hadriel_logs | You're a what?

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You're a what?

Who: Flick and Jo Harvelle; separate thread for Flick and Pell.
Where: Spire 1, 201, Jo's apartment; the hara house for Flick and Pell
When: March 1 for Flick and Jo; March 8th for Flick/Pell
What: Flick explains what he, and the other Wraeththu, are; Flick and Pell have a heart to heart.
Warnings: Talk of violence, murder, death and rape.

After calling Jo up on the network(he'd put this off far too long) and asking for directions to her Spire, Flick left to meet her. After the disasterous meeting with Yukari, Flick wasn't going to suggest Jo come over to his anytime soon. Of course he probably shouldn't have been worried, Jo was already kind of friends with Pell, right? That just left Cal and Ulaume. Cal, who didn't like women,and Ulaume, who....well, was Ulaume. Really, he loved his chesnari, but politeness was sometimes not his forte.

Still he was surprised that Pell hadn't thought to mention that he wasn't human to her. He hoped he had told someone, what if he had gotten hurt and someone touched his wound? It would be disastrous. He understood being cautious but in this place, people needed to know. And now, Flick owed Jo an explanation.

Because there was nothing like asking a woman to knock you out, but making sure she didn't draw blood in order to ramp up her curiosity. Flick knocked on the door.

"Jo? Are you there, it's Flick."

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Even though she was waiting for the knock on the door, it makes her jump when it finally comes. She hops to her feet and heads for the door.

"Coming!" A second later she pulls her door open, stepping aside so Flick can enter.

"Have a seat."

Flick stepped inside and gave her a warm smile.

"Thanks Jo." He took a breath, it actually hadn't been that long since he'd done something like this. Well, not exactly. He had never been the one to spill the beans as to what they were back home to the new boys that were lured or called away from their homes. But, it hadn't been that long ago that he gave an anatomy lesson to his adopted child, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar territory.

"So, you probably have questions."

"Yeah." And they've just multiplied as time went on.

"Do you really have answers or are you just going to dance around them?"

Flick gave her a bright smile and laughed.

"I'll tell you what I know. But I don't know everything. Our species is new, we haven't been around that long." He didn't see the harm. They were from different worlds. It wasn't like she could use the knowledge he was sharing to do anything, and Jo certainly didn't seem the type to harm him because of it.

If they were back in her home world it might have been a different story. Hadriel was different. Those with powers hadn't been a threat yet. It was the monsters they had to worry about, which was inside her comfort zone.

"Why is it new?"

"Right to the hard questions?" Flick smiled at her. If he had known who and what she was back home, he might not have volunteered his information so eagerly.

"I don't know. Wraeththu is new, about.....50 or 60 years old maybe? I don't know how it started. Where I'm from, humanity is dying. The air and land are toxic, the weather's all screwed up, humans are mostly infertile. I don't know if Wraeththu just popped up as an evolutionary fix, or if the gods were looking out, or if this all started in a lab as an experiment to try and fix a dying race. But I can tell you what I was taught, before I was incepted. It might be a fairy story, or it might be truth, I'm not sure. Would you like that?"

Edited 2017-03-02 16:46 (UTC)

She hasn't been exactly forthcoming with most people. She doesn't see it as lying to them.

"I'll save the fun for later?" She laughs quietly and then settles back to listen as he begins to explain. Humanity was dying in his world. That's a dire situation. So Flick, and the others, were indeed separate from humans, but had been once?

"Incepted?"

Flick fought with himself. He'd been taught not to reveal what they were and how it worked to non Wraeththu, and especially those who couldn't be incepted. But what harm was it? They were somewhere else, and he really didn't think Jo would hurt him. Besides, if the others were incapacitated, he wanted someone to know the basics of what to do to help. What they were. It was only safe. So no one got hurt.

He relented. "Inception. It's a ritual that changes humans to hara. It's really only done on boys, for some reason, it doesn't work on girls." Except it did, but he was not bringing his adopted daughter into this. No one was ever going to find out about her, and that she could incept women. Not even Pell. He'd die to keep her safe.

"It's really just a blood transfusion but it's chalked up with a lot of ritual. The process takes about three days, and it's really painful. And you could die. The key really is to transfuse enough Wraeththu blood to start the transfusion, not just give someone blood poisoning. I helped Pell through it." Flick had seen a lot of inceptions. He'd been there to clean the boils and the vomit and the shit, help restrain the poor boy when they started hallucinating and becoming violent. "Some things help keep it safer. We use needles in Saltrock, and drugs for the pain. It helps not to eat anything before."

Jo listens carefully, nodding when Flick is finished. It seems like a detailed process. Rituals almost always snuck into such things.

Hell, even Hunters had their own rituals.

"Sounds risky. I'm amazed any of you went through it."

"Sometimes people will do amazing things to survive, even if it's only a chance. They're hungry, they're scared. Sometimes, those who are supposed to become Wraeththu, know. I knew. My parents gave me these pills so I couldn't hear the call--boys would just wander off. I couldn't hear it, but I could see the way I needed to go, if that makes sense? It was like feeling as if I could walk straight through a fence and emerge whole on the other side."

Flick smiled sadly, not remembering his parents at all, just memories of a white picket fence and toys in a yard. "I wandered off as we were being packing. We were going somewhere safe. There were big trucks. Military maybe?" But Flick had come from wealth, most humans didn't have that luxury. They were on their own.

But he did flinch, he was a terrible liar, and it probably showed on his face. He tried to find a way to spin his answer to a more positive light. "We don't tell them anything until the ritual starts. It's safer that way. " And by then it was too late. They were going to do it anyway, even if you panicked, even if you fought. That's what happened to Pell. He had to be drugged into acquiesce.

"You could see it?" That's an interesting way to put it. It also sounds like magic, which she supposes makes sense if they're all magic users.

"That doesn't seem fair, not telling them." It makes sense in a little bit of a twisted way, but how can they make a decision without all the information? She stares at her hands for a moment and sighs.

"How old are these boys?"

Flick nodded. "I'm not sure how to explain it. I knew I had to go. I knew where I had to be, like I was called." Or lured. "We call it the Call, not everyone hears it, but those who do usually survive."

He had a feeling she'd get stuck on that. Most people did. He didn't like it either, but accepted that was how it had to be. "Life isn't fair. If we don't them before hand, they'd get scared, try to leave and tell everyone else where we were, what we were and they'd kill us. Besides, if you had a choice between never getting sick again, becoming something better than what you were, wouldn't you choose it?"

Flick had never doubted. Not once. He knew others had. Pell had. His ex Seel had. "Usually between thirteen and twenty? Sometimes they can survive if they're younger or older but I think that's the best age. Ulaume was incepted as a child, but he's from a different tribe. They've figured out a way to do it safely, so the child can grow up har, have a normal childhood." And they wouldn't share their secrets. Naturally.

"No. I like me." It's ingrained in her. Human is best. ...Well, not like that but a little like that.

"That's...You don't let them decide, when they're that young?" Shouldn't they get the choice??

"Wait, Ulaume is one of you?"

Flick winced. He know how Ulaume could be with other people, especially humans. He hoped his love hadn't made too much of a bad impression.

"I don't know how the Colurastes do it. They're rather secretive. I can tell you that from what I've learned, living with Ulaume for over a decade. And yes, he's one of us, I can't imagine my life without him. The Colurastes method of inception is far less traumatic. He doesn't really remember it. He was kept sedated the entire time. "

Sorry, Jo. Flick believes. Like really believes that what the Wraeththu are doing, is right. That they're saving people. He never doubted his own inception, not once, and did what he could to look after those undergoing it.

"I know you don't believe. You're not har, you don't know. It's really wonderful. It's worth it. I'll never get sick, in Saltrock with the others I was relatively safe, compared to being human in the outside world, there was food, a community. I wouldn't have changed a thing. If I had the choice I would have made my same decision all over again. Every time.People get scared. They're young, they've just left everything they know. Change is hard. But, a lot of the times, change is necessary. We're saving people. They're dying anyway. Don't you think we should save as many as we can?"

Edited (edit edit edit, sorry) 2017-03-13 16:15 (UTC)

Saving people.

The sentence gets to her more than she'd admit. Maybe, in their world, it really is for the best. She can't imagine doing it herself. Maybe it's not fair to judge others by her own standards.

"It's complicated, isn't it?"

Flick knew she didn't look convinced, and he wished she could understand, see it with the clarity that he did. It's what he told the boys who came to Saltrock, what he told Pell, scared and alone. It was worth it. It's worth the pain of the process and the possibility of death. To see with the uttermost clarity. This was where they belonged. If Flick had more memories of his time as a human he might connect Saltrock's process with that of old human cults, and be appalled. But the similarities were there, if only due to necessity.

"I don't think so." He smiled at her, as she acquiesced even though she didn't see. "How is saving people complicated? They could lead lives where they'll grow old and die of sickness, starvation or murder, maybe their dreams of having children wont come true since most of humanity is infertile. Being har fixes all of these things. It's a chance at becoming something better, being able to grow spiritually, do things you never thought possible."

"You're trying to convince me, but I'm not going to be convinced." She's pretty sure of that. Even in her short life, she never wanted to be anything but a human, and never wanted to do anything but protect humanity.

"Maybe if I were from your world and lived through all of it it would be different."

She feels like even admitting that is a huge thing. Thank God Dean isn't around to hear about this.

Flick didn't like it, but she was right. She didn't understand and she might not understand without living through it. It wasn't like she could ever become har anyway so it wouldn't matter. There was something evangelical the way he wanted to convince her though.

"Alright then. Do you have any questions about what I am? You already know that you can't touch my blood." He shrugged, " I could give you an anatomy lesson." Wouldn't be the first time, either. Flick was totally ready to take his clothes off and play show and tell.

"If I can't touch your blood I don't need an anatomy lesson." It would only be important if vital organs were in different places, and if his blood is harmful, she wouldn't be able to help anyway.

"The process lets you use magic and stuff?"

Flick shrugged, accepting her wish as squeamishness. Humans tended to be so modest sometimes. It was not a trait Wraeththu shared. This however, her questions, was where it got hard. It meant divulging their secret, if she didn't already know.

"Yes. It changes a lot of things. Wraeththu, with the proper training and instruction, can use our own natural energy and the energy around us to manipulate it. Like healing. It also changes other.....things." Flick paused, struggling against what he learned years ago not to reveal this. What did it matter? Stop it brain. "You know we're hermaphroditic, right?"

"No."

It wasn't as if she asked her friends about their sex lives or whatever physical equipment they had.

"Pell used some of his magic to save me when I first got here."

Flick meanwhile couldn't imagine that he hadn't told her--- or perhaps anyone. He half wondered what gender Jo had though Pell was, having been called a girl multiple times himself.

Flick nodded. "Yes, Pell has more training than me in that area. He traveled quite a bit in order to learn."

While she wasn't around for the debate about genders or anything in the public eye, she hasn't really cared? It isn't important when survival is on the line, as she sees it.

"What did your change get you?"

"My inception didn't get me anything. I don't really remember my old life as a human. It happens to some. I can tell you that I remember we were all being loaded into some kind of vehicles. Trucks I think. The military was shipping us all into some kind of community, some place we'd be safe. The war finally reached us. My mother was crying, my father wasn't there. Now that I think about it he was probably dead. It felt like the end of the world, because it was.

"After I left and was taken to Saltrock, I got safety. The bullets didn't touch us. I was there for six years. I had food and shelter. If I hadn't become what I am I wouldn't have met Ulaume, I wouldn't have been able to help Pell's siblings, who were left to more....unsavory Wraeththu. I like to think that since I've become Wraeththu I've made a difference."

And Lileem. The adopted daughter he wouldn't talk about. The child Ulaume found in the desert that they raised together.

"Almost everyone hopes they've made a difference." It's why she always wanted to be a Hunter. To change things. To save lives.

So she can kind of understand that part of his statements, even if she would never give up her humanity.

"It's good that you can help."

"I tried. I'm sure I didn't make as much of a difference as some. They're doing so much more." There were hara out there running countries and creating shelters and towns, what was Flick compared to that? He wished he could do those things and be big and strong and confident, but in the end, he was just Flick. When the going got tough, Flick hid in the kitchen.

"Do you have any questions?"

She understands that feeling as well. Especially now, after her death. There was so much she never got to do to help...

She sighs quietly and looks over to Flick for a moment.

"Like, if I had gloves on would your blood still hurt?"

"Yeah, like that. And no, gloves should be safe. We use syringes to hold the blood and it doesn't affect clothing, just human skin. Just be careful Jo. Since your female, it will just kill you, not change you. I don't want to see you hurt."

"If you're hurt, I can use the gloves until someone can heal you." She's always looking for a way around the bad things.

"I can be careful." Most of the time she just doesn't want to.

"Yes, good. I'll try not to get hurt too much. The same goes for Pellaz, Cal or Ulaume. Use gloves on them, they're the same." He smiled at her. "I dont want you to get hurt helping me."

She files all of this away for the future. It's true, they have advantages that humans don't, but everyone can be hurt here.

"Yeah. Like I said, I'll be careful."

"Good. I'm glad. I'd like to get to know you better, if Pell considers you a friend." It was hard to get to know people when they were dead. "Anything else?"

She smiles and nods. She considers Pell a friend at this point as well, and she's glad he has helped her in the past.

"I don't think so, not about you."

"Well, then I hope I helped." Flick smiled and started to stand up. He wasn't sure he felt comfortable answering questions about the other hara. That wasn't his place.

She had questions about everyone here in the cave, if she was being honest.

She stands too, holding a hand out to shake.

"Thanks, Flick."

[ Pell comes home from the clinic radiating distress, as much as he tries to keep it locked down. He doesn't want to be without Cal, to not even know where he is... all he really knows is that he's coming home to an upset Flick, another thing he doesn't want. And he doesn't know what sort of upset he's walking into, or how angry Ulaume will be over it.

He can sense that they're both home, in their room, so he detours to his room first, taking off his bag and cloak before going back downstairs to start dinner, expecting that Flick won't want to. The other har will come to him when he's ready, most likely. ]

Ulaume had pretty much calmed Flick down. The hurt was still there, and always would be, but at least at the moment he wasn't bawling his eyes out. He hadn't needed to relive what Cal made him relive, although he understood why he had wanted to know. If the situation had been reversed, he'd want to know. Flick would have liked to think he'd have found a different way of getting the information though. Too many had already been hurt.

He felt Pell enter, and separated himself from Ulaume to go see him. He was almost afraid of what he would say.

"Pell."

"Flick." It's a tense greeting, Pell's eyes wary and careful as he can tell Flick's been crying recently. Probably just before he arrived home, even. He doesn't bother asking if the other har is alright, that's pointless and in a way less considerate than silence. He already knows the answer. Instead he says, "I'm sure he told you, but he's not coming back for awhile."

"I didn't mean for him to leave. I didn't ask him too."

Flick felt the need to explain, unsure of what he knew, of what Cal had told him. The more time went on here, the more he was having trouble equating the Cal who had killed Orien, who had lost his mind with Pell's 'death', with the Cal who was with him now, the sane one. The one Pell had fallen in love with. It was screwing him up.

Flick and his nervous energy, despite the red rimmed eyes and tear stained skin, picked up a rag and started dusting.

"I know, he said it was his idea. That he's worried if he didn't leave, you would. He won't tell me where he is, though -- he thought you might need me. So here I am." He pulls down a few cans and starts rummaging through their fresh vegetable selection, wanting to keep busy while they have this talk.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to go through it again. I can hear it from him eventually."

Flick shook his head, although he wasn't sure if Pell saw it. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to dredge up all those feelings again, but it bothered him that Cal knew things about him that Pell didn't. Cal of all hara.

"I'm not sure. I don't want to talk about it but, it doesn't feel right that he knows and you don't." He went over to Pell, where he was pulling things onto the counter and pressed his lips to a cheek, resting his head against the other.

"I don't want to feel like this again."

He goes still as Flick presses close, one hand coming up to cradle the other har's head.

"...I'm sorry."

For all of it -- that Flick had to live through the thing and then relive it for Cal. That he doesn't know, and one of them will have to tell him. That he died and caused the whole mess in the first place. He feels partially responsible, even though there's no way on the planet that it could be his fault or any of them could think it was. He still feels it.

"What can I do?"

Flick pressed himself against Pell, taking comfort in the other har's presence. His friend was warm and wonderful, and then he was crying again, new tears falling on Pell's clothes.

Then he has the answer, pressing his mouth to Pell's to share breath. He doesn't have to talk this way, opening most of his mind, although locks still remained around Lileem and bits of Mima. Not sure exactly what Cal had had a chance to tell Pell before everything went to hell, he shared. Flick sent Pell the missing scenes, how Cal had come to Saltrock, half dead, how they'd taken him in, crazed and lashing out at Orien. How he'd used Flick, rooning him in all the places he'd been with Pell, trying to erase painful memories. Until Flick had suggested the Nayati, and Cal got that gleam in his eyes. Shared how he'd woken up that night next to Seel, wandered into the bloody horror and then gone back to bed.

How he'd left Seel and headed out into the desert to find Itzama and the Dehara, and how he'd met Ulaume. He glossed over Mima, Pell probably only getting bits and pieces of his sister and more of Terez; how he'd called the Uigenna after they'd helped him. 3 days of hell. Flick glossed over the riverboat, ending with his argument with Seel in Forever, being escorted up the stairs by guards and locked in a room as Ulaume was escorted off the grounds.

"There." Flick said quietly. "Now you know more than Cal."

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another day, another drama (set after cal's post)

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Re: another day, another drama (set after cal's post)

Re: another day, another drama (set after cal's post)