trusthell | Paper Faces on Parade

Paper Faces on Parade

[ Okay, so, assuming everyone got a crossword and an invite on Tuesday, one would assume that pretty much everyone knows that Misa's planning something. A sign on the door of the music room will indicate as much, a nice big "KEEP OUT PLEASE ♥" to make sure everything's set up just right before the festivities start. The tables are set up just right for snacks and all, the stage is set, the room is even decorated with hand-made streamers and lots of bright ribbons from the art room! When Misa goes hard, she goes hard, apparently. The floor isn't exactly a dance floor, but it should be nice enough that people can dance if they want to, and though she had a really hard time pushing everything around to make the perfect amount of space, it looks like it's about as good as it's going to get.

The guests'll be happy to know there aren't any penalty snacks this time around; nothing set out on the table looks gross or horribly out of place like at Truth or Dare. Everything looks pretty cute, actually; between the desserts and the actual cocktails set out, she and Aqua kind of outdid themselves in terms of meal planning. As for the host herself, she'll obviously be running around too, making sure everything's going okay; one would think that between prepping the food and the party itself, she wouldn't have much time to get herself all dolled up, but a model always has to look her best! And Misa certainly isn't giving anything less than 110 percent, between her short black dress and her ma-- jesus Misa save some glitter for everyone else

In any case, the party is definitely intended to be a late-night affair! And all are welcome, so feel free to come in and dance the night away! Misa even has a bunch of masks in different colors made for people who didn't have time to make one themselves, so don't be shy to grab one and have fun! ]

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[With a nod, he...goes to grab a couple things, just in case they both end up needing sugary things after this is all over. Who knows.

Plate in hand, he joins Tarrlok at the door.]

Off we go, then.

[yeah, probably.

He nods, and so they head down to the library. He's pretty quiet on the way down and doesn't really speak until they've made it to the library.]

...I guess it's best to start at the beginning, isn't it? I imagine it'll make some things make a little more sense, because you... well, I'd probably have to interrupt myself to explain some things.

You remember when I was talking about offshoots of different kinds of bending, right? Like how firebenders can control both fire and lightning?

[It's definitely a solemn trek down, and Colress too remains silent along the way and as they settle down in the library.

He nods to everything Tarrlok is saying, showing that he's listening completely and understanding everything.]

Indeed I do remember. Earthbenders and metalbending, waterbenders and icebending...

[He's wondering where this plays in though...]

...Water is actually more versatile than you'd think. We've only discovered the exact ratio recently, but it's something like... the human body is eighty percent water, isn't it?

...

There are ways that you can learn how to bend that, as well.

[...Oh...

Colress pauses. Then, uneasily,]

...That form of bending listed under your profile's "dislikes". Is that what you are speaking of?

[He's seen it a dozen times during his viewings of the bulletin board, but considering it was under Tarrlok's dislikes, he chose not to bring it up in their discussions. It was only courteous.

...But here it is. Why?]

[...he laughs kind of bitterly.]

...honestly, I'm really kind of surprised more people haven't asked me about that one. There's no way I'd tell them it was something I could actually do before now, since that sort of thing getting out would ruin me... but that doesn't really matter now, since it already happened back home.

You can perform it...?

[The gravity of that reveal takes a moment to hit Colress completely. His reaction isn't overly strong, but there's definitely an "oh no" look going on. His voice lowers, revealing the concerned tone to it.]

And you...used it anyway, despite disliking it? I take it it must not be favorable to do so in general...

...yes, I did. Initially, it was something I was forced to do, because...

[...he laughs a little bitterly again.]

...alright, this might be where it starts sounding like one of those melodramatic novels, because my father was Yakone an extremely infamous mob boss back in the day. He'd actually figured out how to use bloodbending when it wasn't the full moon, which was previously thought impossible, and used it to... egregious effect.

He was eventually stopped by Avatar Aang, who took his bending and arrested him... but well, some of his fellow gang members broke him out of jail, altered his appearance, and allowed him to escape to the North, where he settled down and had a family.

...of course, when my brother and I started waterbending, he probably figured it was the right time to get revenge on the Avatar. To this day, I really have no idea if he was planning it the whole time or if... he'd genuinely had thoughts of living a peaceful life beforehand. I thought it had to be the latter, but the more I think about it... the more I'm not so sure people change that easily.

[Colress maintains a neutral expression while listening with complete attention to Tarrlok as he tells a...really serious story, honestly. Just...good lord, what can he say about this. When Tarrlok pauses in the story, he take a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking.]

I...assume he chose to pass down the technique to you for that purpose, then.

[Using others for ones ambitions...he just frowns slightly, thinking about that.]

...yes. Basically, he wanted to teach us to bloodbend so that we could get revenge on the Avatar for him.

[at least neither of them are named "natural harmonia gropius"]

I was never really good at it, because I'd hesitate when I was doing it. Truthfully, I hated every second of it. We... had to train on animals when we'd go out hunting, because it had to remain secret... and it's not like animals can tell anyone you're using some illegal bending technique to painfully move them around.

My older brother Noatak was actually great at it, which... always surprised me. Before all this started, he wasn't really the sort of person you'd expect to enjoy that sort of thing, you know? He liked to make sure people were treated fairly, but he just... really took to it. So... he got all the praise and expectations heaped on him, while I got treated...

...

Roughly how you'd expect.

[Thank Arceus for that.

Colress' slight frown turns deeper as the story continues, a slight pained expression coming across his face because he can definitely tell how hard this all was for Tarrlok. Even knowing what is on Tarrlok's profile's dislikes, he could tell Tarrlok likes animals from how kindly he treats Klinklang. This is just...

Not to mention the next bit. Not only did he have to learn something like bloodbending when he clearly hated it, but he had to compete with his brother.

Colress shakes his head ever so slightly.]

Tarrlok...I am sorry.

[It's the most he can say right now, because what else can one say? He merely wants to let Tarrlok know that he's listening and he cares. This is just awful.]

[...he takes a second to go ahead and eat a cookie because really, he wants to get this out but fuuuuuuck.]

Right. So. Eventually we were going to have to practice on humans, and preferably benders who could probably break out of it. ...I don't need to explain who we ended up practicing on, because suffice to say he wasn't content with us practicing on him.

[...deeeeep breath.]

I don't know what gave him the bright idea to do it in a blizzard, but it wasn't quite as bad when we left... and he wasn't the sort of person to change his mind for anything. Noatak... complied. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, and one I doubt I'll ever forget. Having seen what it'd do to other creatures was one thing, but actually feeling it...

At that time, I didn't think I could subject anyone else to that, so I told my father I wasn't going to do that to anyone, much less my brother. ...that went about as well as you'd expect, and I'm not sure what my father would've done if Noatak hadn't stopped him with his own bloodbending.

[...god. what happened next is even more fucked up looking at it now. deeeep breath.]

...he wanted us to run away together and leave everything behind. It... made sense, didn't it? If we stayed, who knew what would happen...

...but I didn't want to leave our mother behind. She and I... were closer than Noatak was to her, I think, but... the point is, I hesitated. Usually, he understood, but... I guess my weakness in this moment was the breaking point, and he told me as much.

We... never actually found him after that. We couldn't do anything but assume he was dead.

[Oh dear lord, it somehow managed to get even worse than that. While Colress tries his best to remain expressionless through it all, he can't. This is so distressing and horrible, and he can definitely tell it's really hard on Tarrlok too.

He feels like he should say something here. If he can just put aside his need to be so neutral about these things for one second--]

I hope you do not blame yourself for that, Tarrlok... You are more than allowed to make your own choices, even if they did not line up with what your father or brother desired.

[He hopes he's not overstepping his boundaries there- maintaining a the delicate balance of a friendship is completely new to him. But he does mean what he said. Tarrlok is hardly weak, going through something so awful and then having to make a split-second choice that his brother might not have liked.]

...it would've been nice to hear that when I was eleven.

[SURPRISE, HE TOTALLY DID.]

I guess I shouldn't, but... I really have to wonder if things would have gone differently. I know how things went, though -- it... definitely broke Yakone. He gave up on his ambitions of revenge and left me alone, which... I wish I could have appreciated that, really. It came at too high a cost, though. There was the obvious fact that my brother was, for all we could tell, dead in a snowdrift somewhere, and if that wasn't hard enough on my poor mother, Yakone died a short time later. I'm... sure it was just...

[...he doesn't want to think about the fact that his brother may have wrecked his dad's internal organs or something holy shit]

...grief, or something. My mother didn't know anything about what Yakone was really like, and as far as I know, he... never really said a harsh word to her or anything, so she... took it hard.

...

Maybe I shouldn't have thought it was my fault, but... I definitely took it to heart that my weakness in that moment effectively wiped out half my family. I'm not going to say I never blamed my father, because I absolutely did. I wanted nothing more than to spit on his memory by working my way up through the ranks and become a legitimately powerful player in Republic City politics so that I could wipe out the criminal underbelly of the city that he represented so that it could truly flourish without being overburdened by all the crime and corruption that plagues it to this day.

...you could say that I achieved the letter of that goal, if not the spirit.

[Ugh, man... Tarrlok's situation was so tough.]

I imagine...that had you gone with either of them, you may very well have still been miserable. You were placed in a terrible position from the beginning- one that...well, had no real "winning" answer in your regard. And for having to go through it so young, it's...it's awful.

[But he quiets down after that, because part of him knows this isn't even his place to talk. He just wants to help, but this obviously was in Tarrlok's past. It can't be changed now...incentives or not.

The next bit seems promising enough, but considering how the dreams have been going...Colress cannot help but wonder.]

So you truly were able to achieve part of your goal?

It's admittedly harder to figure that out in retrospect, but I've got a few reasons for really wondering about the whole thing.

[...HE APPRECIATES THE ATTEMPT....]

...right, in a sense. I did manage to attain the Northern Water Tribe's seat on the Council in Republic City... but the Northern Water Tribe isn't exactly the sort of place where you go into politics and come out a man of integrity. Granted, I wasn't really thinking about that, either... looking back on it now, I probably took the worst possible lesson away from my experiences as a child, given that I started assuming that letting personal feelings about things like right and wrong get in the way of what I thought needed to be done.

...so, well, that led to a lot of intimidation tactics, strawman arguments, and... not exactly legal means of getting what I wanted. It didn't really help that no one knew exactly what to do about Republic City's rampant crime problem... looking at it now, it's probably that it's just a complicated situation with no clear answer, but I kept assuming that everyone was just too afraid to really deal with it.

...of course, the crime started to fall by the wayside when the Equalist movement started gaining traction and reports of their mysterious leader Amon having the ability to take people's bending started surfacing. They started with criminals, which... honestly, if they'd just stuck to that, I wouldn't be happy, but I could probably have been convinced to let it slide. They were going after everyone who could bend, though, because they seemed to believe that was the problem rather than... everything else.

[AN ATTEMPT...WAS MADE...

Colress remains relatively quiet throughout the explanation of how Tarrlok handled his position on the council. It's this exact kind of stuff that he...really can't comment on considering his own methods of getting what he wants. Completely nonjudgmental here.

He leans in during the story about Amon and his movement, because Tarrlok already said that he was the one who did something to his bending. That...isn't good.]

I see. So these Equalists were something of a third party between your Council and the criminals? [He doesn't really know too much about them, but if they're going after basically everyone...] Did you end up facing Amon personally?

I wouldn't exactly say that. They're more like revolutionaries trying to completely remove bending from society because they think it's... a corrupting influence and an inherently unfair advantage, I think. The attitude existed before Amon came on the scene, but... he definitely took it to a whole different level, given that there was a sort of mysticism about him. He always wore a mask because he claimed to have been badly scarred when his family was killed by firebenders, and he also claimed that his ability to remove people's bending was taught to him by the spirits.

[...haha. hahaha.....]

...well, I have to say that our meeting actually did seem like karma catching up to me. Before we came face to face, I'd... well, attempted to curry favor with the present Avatar, Korra. She seemed like a powerful ally, and... well. I'm not going to deny that I wanted to do the complete opposite of what my father wanted with the Avatar.

Except... we were similar in all the ways that led to us butting heads rather than cooperating. I'm... not sure what the exact circumstances of what proved to be the final straw were, since my memories still have gaps, but I... believe had some of her friends arrested on admittedly flimsy charges to try to use them as leverage so she'd fall in line. She confronted me and compared me to Amon himself, which... well.

[...deeep breath.]

I can't deny the similarities now, but at the time, I was in complete denial about the man I'd become. I'd effectively been comparing the threat Amon posed to Republic City to the threat my father had been long in the past, so in effect... she was saying I was just like my father. I couldn't handle that, so I just... snapped. I attacked her, but... well, she had the advantage of all four elements, so she pretty handily beat the tar out of me.

...there's another pretty significant gap here, since that memory ended with her about to incinerate me. I was backed into a corner and entirely positive I was about to die, so the only conclusion I can come to is that I did the only thing I could --- I stopped her with bloodbending.

...so, right. What I remembered this week...

[...he's struggling with this, partially because what the fuck was he thinking and partially because it's a pretty sudden jump from the last memory to the most current memory...]

I'd apparently abducted her and locked her in some destitute real estate my father used to own to keep the secret from getting out, and then... headed back to Republic City. I think the secret must've gotten out anyway, because I was planning on taking her as a hostage. She'd also figured out my actual parentage... somehow? I'd imagine she communicated with her past life about it, but I... don't really know. The fact is, she knew, I knew she knew, everyone knew, I assumed the only option was to dig the hole deeper and keep running...

...and so I head upstairs to get the car running, and who do I find waiting for me but Amon.

Oh, I see. I...actually did not realize that your world has people who cannot bend anything. I can see why there may be some resentment, there...

[Not to extreme levels like these Equalists, but...

...

Okay so this was already pretty escalated when Tarrlok talked about his past, but good lord did it really escalate just now. There's really no avoiding it- Colress flinches a little bit at the bloodbending reveal, and just...frowns at the rest.]

So all of this is what you have been remembering each week...

[No wonder Tarrlok started looking more and more unwell as the weeks went on. It's good that he's been able to look at the memories at a distance and see the issues with what he did, but...man, none of that looks great for him. Especially the last bit. How the hell is he supposed to recover from that? No doubt that's probably one of the biggest concerns Tarrlok is facing...

Solemnly, he glances off somewhere else in the room. This is...difficult.]

And that is when he did what you told me, correct? The icing on the cake, so to speak.

[The Worst Cake Ever, of course.]

...Oh, yes, I... should have mentioned that, since it makes all of this make a lot more sense. It's actually a fairly small segment of the population that can bend, but... well, it's enough that you're definitely going to know a pretty sizable number of people who are benders unless you live in a remote town where the population is only in the triple digits or something.

[...he smiles a touch bitterly at the discussion of memories, since...]

...and yes, it's been the perfect way to end the week, really. Ah, yes, I thought things couldn't get any worse... but now they have.

[...right. yeah. here it goes.]

Well, I didn't go down without trying to bloodbend Amon, anyway. As it turned out, he managed to break out of it in a few seconds and... well, the icing on the cake, as it were.

[...]

You know... after it happened, I could only really think about one thing. It's the sort of thing that you don't recover from immediately, but you'd expect to be more blank than anything, right? I just... thought something about the experience felt familiar.

[...........]

You remember... those letters from last week, don't you? I told you that mine contained a blatant lie.

[It's a little surprising to hear about the relative few amount of benders out there, having had the impression that they were...super common. But now it does make the whole Equalist revolution thing more easy to understand.

...It also makes it kind of even more alarming since Tarrlok basically just told Colress that Amon, the leader, took his bending. Tarrlok seems to be one of the biggest authority figures so...Republic City needs a prayer circle is what he's getting here.

Understandably, his eyebrows furrow in confusion when Tarrlok says that Amon actually managed to break out of the bloodbending. That...seems very difficult to do, and Amon apparently doesn't even have bending? So how...]

Ah...yes, there is no way I could forget them now.

[Judging from the way Colress says it, he has really mixed feelings about his. But that conversation can be saved for another time.]

Did yours...end up predicting something for you as well? I know we wanted to not believe, but...

[...buddy you don't even know the half of it, but...]

...mine was that I was a bloodbender related to two of the other most notorious bloodbenders in Republic City's history, Yakone and Amon. It... was mostly right, but I thought that last part had to be a cruel joke.

...having my bending taken, though... it felt just like it did when Noatak bloodbended me when I was eleven. I tried to think of literally any other possible conclusion I could take from this, but... everything just falls into place. We never did find a body, even when warmer weather rolled around, and as far as I know no one else knows how to bloodbend when it isn't a full moon.

...

It's definitely... not the way that you'd want to find out that your dead older brother is actually alive.

[Oh.

...........Oh.

Colress' eyes widen in shock. When he said that Tarrlok getting his bending taken by Amon was icing on the Worst Cake Ever, he...did not expect this to be the follow-up.]

N-No, I cannot imagine it is. Of all the people for Amon to end up being...

[What a cruel, awful twist. But what he says aloud is what he manages to get out before he places a hand on Tarrlok's shoulder.

He stays like that for a moment before murmuring,]

You've certainly been through the wringer, Tarrlok...

[Understatement of the year. But Colress doesn't go into the morals behind it- whether Tarrlok's actions were right or wrong, whether he brought the consequences upon himself or not. Because that's not something Colress has ever tended to get overly concerned about, for better or worse.

He didn't come here for that anyway, he came to listen and hear Tarrlok out. He recognizes that there's significance in all of this, that trust is involved, and he wants Tarrlok to know that he does. He...well, he wants to be comforting, because frankly this is pretty awful. Tarrlok shouldn't have to keep all of it bottled up.]

[...he... maybe flinches a little bit at the touch, because holy shit, it has been actual decades since he's allowed himself to be vulnerable enough to actually be comforted on something and this is weird...]

...well, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't hit rock bottom and then try keep digging, but... thank you for listening. Really, I feel like there's... always been a part of me that wanted to get all of that out there to someone, but I've always had so many hangups about being too weak to rely on myself, not being able to trust people...

...

Maybe if I had someone looking out for me, I wouldn't have basically become my father with legitimate political power when I was doing everything to set myself apart from him. But... there really isn't anything I can do about that now, is there? Even if I actually was given the opportunity to go back and fix things... I can't actually trust myself anymore.

Of course. I do hope it helped somewhat to get it off your chest. I can truly see how badly it was eating away at you.

[He eventually withdraws his hand and allows both to rest on the table as he listens, thinking hard about everything he's heard tonight.]

But I have to say...the fact that you are able to reflect on your actions says a lot. As you told me about what was happening to you, you seemed to be looking back on the memories and thinking about what you could have done differently. You may not have been able to see the flaws at the time, but you do see them now. [Being away from them and re-experiencing them probably helped there...] That is good. It truly takes a lot to realize your mistakes, and it is difficult to do it, especially in front of someone else!

So I suppose what I am getting at here is that you are not as weak as you seem to think you are. At least...that is what I believe.

Edited 2016-04-16 02:32 (UTC)

Paper Faces on Parade

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I am so sorry for this icon

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