Seventh Hex-[Written]

[hisdarkmark]

This isn't the time to go running scared.
Is it possible to actually join forces, or is this just another ploy I'm falling into?
...maybe my father was wrong after all.

[Filtered to Myuria]

I'm coming over.

[/End Filter]At least the rain's letting up

Comments

[Written]

[blondexena]

[Hello Fairy Princess.]

It depends on if your honor's worth dying for - or if what you'll gain by moving on is good enough to take a little humility, even if you don't like the circumstances.

[Written]

[hisdarkmark]

[Sup elephant girl.]

And what would be the basis to judge whether it's good enough to take a little humility, as you put it?

[Written]

[blondexena]

[Oh yay you aren't being a total brat today.]

Kind of a long story. You gonna listen to all of it?

[Written]

[hisdarkmark]

[Not yet anyway. Draco genuinely wants answers so he'll play "nice" for a bit.]

If it's a good story, I don't see why not. Does it have a point?

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

It's got enough of a point to be a pickaxe. And yeah, a lot of it sounds completely deranged, I know that, but it's all true.

See the reason I can turn into animals was my friends and I were fighting a guerrilla war against alien invaders. Long story short, they didn't want people to know they were there, so we were a really effective strike-and-run force and they weren't prepared for how varied and brutal Earth animals are. One of their conquests was an alien race known as Taxxons. They looked like oversized centipedes with spikes for legs that ate everything they could get their mouths on. More teeth than a damn jungle in one of those. This constant bloody hunger that led them to eat their own bodies if they were injured. They'd surrendered and entered the Yeerk empire of their own will. Imagine that thing. Imagine fighting those for three solid years and having them eat pieces of your body that got cut and blasted off while trying to keep up a normal life in school and doing clubs and the like. Best thing you could say about them

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

...you're right, a lot of it sounds completely deranged. But it's really true? All of it? [He would ask Rachel to prove it but come on. He met her as an elephant.]

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

Yeah, it's really true. I'd show you the Taxxon, but I never had to get one of them. I've got one of their other species, though, that one looks terrifying but they're really tree-bark-eating slow-talking guys.

So, yeah. Our honor was important - we'd all sworn to kill ourselves before they captured us, so they couldn't use us as weapons, even if we didn't actually say it. But that was it. Staying alive using every trick in the book and a few we made up on the fly was more important. When a situation gets that shitty, you gotta survive first, then work it all out when you have the chance.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

And what if the other people you need to work with to survive can't stand you and vice-versa?

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

I was ready to rip out my own teammate's throats more than once. Focus on the fact that you've got bigger fish to fry then go back to ignoring each other afterwards.

You never know. Strange circumstances make strange companions. I still wouldn't call Marco my friend, but we're always gonna watch each other's backs now. Or at least we would if he was here.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

So essentially you're saying to keep the bigger picture in mind versus whatever happened over the past several years. So long as there's a bigger goal in mind, people are going to be protective of their own kind that are working for the same goal.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

I guess so, yeah. You may not be their friend, you may not be their partner, but you'd be their teammate. It's in their best interests to keep you around and happy and alive so you can keep helping them as long as you don't double-cross them and stab them in the back. We kept a watch out for everyone and that meant that no one died until the very end. Every single one of us would've died at least fifty times if we weren't protecting each other as much as ourselves.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

Even if that's all true, how do you know you can actually trust people like that?

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

How do they know they can trust you?

Look, I'm assuming you've got a lot of bad history with whoever you're talking about because it sure doesn't sound like you'd think about taking them to the prom. But at some point you just have to decide to get on with it and go to work. If you wait and wait for one hundred percent perfect certainty on everything, you're going to be waiting your entire life.

Don't rush in without thinking - I do that enough for any three random people. But get off your butt and make a decision, or you're gonna wind up a victim and a pawn and not in control of your own destiny.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

I'm not even going to ask what a prom is.

Strangely enough, I don't think any of us are even in control of our own destiny at home. This is still something I need to think on because it's not a walk on the beach. This is something much bigger.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[blondexena]

I'd say that's not a comforting thought but- yeah, okay, it's still not a comforting thought. But we weren't really, either. At least you've got company in the mentally-fucked ward.

All right, think away, just don't think forever. All that'll do is make you too late to everything.

[Written/Filtered Down]

[hisdarkmark]

You think it's not comforting? Try living with it. But I suppose you have the aliens, I have my own battles to fight. I'll think on it.

...you know. I think I prefer you as a person rather than a giant mammal.