hadriel_logs | Event Log: Speak Your Truth

Entry tags:

Event Log: Speak Your Truth

Who: Everyone in the city
What: The event log for the Speak Your Truth
Where: All over the city
When: April 3rd-April 9th
Warnings: None

There's a secret burning in your chest. It's hot behind your ribcage, and you need to let it out or else it might consume you- but who would you tell? Who could even begin to understand what you need to say? Your closest friend? Your significant other? Maybe even someone you don't get along with very well? It's hard to know who to trust and who will even understand, but in a strange way, neither of those things seem to matter- all you can think of is what will cause someone the most pain.

Maybe you're trying to get it out in the open so you can put it behind you. Maybe you just need to come clean because the guilt is eating you alive. Maybe you just really want to hurt someone- regardless of the reason, you're aching to tell someone else your darkest secrets.

Will they understand? There's only one way to find out, and it won't be pleasant for either party involved. Good luck, Hadriel!

► This log covers April 3rd-April 9th.
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your secret gets a bit bloody, please let us know here.

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[yeah he's getting no Sorrow here, at all. If anything Law deadpans like he knows this story and he's not impressed that anyone ever ends up in a triangle like that. Sorry bro.]

Well. I suppose things like that happen.

They do.

[It doesn't bother Kain any, if anything, he just wants to keep rambling on about the worst parts of his past.]

But they don't always end up as a means by which someone can exploit you. I ended up captured by a terrible mage, you see. He... he did such awful things. He mentally tormented me until my mind finally broke and... all of my inner darkness came to the surface. No longer could I hold back the jealousy or feelings I had. It was all turned against me, and in turn, I was forced to fight all of my allies and friends. I betrayed them. I tried to kill my best friend, and I kidnapped the woman I loved... I caused them considerable suffering.

[at last there's a bit of a flicker; Law understands torment, even if he may be remarkably well-adjusted all things considered. It's still not enough for him to really be moved, alas. Sorrow will have to get a meal elsewhere.]

Tried to. Failed, I take it?

Does it bother you? Or is this all just something that happened to you and sucks a lot?

Yes. I failed. I failed, just as I failed to be their friend. It bothers me immensely, the memory of having my mind taken over beyond my control. The whole time, I could only act under another's command, and I was fully aware of what I was doing. Fully aware and unable to control anything that was happening. I loathed Cecil in that moment, and I just... I did everything I could to oppose my allies, fighting against them, stealing from them, doing everything that I was told. I broke out of control, only to be taken under again.

I still can't face my friends, these days. I haven't been home in months because I swore to defeat this inner darkness of mine. I have no idea if I'll ever see them again, at this point, since, well, before coming here... I ended up pulled into another war, first. [He's not quite done, and is just so compelled to keep on going, surprised himself by just how much he wants to go on about his worst experiences.]

[Law being the kind of guy he is, is only trying to find logic and solutions rather than...feel]

But if you were completely under someone else's control, a puppet...it wasn't you. You're going to hold yourself responsible for what the puppet-master did with your body?

[Kain doesn't normally want to deal with feelings either. They only complicate matters and get in the way. He winces a little when Law points out the obvious, something which even now is hard for him to face.]

Yet he still took advantage of actual feelings I had as well. He still twisted me into a darker version of myself, a vile person... I should have fought him off, and yet I failed. It's still my own fault for not being strong enough. For being weak.

[feelings are gross, man, he's with you there]

Maybe you were, maybe you weren't. Maybe weakness is willingly agreeing to dance to your puppet-master's tune, rather than fighting it. Who's to say?

But you wouldn't be the first person in history in any world to be manipulated by an asshole. If not for one person in my life, I might have done the same.

Maybe... I don't know. I've long wondered, though... Why me? Why did he find and turn me, and not someone else? I've always thought it was because I had some terrible weakness, that I was weaker than the others...

[At least mentally. He has no such concerns about his physical strength.]

You came close to being mind controlled as well? Truly? How... how did you avoid it?

Maybe you were. But the best manipulators look for something they can use, more likely it was some quality that made you a vulnerable target. A need to please, a will to fight...

[which, actually, segues nicely into his own tale]

Not so much mind-controlled, but manipulated, used by someone else for his own needs. He used my anger and nihilism to groom me to work willingly with him. I might have become his right hand if not for Cora-san.

[...sigh. Compulsion to speak or not, it's still a bit unpleasant to dredge up.] I had a terminal illness, and he wanted to try to find someone to cure it, so he took me away. We searched for six months to no avail. But, in doing so, I was away from Doflamingo's influence and had someone full of hope to look after me instead. It really wasn't any strength of my own, just not being around the manipulating asshole.

I suppose that's so. Perhaps anyone could have been caught by him, since everyone has a weakness. Still... I still cannot help but think that I should have done more, been stronger.

[He listens intently, though, since this is somehow as much a compulsion as blabbering on about the highlights, or more like lowlights, of his past. The mood is just overall a focus on unpleasant things right now.]

Ugh... I'm sorry to hear that you were manipulated in such a way, at such a time. Those types do seem to step in at the worst possible moments, when they know someone is vulnerable...

Yeah, well. I was a kid, so that was already a strike against me. But. [Kain was good enough to provide a lot of details, Law might as well match his level] He also used my anger against me. My family, my whole country was destroyed by the government. They committed genocide for no reason other than other countries mistakenly believed they could catch our disease. I wanted nothing more than to destroy the world in repayment, and he used that, preparing to make me a heartless weapon of his own.

[and there's so, so much more to it but the bitterness in his tone comes from fighting down the need to explain even more. When was the last time he told anyone he even had a sister?]

People like that only succeed because we're human. We're not perfect. So I'm not going to tell you you're some kind of monster or anything. If you are, we all are.

[Yes, that compulsion sure is... 'fun'... isn't it? Kain is now seeing it from an outside perspective, only somewhat realizing the extent of how much he'd gotten into it all. He sighs, listening, thinking of the fact that he'd once been on the opposite side of that, killing off a whole village of people.]

That's terrible... to be used in such a way... [It definitely is hitting him, even if he doesn't show much change in emotion outwardly. It sure is easier to understand this in others, than himself, somehow.] When you put it like that... I can understand it. I can see clearly how it wasn't your fault... rather that you were influenced by your circumstances, and by someone who took advantage of that.

[if he didn't owe so much to Sorrow, Law would hate him for making him say all this]

Yeah. If I hadn't had someone who loved me, I might have ended up like you. Or worse, because I would have been in control of myself, making my own choices.

[wow that's a terrible thought. Ouch.]

Cora-san really did save me. Not just my physical body, but...my soul, I guess, for lack of a better word.

It's worrying to consider what might have been, isn't it? I think of it often, myself.

[What if he really had killed Cecil or Rosa? It could have gone a lot worse and he can't help but think often of exactly what that might have entailed.]

But maybe... Just maybe it's for the best not to think of that. The past cannot be altered, after all. You were spared, and that's for the better. It sounds like you were on quite the edge before that...

It can't be helped. What might have been is such a tempting thing, I don't know anyone who can stop themselves from wondering, good or bad.

[well, maybe there's one person he knows, but that's neither here nor there. Kain makes a lot of sense, and then there's that nagging need to just spill his guts all over again.]

You could say that. The government murdered my parents - shot them dead in their own exam room as they tried to protect their patients - and burned my sister alive. [wow that really hurt to say. Law grabs his glass and tosses most of it back all in one gulp, which burns] Massacred children and nuns in the street after promising them a safe escort out of the country. If I hadn't escaped alive, no one would ever know the atrocities committed there.

Don't get me wrong, I still harbor a burning hatred for the government and the Marines who uphold their laws. But now I go about vengeance my own way, rather than simply trying to kill people as he would have had me do.

How terrible...

[Kain looks downward for a moment, then takes a long, slow sip of his drink, as he thinks that over. Such loss is an immensely painful experience, anyway, and far worse when it involves such brutal murder.]

I'm sorry you had to experience such a thing. It's something that no one should ever have to face. I hope you at least found some way to avenge them... if such a thing was at all possible.

[if Sorrow can't get anything from the listener, at least just telling the story is enough to make Law morose. There you go.]

It's one of the reasons I'm a pirate. Like hell if I'm going to live by the rules set out by the same people who massacred innocents.

[after all that he really needs to top off his glass]

Don't feel sorry for me, though. If anything feel sorry for those people. They died. I managed to go on living. And I'll keep living, if it means someday I can reveal the truth of what happened.

[It's probably good enough. Kain has been feeling deep sorrow since he started, but it doesn't take much to set him into a brooding frame of mind. Law's story is simply carrying those feelings along even more.]

I don't blame you for that. At least you did what you could, for their sakes. But you're right... living is all we can do. Even if that itself seems like a burden sometimes.

[Kain hasn't been so sure how he feels about carrying on living, since he'd first arrived here, awakening after the whole gods' war. But maybe Law has a point, who knows? These are all such heavy ideas to consider.]

I hope that you can succeed in your goal, one day.

Flevance is dead and gone. [he says bluntly before draining his glass] There's nothing I can do for it any longer. My goals now have nothing to do with it.

[well, not entirely nothing, but a general anti-government stance as a pirate can come out of almost anything, not just the genocide of your people]

You still have plenty of life ahead of you as well. Don't get caught up in your past. Move forward.

So you've found new goals, I take it?

[This place certainly changes people and their goals, for that matter. Being taken from home will do that, leaving behind all of those familiar things.]

And... well... you're right. That's true. We can only face forward. There's no changing anything that's happened, after all... as much as I'm sure we both wish we could.

You could say that.

[but talking about his journey would just make everyone happy and hopeful so unlike his past, that information just gets quietly buried and left behind]

I guess. But it's not like my life has been nothing but tragedy since. If not for what happened, I wouldn't be the man I am today. These things have a way of shaping a person. Giving them something to fight for.

I suppose that they do. Even so, sometimes you have to wonder if things would be better if they hadn't happened as they did... but it's far too easy to get caught in those possibilities...

[And far too hard to get out of thinking about them, whenever they come up.]

Yeah. Better off not to entertain that line of thinking. [as he looks into his glass. Easier said than done]

Anyway. Sucks to be both of us, I guess. Did that satisfy your curiosity?

Indeed so.

[He sighs, not so sure if this even helped his mood any, but oh well. Maybe it all needed to be discussed, even if he's not too sure why he'd felt so compelled to do so. He takes another long drink, close to finishing it.]

And it did... thank you. Even if it wasn't exactly pleasant to bring any of it up...

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Event Log: Speak Your Truth

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