iv

[adamantlyardent]

The hour is late and prime for introspection of a somber nature. Perhaps some of you awake will be keen on entertaining a question or two in that vein to pass the hours. I may yet be too young and naive to even presume to ask, but then...no one is being forced to answer me, either.

I assume many among us found themselves here in the midst of or proceeding important events -- the sort of which may be quite excruciating or merely troublesome to be interrupted. Yet for most, the days come and go -- many, many sunrises and sunsets, idle hours and chaotic seconds aplenty.

At what point did you give up on the dreams deferred by your untimely arrival in this realm? Or, if you still cling true to them, what is your breaking point? Do you know how long you're willing to cling to that which you cannot return to of your own will?

Perhaps it's the other way around, though: Those who had no hope which to speak of then...when did you begin to hold and pursue dreams in this world? Have you even begun?

Comments

[dragony]

[ Well. Apparently that's a sore subject. ]

... I don't know if I would call it foolish. What you're asking. Then again, I find it's usually the people that are much older that are the bigger idiots about everything.

If I may ask, how old were you, when you arrived here? And, how old are you now?

[adamantlyardent]

I shall be 18 by the turn of the season, and already well of age among the people I was raised. For all the good that does me then and now. Humans have no business being as flip and confusing as they are just as much as I have no business being so naive.

[dragony]

If we measure our years the same, you're not that much younger than me. I just turned 20, a couple weeks ago. I wouldn't call you a kid, personally. But, you're not wrong about humans. Unfortunately, we're all a bit contradictory, and confusing; the worst are the ones who won't realize it.

What makes you call yourself naive?

[adamantlyardent]

Experience. I have volumes of instances where I have been left lost, confused, utterly bamboozled, or just plain WRONG about this, that, or the other. I'll have myself quite the library to reference before a proper year is out. And it is hardly the humble, natural pains of discovering the new, either. It's enough to make me wonder if I was better off staying holed up at home after all.

[dragony]

You were house-bound in your own realm, too? It's hard enough acclimating to your own society late, when your whole life is so separate from it... it's no wonder, that trying the same in the realm of an entirely different people would be much more difficult.

You were brought to this place alone, weren't you?

[adamantlyardent]

Of course I was. Is that not the case for everyone? Even if familiar faces trickle in, everyone begins here alone.

[dragony]

The familiar faces don't, do they? That type arrives, and someone who cares for them is already here, ready to help them through every step.

But it's not just about familiarity, either. You call the people here humans, and that's mostly true, but it's not the way humans refer to one another. Maybe the Porter made you be one, too, when you got here; I don't know. But you don't see yourself as one. You think of yourself as someone separate. Whatever that means, to you, there's no one else here like you.

Do I have that right?

[adamantlyardent]

Spelled out makes it sound so pathetic and over-dramatic. Like very basic adolescent fiction.

[dragony]

What's pathetic about it?

[adamantlyardent]

Compared to the troubles and horrors others have faced, my situation is pedestrian at best.
And yes, I'm aware that no one individual's circumstances can be compared one-to-one with another's, but a little sense CAN be common across the board.

[dragony]

To be bitten by a dog might lose you some blood and earn you a scar, but to be bitten by an insect could leave you with infection bad enough to destroy your body and end your life.

Between the two, which would you rather endure?

[adamantlyardent]

I don't think the latter is possible for me anymore. And all the same, I'm not a fan of dogs in general...
But I see what you're getting at.

[dragony]

I hoped you might. I mean... I know I can't speak for anybody else, but... there are much more terrible things I would be willing to suffer, rather than to be alone. And a world like this is difficult to endure, even when you're sure you know what you're doing. I don't think, well, nobody with *reasonable* intelligence could fault having difficulty adjusting.

What sort of thing did you leave behind, unfinished?

[adamantlyardent]

A lot of petty, childish dreams. Some were already fraying at the edges before being abducted, so it may have just been a matter of time versus place.
It didn't occur to me right at the moment of arrival to treat this as a fresh start, and now it's quite stale.

[dragony]

I suppose that's the usual part of growing up.

What would you do differently? If you'd known then, to treat it like that?

[adamantlyardent]

I've spent some time thinking on that, and while I can't account for everything, especially those sporadic, awful disasters this place seems so keen on having, I'd certainly have avoided the school structure altogether. I'd have been better off perhaps avoiding this network save for observational purposes, too. Perhaps not speaking to many much at all would've been wiser.
More and more I wonder if becoming some sort of lonely, magic hermit would've been the right choice to avoid all the almost-death that runs rampant.

[dragony]

Oh, jeez. Agreed. I tried regular school, too, when I was younger, because I couldn't go at all where I was from, and it was miserable. Eventually I just took exams and fudged my age a little so I wouldn't have to keep going. There are *some* people who do okay, in a place like that, but... ugh. I hated it, too.

As for hermitage... I don't know. Sometimes, the danger still follows.

[adamantlyardent]

Perhaps. But at least then, I'd have a bit more excuse to get away with setting someone on fire than I would here in proper society, yes?

[dragony]

Hardly a fair fight, isn't it?

What have they done to deserve it?

[adamantlyardent]

Which ones? The harpies from the high school, or the actual girl-abductors who...abducted me?

[dragony]

Those sound pretty different. Setting your abductors on fire doesn't need any more excuse than that.

And your... high school adversaries? [ don't be mean to harpies :< ] What have they done?

[adamantlyardent]

It doesn't matter. I left and I'm not going back. I don't need a trial for it NOW, do I?

[dragony]

Hey, you brought it up.

I mean, you didn't kill anyone, right?

[adamantlyardent]

No. I might be petty and naive and unpleasant, but I'm not bloodthirsty.

[dragony]

Then no, no trial needed. [ Probably. ]

So, if you could redo it, you would skip school entirely, which you've quit now. That's one thing fixed. You wish you could have avoided some of the danger, but you hardly could have known what the danger would have been, from the start. Even now, it's not easy to know where it will come from, and where it will follow.

And you wish you hadn't talked to people, on this Network.

The people you've met here — you regret all of them?