(no subject)
I had thought that, with the return of Seamus, Cat, and Don, that perhaps the war was winding down. That our victory was somehow imminent, with them feeling free to let all go. That shows what I know. They simply seem to be taking a different tack.
In other words, they activated me.
To be honest, I'd half-forgotten I'd even gotten myself into this mess. Certainly the message hand-delivered to me by the mailman was a shock. "Report," it said, with a time and a place and an official seal that left no questions as to the nature of the report.
"Well," I thought, "THIS is cutting it close to school start."
Heh, that was the last time I thought that for a while.
They needed me to infiltrate a concentration camp. A freakin' Auschwitz for the supernatural. Bound down with heavens know what sort of technology, magic, or what have you to keep them contained. With mixed-breeds, mages, mythic beasts...all chomping at the bit to get free, and fighting amongst themselves in the meantime.
"Hell of a vacation," I rememeber saying. "Purely out of curiosity, why me?"
"You're of werewolf descent, so you qualify to be in the camp. Also, you won't break under the torture."
Can you imagine how thrilled I was?
Getting in was easy enough. I just got myself into a mess in their lines, deliberately bungled a seeming stealth mission. I got captured, slapped in irons, and shipped out. And I have to say, right here, it could have been a lot worse from the start. I didn't have any access to my magick, of course, since Cross was at home, but neither did anyone else. And many of them had claws, or teeth, or just a lot of anger, but I can take care of myself. I had to.
The camp was a cold, miserable place off the shore of an ocean. It had a seawall and an ocean pen for aquatic or semi-aquatic creatures. I guess some Artic current slapped up against that place, because it had nothing to say for it except cool-to-miserable temperatures. Gummy buildings hastily slapped together from concrete and cement, save for the guards' quarters which were of course quite nicer; pavilion tents mechanically heated. We were put to labor, all of us, with not enough food nor sleep...
Do I really need to go on? When I re-read this, I won't want to rememebr the tableau of suffering I saw there. I experienced it to a lesser degree, because I am myself, of course, but to watch it was simply, truly, utterly painful.
I don't want to remember it, but I will. And there was torture, to which I made the best effort to act like I was being hurt. The Chorus was better. But other people... didn't have the advantages I did, of course. Did suffer, did sometimes break.
In the end, I killed. Again. I killed the guards, a few anyway, because they thought they had broken me, and they didn't have a defense against Do. We escaped... with casualties, with injuries, with any amount of degredation to our spirits... but our spirits are no less real or valid than theirs, no matter what they might say to the contrary.
I hate killing. I hate it so much. Even that perverse, insane necromancer who killed Sashra... even his death haunts me even now. I'm not a killer. I didn't learn all this just to cut lives short. I'm a fighter. I will fight for what I believe is right. I will fight to the death to defend that which I believe in...
But how many deaths will I accept on my karma? For Sashra's memory, for Seamus's family, for the principle of thing... Is that all I'm good for?
I wonder what I bring to this world, to the people I know, that could ever balance that out.
Jack is dead; Cat is magically psychotic; Diast is summoned for a trial for gods know what reason. It's all falling apart again... slowly but surely, all falling apart.
I hope I have the strength to hold myself together one more time.
In other words, they activated me.
To be honest, I'd half-forgotten I'd even gotten myself into this mess. Certainly the message hand-delivered to me by the mailman was a shock. "Report," it said, with a time and a place and an official seal that left no questions as to the nature of the report.
"Well," I thought, "THIS is cutting it close to school start."
Heh, that was the last time I thought that for a while.
They needed me to infiltrate a concentration camp. A freakin' Auschwitz for the supernatural. Bound down with heavens know what sort of technology, magic, or what have you to keep them contained. With mixed-breeds, mages, mythic beasts...all chomping at the bit to get free, and fighting amongst themselves in the meantime.
"Hell of a vacation," I rememeber saying. "Purely out of curiosity, why me?"
"You're of werewolf descent, so you qualify to be in the camp. Also, you won't break under the torture."
Can you imagine how thrilled I was?
Getting in was easy enough. I just got myself into a mess in their lines, deliberately bungled a seeming stealth mission. I got captured, slapped in irons, and shipped out. And I have to say, right here, it could have been a lot worse from the start. I didn't have any access to my magick, of course, since Cross was at home, but neither did anyone else. And many of them had claws, or teeth, or just a lot of anger, but I can take care of myself. I had to.
The camp was a cold, miserable place off the shore of an ocean. It had a seawall and an ocean pen for aquatic or semi-aquatic creatures. I guess some Artic current slapped up against that place, because it had nothing to say for it except cool-to-miserable temperatures. Gummy buildings hastily slapped together from concrete and cement, save for the guards' quarters which were of course quite nicer; pavilion tents mechanically heated. We were put to labor, all of us, with not enough food nor sleep...
Do I really need to go on? When I re-read this, I won't want to rememebr the tableau of suffering I saw there. I experienced it to a lesser degree, because I am myself, of course, but to watch it was simply, truly, utterly painful.
I don't want to remember it, but I will. And there was torture, to which I made the best effort to act like I was being hurt. The Chorus was better. But other people... didn't have the advantages I did, of course. Did suffer, did sometimes break.
In the end, I killed. Again. I killed the guards, a few anyway, because they thought they had broken me, and they didn't have a defense against Do. We escaped... with casualties, with injuries, with any amount of degredation to our spirits... but our spirits are no less real or valid than theirs, no matter what they might say to the contrary.
I hate killing. I hate it so much. Even that perverse, insane necromancer who killed Sashra... even his death haunts me even now. I'm not a killer. I didn't learn all this just to cut lives short. I'm a fighter. I will fight for what I believe is right. I will fight to the death to defend that which I believe in...
But how many deaths will I accept on my karma? For Sashra's memory, for Seamus's family, for the principle of thing... Is that all I'm good for?
I wonder what I bring to this world, to the people I know, that could ever balance that out.
Jack is dead; Cat is magically psychotic; Diast is summoned for a trial for gods know what reason. It's all falling apart again... slowly but surely, all falling apart.
I hope I have the strength to hold myself together one more time.