Edema Rue

Eddie took a step forward, suddenly filled with dread. "Li-Lil?"

"What needs to be done? Why do I need to be killed?" "I...very well," Rue said.

Fen grimaced. "Poor girl..."

"A whole lot of things," Tal said. "I take it you haven't heard of morals?"

I'm not, she sent back. And she wasn't. She had created a better world. She was sure of that now, sure that she was right. @The Wandering Wizard

"Plead my--look. I'm asking a simple question. Why are you trying to kill me?" Tal met her eyes and waited for an answer.

He raised an eyebrow expectantly and settled down, spreading his arms dramatically. "Take it away, my Lady."

Fen nodded. "That sounds...pleasant. Well, no, not pleasant, but...better then 5 hours." He chuckled. "Though at least poison isn't a regular occurrence for me..."

"Put the sword down, for starters," Tal said, "And then...uh...we can chat about why you want to kill me?"

"From what?" Dilsha asked.

He smiled back. "Well. How long does dinner usually last?"

No...no...no...no...They are not alone...I am here, I am here, and I care...and here, they are safe...here no one is hunted...it's better. It is better. They are not lies. They start as a fiction, yes, but it grows into more. It grows into a home. Their love is just as true as any outside here. They can heal.

Yaaaaay, no one died!!!

“Know what?” “Uh, you! Trying to kill me!”

Rue nodded, face blink, mind...racing. Guilty. He doesn't understand...I was so close to becoming the Rue he knows...

Fen grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Someday, we'll both be free. I promise."

Tal sidestepped it. "What's wrong with you?" Rue nodded sharply. "I can. Anything else?" She paused. "I'm...sorry I can't save you."

Eddie's soul shivered, but accepted the memories. It...it understood. It understood that pain could bring progress. But it saw the value of control. The value of being able to make completely sure that the pain would go away, that there was more joy than hurt. She showed him the world she'd created. The one where all people could heal. The one where love was sure. The one where no one was alone. And as she did, those memories grew stronger in her mind, forcing away the memories of before.

If she had been conscious, the girl-creature-would have screamed. But she couldn't. She couldn't let herself think, feel, couldn't remember who she was supposed to be.

Yay, words!!

(yes I poke people with writing sticks once in a while)

Fen nodded, understanding. "Pretending can be...nice. If only reality didn't have to come back, after."

Tal sighed. "You don't need to give up your beliefs, but if you expect to stay here, you're going to need to change the way you live so that you aren't hurting our clients." Tal held up a hand. "Stop," he said. "You can't stab people because you don't want to deal with them."

The girl was still on the floor. To their eyes, she was unconscious, though not exactly peaceful. But that was a grave understatement. Her mind raged. There was a battle, no, a war, between every piece of herself. She stumbled across the killing field, terrified, but no, no, she was the killing, she was the dead and she was the murderers, she was the children, killed for no fault of their own, and she was their gleeful killer, and...and...and... And a thousand other things. No. A thousand more and's wouldn't begin to cover it. She was all of it, but she was none of it. And the parts she was the most...the most dangerous parts of the battle...Victor. Cassian. She loved him. She could admit that to herself, now that he was gone. Gone because of her knife. Gone because of her ambition. She loved him, she was mourning, he was gone, gone forever, her precious sunshine, the thing that could warm even the most shadowed pieces of her heart- No. No. She hated the sunlight. The sunlight burned. She didn't love the boy and never had. She was hungry, only hungry, the only reason to mourn his death was because of the waste of food, the waste of a perfectly good body filled with perfectly good blood, he was not something to weep for. On the floor, the girl trembled. But in her mind, she found a swirl of peace. A place where there was no fight. A place deep inside herself, where all the hidden desires that made her who she was lounged freely. I will be on top of the world. I will be on top of the world. I will be on top of the world. The words were as much a part of her as her own heartbeat, as her own breathing. To take them away would be to change her from a person to a beast. And so the girl found a form of calm through the words. All parts of her agreed, and whatever she was now and whatever she became... She would come out on top of the world, because that was where Siylna Beunar belonged. @Ookla the Yellow Sock

Zir-Siyl-the girl-the human girl-no, no, humans are weak-I am human-no, no, no, no… She blinked once, blankly, and then her eyes slid shut, and she was lost to the horrors of her own mind.