It is not an understanding I would wish for anyone. Nor you.( those who have lived long enough, or experienced enough loss, may grasp the meaning. he supposes for mortals, that weight is simply a part of a long life.
this, however. the crawl of centuries he has known, or the static perpetuity of a place like duplicity, despite the cruelty of repeated, unending loss. )
I met him briefly.
He was playful and kind.( a better condolence than a rote one, he believes. )
Thank you, Klaus. I know it may not be a common feeling, but it happens well enough when you have spent any substantial time here.
That was very much who he was. I am glad you got to meet him. He is the closest of my brothers. He is the second son, and I am the second daughter, and never quite feel our place in the world.
( that is a feeling he can relate to: being the bastard son, the one betrayed by their mother, and hated by their father. perpetually lost and unloved, if not for his siblings. )Family is important.
I myself have three brothers and two sisters. I often feel my only place in the world is at their side.
I have three sisters and four brothers. I am usually the one that stands out the most from them, but it was made all the lonelier when they were not here.
Thank you. I am not sure there are many who might, but I know you have grieved a similar loss recently.
( klaus' love for his daughter is such that he cannot fathom to compare it. not to his longing for his siblings or any one person he has left behind, in life or death. she is his heart, and without her, there is a vital piece of him missing.
yet he understands her point. he understands loneliness, feeling adrift, unmoored, and lost. in that way, their losses are very much the same. )
My only solace from losing Hope is knowing that she will live a full life, wherever she is.( she would insist on nothing less. )
As for my siblings, well. They have hounded me for over a thousand years. It seems likely they will found me here, eventually.
I doubt this is the last you'll see of Benedict. That is what brothers are for.
It is a help-- to think of them happy back home. I am not sure if Benedict may have that. I know I will not, even if I could never know the things I know here.
But my brother Colin seems to think so.
I have spent time here alone, but not for very long. It *is* likely he would be back. Just to be stubborn about it.
Do you believe you will not find happiness at home because of the inequality you suffer?( he wonders if she considers her standing such a bleak fate. if there is no avenue, possibly unforeseen, that will grant her contentment.
klaus is not typically one to look on any bright sides. but he is an opportunist. any situation, however difficult, may be turned in another's favor, in his mind. )
I think that I like my freedoms here. That men do not get to judge me solely based on looks and usefulness to them. I can be myself truly. I worry that returning home puts me back into a cage with a forgotten freedom I may never know again.
The likelihood you will be here for the rest of your days is slim to none. No matter your preferences.
( that is the reality. there is no choice in how long they stay, nor if they will. )
Are freedoms here, so easily given, not worth the fight, whenever you may return? I find it difficult to believe you would stand such a cage, nor any man that seeks to put you in one. Why worry, unless you do not believe in yourself?
No, I know my preferences on staying do not matter. Some of us go, some of us stay, and we have neither the warning or the ability to stop it when it comes. I have heard theory that we do not even know if it is truly we go to when it is the dead who arrive here again, and they have no where to go back to. And yet, surely I do not think this is the afterlife for us all.
[She doesn't understand the entire concept of a pocket dimension or what that could mean, but that is probably closest to what she believes of this place.]
I think it would be entirely dependent on if I even remember such things. I am not afraid to fight for what I believe in, but I also cannot fight for something I entirely do not know of either. Yes, I believe in equal rights, but I have never tasted it before, have not know what I am truly capable of until I have done it.
( klaus sucks in a soft breath as his eyes follow it is the dead who arrive here again, and they have no where to go back to — and his thoughts linger there, that accepted weight in his heart heavy.
perhaps it is easier for him to consider the endless possibilities of her life because his options are so limited. because this, after all, is ostensibly his only option to live. what a gift, he considers, to have even the possibility of more. )
I understand. I meant only that forgotten or not, here or at home, there is still a chance to find happiness, and whatever freedoms you may afford. Your inevitabilities are not so bleak.
As someone who is dead, I cannot imagine there is not comfort in that.
[An admission that feels strange to say. There are many here that know she was with someone for near a year, a long time by the standards of the city whose whims chew people up and spit them out, but that's also another side effect of being here so long. Connections come and go. They're forged, changed, evolved into something more. Only to be dissolved when someone else leaves.]
I have learned to thrive in this place beyond my inevitabilities. I have also learned to pick myself off the floor when this place has taken my whole world. But it, too, was an inevitability, one we had talked of often, he and I. He was dead, too, back in his own world.
So you are hardly wrong. There is... something to be said of this place that exists in this, what? In between? I just do not like to think about the idea of returning as if it is some looming inevitability. I can do nothing for it. Just what is set before me here, now. Thriving, surviving-- whatever it may be depending on the day.
( reading the last of her message has him nodding, quietly, to himself. however bittersweet her happiness here was, it was happy. it was happiness and it is fulfillment that she will not find at home, no matter her options, known and unknown.
to live in the present, to the fullest, is all anyone may do.
it is a prospect, even after a thousand years, he can barely conceive.
he died for hope. even in death, in this in-between place, he lived for her, too. without her, without his family, or any possibility of that life he so dearly wanted and so earnestly left, what else is here for him now? what life may he live?
what life does he want? )
I suppose I was happy here.
Happiness has oft been a stranger to me. Though perhaps my inevitabilities need not be so bleak either. Whatever we may call them.
You have a strength of clarity I admire. Thank you.
Sometimes this place gives one perspective and a lot of reflection. Not to say that I can completely understand what you might have gone through, but I think in many ways the city likes to shake out parts of ourselves through a sieve. One gets shaken long enough, more gets revealed. And in my experience, most of us have more in common.
But I do hope you find some happiness here, Klaus. Even if it is fleeting. They are moments that have still happened, and sometimes in this place, that is what we need most.
If I can you that, then I am gladdened that our shared experience, albeit painful, has amounted to something.
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this, however. the crawl of centuries he has known, or the static perpetuity of a place like duplicity, despite the cruelty of repeated, unending loss. )
I met him briefly.
He was playful and kind. ( a better condolence than a rote one, he believes. )
no subject
That was very much who he was. I am glad you got to meet him. He is the closest of my brothers. He is the second son, and I am the second daughter, and never quite feel our place in the world.
no subject
I myself have three brothers and two sisters. I often feel my only place in the world is at their side.
I understand your loss.
no subject
I have three sisters and four brothers. I am usually the one that stands out the most from them, but it was made all the lonelier when they were not here.
Thank you. I am not sure there are many who might, but I know you have grieved a similar loss recently.
no subject
yet he understands her point. he understands loneliness, feeling adrift, unmoored, and lost. in that way, their losses are very much the same. )
My only solace from losing Hope is knowing that she will live a full life, wherever she is. ( she would insist on nothing less. )
As for my siblings, well. They have hounded me for over a thousand years. It seems likely they will found me here, eventually.
I doubt this is the last you'll see of Benedict. That is what brothers are for.
no subject
But my brother Colin seems to think so.
I have spent time here alone, but not for very long. It *is* likely he would be back. Just to be stubborn about it.
no subject
klaus is not typically one to look on any bright sides. but he is an opportunist. any situation, however difficult, may be turned in another's favor, in his mind. )
no subject
no subject
( that is the reality. there is no choice in how long they stay, nor if they will. )
Are freedoms here, so easily given, not worth the fight, whenever you may return? I find it difficult to believe you would stand such a cage, nor any man that seeks to put you in one. Why worry, unless you do not believe in yourself?
no subject
[She doesn't understand the entire concept of a pocket dimension or what that could mean, but that is probably closest to what she believes of this place.]
I think it would be entirely dependent on if I even remember such things. I am not afraid to fight for what I believe in, but I also cannot fight for something I entirely do not know of either. Yes, I believe in equal rights, but I have never tasted it before, have not know what I am truly capable of until I have done it.
It feels less a worry, more inevitability.
no subject
perhaps it is easier for him to consider the endless possibilities of her life because his options are so limited. because this, after all, is ostensibly his only option to live. what a gift, he considers, to have even the possibility of more. )
I understand. I meant only that forgotten or not, here or at home, there is still a chance to find happiness, and whatever freedoms you may afford. Your inevitabilities are not so bleak.
As someone who is dead, I cannot imagine there is not comfort in that.
no subject
[An admission that feels strange to say. There are many here that know she was with someone for near a year, a long time by the standards of the city whose whims chew people up and spit them out, but that's also another side effect of being here so long. Connections come and go. They're forged, changed, evolved into something more. Only to be dissolved when someone else leaves.]
I have learned to thrive in this place beyond my inevitabilities. I have also learned to pick myself off the floor when this place has taken my whole world. But it, too, was an inevitability, one we had talked of often, he and I. He was dead, too, back in his own world.
So you are hardly wrong. There is... something to be said of this place that exists in this, what? In between? I just do not like to think about the idea of returning as if it is some looming inevitability. I can do nothing for it. Just what is set before me here, now. Thriving, surviving-- whatever it may be depending on the day.
no subject
to live in the present, to the fullest, is all anyone may do.
it is a prospect, even after a thousand years, he can barely conceive.
he died for hope. even in death, in this in-between place, he lived for her, too. without her, without his family, or any possibility of that life he so dearly wanted and so earnestly left, what else is here for him now? what life may he live?
what life does he want? )
I suppose I was happy here.
Happiness has oft been a stranger to me. Though perhaps my inevitabilities need not be so bleak either. Whatever we may call them.
You have a strength of clarity I admire. Thank you.
no subject
But I do hope you find some happiness here, Klaus. Even if it is fleeting. They are moments that have still happened, and sometimes in this place, that is what we need most.
If I can you that, then I am gladdened that our shared experience, albeit painful, has amounted to something.