imagine people on both sides of the conflict who didn't want to hurt each other, but also didn't want to desert their side... it must have been a nightmare, especially since the number of lovers and people with generally strong emotions towards each other who would have ended up on opposite sides would have been high.
(Also, I wonder if any humans fought for Mir's side at all. I suppose it would depend on whether she really wanted to destroy humanity at that point or whether she was just fighting for equality... I'm a bit sketchy on the details of her original goals, having only played through the game once.)
I think Mir was probably gunning for heads, since she knew nothing about the world around her. She was trapped in the Silver Horn, being abused by a bunch of researchers for most of her life...so once she broke out, it was most likely a fight for revenge.
I'm sure there were some people fighting on her side, even though she'd probably just kill them in the end anyway.
Also, since 70% of the world's population was killed in that war, she wasn't doing it for a noble cause... If she was, there was always the option of killing all of the people who did bad stuff to her & leave everybody else alone.
Of course, it's also possible that Mir was just gunning for those who hurt her. Then reyvateil armies she acquired decided to make the fight all out themselves, because they wanted to get back at those who hurt them...
In the end, it was utter chaos & nobody won.
Oh, I think she was doing it for what she thought was a novel cause; I don't think that she wanted to destroy humanity for revenge. I think she wanted to do it because she thought humanity would always abuse Reyvateils, and so to make sure no Reyvateil could ever be enslaved or abused so horribly again, she decided to get rid of humanity. From her point of view it was noble, since intelligent beings still get to live, and no one is controlling and hurting them any more.
I actually think "kill those who hurt me, because they hurt me and I want revenge" is rather a less noble goal than "I want to stop people from being hurt, period". Note that I'm not talking about Mir's methods (her means) here; those were, of course, appalling. I'm talking about her ends. I think peace is a greater end than revenge, and I think she wanted peace. She just went about it really badly.
...novel cause? You know what I mean. Well, it was pretty novel at the time, I'm sure, since Reyvateil rights were a pretty unheard of concept...
It's possible that she did it for a noble cause in her own mind, I'm open to that possibility.
Either way, fighting fire with fire is never the answer. As you said, her means were horrifying.
And agreed, killing isn't noble, ever.
Anywho, it was a happy ending, so it's all good now. :)
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