hadriel_logs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[she blushes faintly] Sorry, sorry! Mother always did accuse me of being overeager. [but she listens attentively] Well, if you can't describe it? And it's visual? Could I maybe see it?

[she's genuinely curious. poetry is becoming a dying art in the 30th century, with everyone so devoted to logic and reason and science]

Hm. I could write up a quick example.

[Caedra is not in the habit of doing favors for people. But this is a subject she enjoys, and most mortals will never see for themselves the beauty of poetry in a language far more complex than the tongues they speak - for their vocal structure cannot make the sort of sounds required for much of the Abyssal tongue, and their writing, for those educated enough to write, can certainly reflect that complex structure.

She doesn't have paper or pen on hand, but the ground they're standing on will do. The plants around Caedra's location have slowly withered and died and blackened, and as she reaches out her hand to summon her sword, she sweeps it in an arc across what vegetation remains, burning it with a wave of sickly green flame that trails in the wake of the point. The rapier becomes a writing implement - its material is magic, and soil will not blunt it, as she knows well - and so Caedra begins to write. The words spiral outward as she turns to fill the space, and then she writes a second layer over the top of the spiral in harsh, vertical lines. All the writing should look foreign, runic, and strange but Hadriel being Hadriel, and with Caedra not focusing on the writing being untranslatable, some meaning will still come across for Tinya. The poem - or at least, the short fragmentary phrases - speaks of an outward burst of life from the center of the universe, and how it will grow unbounded by those who wish to constrain it.]

See? It's meaning in both structure and in words.

[she waits and watches as the poem takes shape, as it reveals its layers and its beauty to her. and she's overwhelmed for a moment, taking it in fully. but something continues to nag at her]

...it's beautiful. It really is. But. [she bites her lower lip] If you can create such beauty, why do you . . . choose to create ugliness? Like Will. I know he never would have done anything to you. But you killed him anyway. Why?

[because she loves him and doesn't everybody who loses someone they love wonder why?]

Because violence is also beautiful. It's an expression of raw emotion and destruction. It comes in so many forms. Rebellion, injustice, persecution - your people in particular, humankind, you've found so many different reasons to be violent! Against each other, against other races, against your very own world. It inspires awe. And I know my people aren't the only ones impressed, it's yours too who write songs and performances and poems. War itself is an art, is it not?

[The girl is young, and perhaps still very idealistic. Caedra has certainly known some her age who reveled in the glory of violence. How many young people wish to become knights, after all? To slay the monsters at the edge of civilization, to defend their countries, or to become hunters in the wilderness. Predators in their own right. It's not just humans, it's elves and orcs and gnolls and so many mortals who pass down weapons as heirlooms and sing bardic tales of old battles. It runs in their blood. As it should.]

[as steadily as she can]

There's a difference between war--something that may or may not be justified, I've seen both--and the slaughter of an innocent man. One I happen to love very much.

[and she comes from a very different culture. on Bgztl, before the unification of the planet under one queen--Tinya's great-great-however many times grandmother--all wars were cold wars, fought with words and sanctions and the isolation of others to the benefit of someone else. the glorification of war and violence as something beautiful never happened in Bgztlian culture. it was an aberration. something to be condemned and avoided at any cost. fear of other planets' glorification of war caused them to stay hidden in their dimension until the 28th century]

Of course. Your personal feelings are the difference. To me, it's all the same, just on different scales. All beautiful to me.

[So have a shrug, and a smile. Violence in all forms she supports with joy and enthusiasm. If blood is spilled and souls destroyed, if pain and anguish ripple through communities and continents, then it's all good by her.]

[disbelievingly]

So my grief over Will's death was beautiful to you?

[because she mourned. she mourned and kicked herself for not being there just a little bit earlier and the worst part was that she couldn't even tell anyone that she was grieving due to the age difference between herself and Will. she knew they'd never understand]

In abstract. Grief itself isn't my particular favorite and I wouldn't care to sit and watch you cry. But there's something to be said for the drama of it all, and the effects it can lead to.

[It comes out a little too easily. She could tell for a moment, Tinya could at least see part of what she wanted her to see, back when she had written out that fragment of poetry. But now, as before, she feels compelled to speak the truth rather than continue to phrase her words more carefully, less honestly, and instead she forces herself to stop speaking. She's losing her audience in her earnesty, but she simply has no capacity for sympathizing with the sorrow Tinya must have felt. Still seems to feel.]

I didn't cry. I raged.

[and wanted to seek retribution, but knew that she had no chance in a fair fight. and she doesn't trust the aliens to approach them for an edge. so she was stuck, wandering Will's apartment, waiting for his return]

That's a little better, then. Still, my favorite is when things happen on a much grander scale.

[But oh well. There are repercussions to acting here the way she would like to, and the others have probably found that out themselves in their various ways. The gods have robbed them of so much precious freedom.]

In any case, death doesn't last here. Nothing to be sad or angry about now. He's back, isn't he? Or he will be soon.

Yeah, I've heard rumors about what you did after killing the seamstress.

[and yet, she hasn't done anything similar since then. it makes her wonder why, since she apparently killed more than one person during that particular rampage]

He's back.

Event Log: Speak Your Truth

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