trusthell | I have a dream that I want to fulfill with you...

I have a dream that I want to fulfill with you...

[ Well, that was an extraordinary trial to have... it was certainly filled with many things that wouldn't be lost to the memory of most, even for weeks to come. Although, the return to "normalcy" could be something that wouldn't seem like it was wanted, it was better than the alternative to returning to anything at all.

With ease, Mikazuki find himself setting up the usual party in the usual place-- that would be the library of course. Notes have been slipped underneath the doors of others, or hung up on the walls to alert them of this post-trial "celebration" -- which was more like a get-together of some sorts now than a real party. ]

Please join us in the library again. Of course, food and drink will be provided.

- Mikazuki, Orihime, Hanyuu, & Estelle

[ The food and drink has been set out, what with there being tea, vichyssoise, cream puffs, and fish for everyone to enjoy. ]

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...I can't promise that, just by nature of the thing - and here's why, before you get all up in arms at me.

[That last part is quickly-said, just because he is usually at self-awareness zero but today he's willing to try to be...slightly...less that, maybe. Who knows.]

If I come after anyone in this building, it's not going to be because I have some sort of - I don't know. What do you think I have going on, some sort of insatiable bloodlust? Anyway, I can guarantee you that my issues are nowhere near anything like that. There are a lot of them, but I'm not...I'm not Kira, I don't need to kill people to live my life. We've already verified that I'm a sick fuck and I like to? But I don't need to.

So if I'm coming after anyone, it's because something happened or went wrong in my head hard enough to make me want to try to win this thing. And if I try to win, I'm also going to be going after those people you care about and trying to get them killed.

If you want me to promise not to touch your people, I'm also having to promise not to touch you. Which I can do, sure. I'm not going to try to play the Wordsmith's game, so that much is easy for me. I'm not going to target anybody here.

[...]

But really, if you don't want anyone hurting the people you care about, don't do stuff that's going to get you killed. I'm pissed off at Kira for a lot of reasons, and one of them is that he was stupid enough to try to pull something like that in the first place instead of just sitting down and waiting it out.

[It's not reassuring, but then, none of this has been, really. At the very least, Varric had said enough for his rage to have either boiled off or been directed elsewhere. So as Kimbley spoke, he began to relax in the slightest.]

[He wouldn't claim to know Kimbley, or understand where he was coming from. But he at least understood that he wasn't going to get a straight up promise or apology out of the man.]

[This would have to be it.]

[He wasn't about to be buddy-buddy with Kimbley, he still wouldn't even trust the man, but at least he didn't want to punch him. Or rather, not as much as before.]

[Progress.]

Stuff like -- [He broke off, and then let a small, bitter laugh out.] -- Coming after you while you're in your element?

[He shrugs.]

Stuff like telling me to come after you in the first place.

[He's quiet for a moment, though; goes back to messing with the jars he's pulled off the shelves, just for something to do with his hands. Not pouring any of them out, just turning them a bit.]

...I'm mad that he didn't talk to me about it. He knew a lot of stuff about how I am; if he wanted to keep his secret that badly and get out he could have used me instead of Chiyuki.

You don't want anyone you care about thinking stuff like that, yeah? That they could have done something about it if I kill you? I don't do guilt and I don't do empathy, but from what I'm experiencing right now having thoughts like that aren't my idea of a good time.

[That got Varric shifting his position. Admittedly, he was a little weirded out. They'd gone from confessing feelings to chattering about their potential feelings. It was a train he might have liked to stop before it left the station but...]

If it were Vanille, or someone wanting to kill her... [Yeah, he got it. He didn't like that it was Kimbley pointing it out, but he got it.]

For what it's worth... I don't think they'd be happy with you if you lost your blighted mind any time soon. [Well, Kira might but... not Chiyuki.]

[...Welcome to conversations with Kimbley, they have been going from zero to awkward in point-six around here lately.]

Kira was kind of a weird bastard. I don't think he'd be happy with it, but I don't know if he'd care, either. I guess it would depend on how much of a mess I made in the process.

Chiyuki, though...

[This is so much easier when he doesn't have to think about Chiyuki.]

We talked a lot, she was a good person. I don't know. I liked her; I liked both of them.

I feel like you might be better than implicating him in the crime. Asshole or not, you at least seem to honor your bonds. [Then again, he hadn't really pinned Kira for the mass-murdering type. This whole place had knocked his senses sideways.]

Never figured you for the romantic type. Let alone doubly so. [And he would have thought Chiyuki had better tastes than that, too. Again. All of the place here.]

[After fidgeting with his hair some, Varric's hand pinched the bridge of his nose. What a mess of a conversation this had become. Discussing feelings with the man he'd written off as having none.]

Ro...mantic - oh.

[OH. jesus christ, that's actually going to get something of a laugh out of him- ]

Not. Not even close. I mean, flirting with Kira was kind of fun? But there wasn't really any interest in either of them.

[Varric wanted to laugh at the idea of it. People didn't simply get that close, get so up in arms over the idea of someone stabbing them in the back. Over their friends dying. If he wasn't a guardian figure then he had to have some kind of interest. Otherwise it... simply didn't... happen...]

[Right. As if he was one to judge. As if the same blighted thing hadn't run him through the wringer two weeks prior. His relationship with Hawke wasn't anything different. At least... that's what he liked to tell himself.]

So just... friends then. Alright. [A sly grin spread over his lips.] Your first friends, maybe?

Nah, the dubious honor of first friend ever either goes to this girl I grew up with back home, or some guy I was staying with after I got out of prison. Though it's not like my relationships with them were all that deep, they were mostly just convenient.

So I guess Chiyuki was the first one I actually really talked to about things. About my thoughts on stuff and why I live my life the way I do.

[And who even knows what the clusterfuck with Kira was.]

[That prison comment jogs a memory.]

He the one you told me about? The one you were writing a letter to? [A pause.] You said that guy, the one in the letter, got your life on track again. Did he know about all of...

All of that?

[...]

The guy that helped me out had a habit of taking in strays, I guess. Mostly people that had issues because of their time in the military. There were a lot of reasons he didn't hold all of that against me - I was still a kid when I sent to the front lines, our military isn't great on the ethics front, at one point people thought it was a great idea to try human experimentation on me.

He got why I snapped, in other words.

So as long as I did what he asked me to, didn't do anything to the people he cared about and didn't try to stab him in the back, I could stay.

So... what you did happened because they were messing with you?

[It's not guilt he's tasting. At least, that was what he tried to tell himself. But since arriving here, he'd manage to swallow his pride and forgive someone who, while doing less, certainly didn't have nearly the justification that Kimbley might or might not have.]

[He wasn't making any damn decisions on forgiveness just yet, of course. But it at least gave him pause.]

What I did happened because I was a kid given too much power on the front lines of a civil war, and because I'm a fucked up person who only gets pleasure from killing people. I'm not going to try to make excuses for it, because that's not my style.

But I was also given an artifact of power that I shouldn't have been given that definitely didn't help, and at one point sometime later they tried to rip my soul out.

[...]

And while we're here, that only applies to the genocide and the other things I did during the war. When it comes to my actual secret...I didn't do any of that. Or at least, I don't remember it, and it doesn't sound like anything I would do. Silver and I figure that could have been my superior officer's fault, I was just involved by proxy. It said I was involved in a conspiracy to do all those things, not that I carried it out myself.

Like I said, I just wanted to get you guys off of Kira.

Your secret being killing women and children? [Just so he's absolutely clear. And absolutely certain that he's not feeling like an absolute arse for no reason. Gotta cover all of them bases, after all.]

Did you really not know about Kira. Sure, he kept it from all of us too but... I figure friends tell friends things.

My secret being whatever happened with slaughtering an entire city and 7000 additional people. The women and children were...technically separate, though I assume that "an entire city" involves "also the women and children," and I don't know the general composition of the additional 7000, so...

[He shrugs.]

I knew Kira was...weird. I talked to him about stuff I'd done and he didn't pass judgement or anything, when obviously he should have. If anything, he seemed interested in it? He asked me a lot of questions.

But I never asked him anything about why, because it didn't really matter to me. His business was his business.

Like minds attract like minds. [Varric offered his companion a tight smile.] You're both weird. Maybe you're a slightly more palatable form of weird -- don't see you making eyes at any hands at present but...

[He returned Kimbley's shrug with one of his own.]

I almost feel bad about what happened -- him not being honest with you. Not exactly a good feeling, no matter what side of the morality line you happen to be on.

Like I said back then, I don't really...

[He kind of hesitates once that's out there, though; saying he doesn't care is an outright lie and he's pretty sure that everyone in the room knows it, but he can't really figure out how to explain what it is that he wants to say about the matter, either. Give him a moment.]

...It's better me than anyone else, I guess. If you're going to throw someone under the bus, might as well pick the guy who doesn't give a damn about himself, you know?

It's true. Imagine if Ch-- [He stopped himself, not about to antagonize the alchemist with any further mentions of Chiyuki. The dead deserved more respect than that, and he figured Kimbley was already suffering enough with conversations in regards to Kira.]

Imagine if we found someone pinned with arrows and love notes to Bianca. This place would have tore itself down.

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