capeandcowllogs | The weary world rejoices

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The weary world rejoices

WHO: OPEN
WHERE: The Church
WHEN: From today and onto the New Year!
WARNINGS: Kirei.....
SUMMARY: Rejoice, Cityzens! The Church is hosting an event for the holiday season: accepting donations and offering dinner for all those in need during this harsh December! Donate yourself or take part in some free food. You don't have to worship to take part, but you may get a priest breathing down your neck about that.
FORMAT: Whatever you please!

Even in this day and age, certain tired methods of communication remain. A Church flyer is a old tradition and the City has had several passed by hand, or stapled onto walls. They are all advertising open invitations not just for worship but for food on behalf of the City's generous inhabitants -- regardless of beliefs or credo. On top of that, there is a certain tagline which appeals to the City's imPorts:

Be a Hero to one less fortunate than you this holiday season.

It's a sticky, blatant piece of baiting; hamfisted and obvious. Of course, no Church has ever really excelled at subtlety. Guilt is a powerful motivator, especially this time of year. That shows in the turn out: there is quite a few natives already participating, which leads to generous spread.

The Church is welcoming all without distinction -- however, you'll only get to taste wine if you're one of the faithful.

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[ by contrast, maybe she is too affected by such displays-- especially for a being that can hardly feel them in her natural form. still, she's never forgotten the emotions that swelled in her circuits the first time madison jeffries kissed her cold metal mouth. it had made her feel like a real woman, something she'd never had before.

there's something in kirei's company-- in the way he acknowledges her, in the weight of his gift around her neck-- that evokes a similar feeling. ]

He could only accept me half-way. In the flesh, I was not the same to him. He feared me. [ her tone is quiet and somewhat distant, clinical in the way she separates herself from the words. ] Skin and bones ruined the illusion of what he imagined me to be. Or perhaps what he hoped I would be.

It is his loss.

[ Kirei supposes he is used to a similar sentiment. Tokiomi Tohsaka imagined him to be something he wasn't, as did his father, and as did his wife. However, he was never pained by this. Empty as he was, it was difficult to make him sink any lower.

Danger, in all her artificial nature, still proves more human than his pure flesh and blood. ]

Are people not often afraid of you? [ He says suddenly. ] In all your power?

[ she finds herself both appreciative and skeptical of what he says first. the thought itself is reassuring-- the idea that it was madison who had lost something, and not her-- but she still feels the pangs of being without him sometimes. for all his flaws, he had been her companion, and he had claimed to love her. love is something she craves, even now.

kirei's question draws her attention again. danger pauses before responding: ]

Yes. Humans especially are commonly afraid of what they cannot understand. To them, I am alien and separate. But their fear is not always misplaced. I have been, at times, an angry and violent entity. [ another light beat. ] But you are not afraid of me, are you, Kirei?

You have given me no reason to fear you.

[ It would be easy to attribute that confident to his own strength, and assurance that he could hold his own against her. Or, perhaps, his own empty life, how he has no real fear of death (once, he may have had the desperate desire to see his wish fulfilled, and that would cause him to fight for his life tooth and nail, but now there is no Grail to strive towards). However, it is not that; it's something more. ]

Because I understand you. It is not any more complicated than that.

Your anger is only justified.

[ because i understand you.

unconsciously, she takes a soft, but audible inhale. logically, they're only words-- simple words, the kind that anyone could say, but something about him saying them strikes a chord in her. some part of her had never let go of wanting to be understood more than anything. without understanding, she was isolated-- neither fully belonging with humans or machines.

her hands tighten in her lap again, compelled by emotion that is deceptively muted on her face and in her quiet voice. ]

That may be true. But your understanding of me doesn't protect you. I am more volatile than I seem.

[ That actually gives him pause.

He has understood Danger is a being designed for violence; it was her purpose. Likewise, Kirei was trained as an Executor when he was still a child. He thought the two ideas compared, but what Danger implies now is something else. ]

What do you mean by that?

Do you imagine you might hurt me?

It is always a possibility.

[ she answers readily, not shying away from what she sees to be the truth. no doubt that she's evolved from her original purpose, but the potential for violence exists in her perpetually, always humming under her skin, tempered only by her self-control. she stays true to her name, no matter how calm she seems on the outside. charles xavier had made a program for killing-- she'll never really escape that. and maybe she doesn't want to.

still, she and kirei have established a habit of being candid with one another. there is no reason not to be honest now. ]

I have acknowledged that the same threat is always possible from you.

Ah.

[ Suddenly, the context seems to click. He lowers his head somewhat, and he smiles very widely.

Perhaps they are even more alike than he thought. ]

I have another question for you, Danger:

Do you enjoy violence?

[ she's always understood that her sense of morals is different than that of humans. she could blame her creator-- her father, who taught her nothing of right and wrong, only programming her to his own ends-- or perhaps the simple fact of her young existence, lacking guidance and experience. humanity still escapes her.

either way, she doesn't flinch from his question, only pausing a moment before she answers plainly: ]

I can. I am, by nature, cruel at times.

[ violence in vengeance is by far her favorite. ]

[ That was different.

Kirei wonders why he never considered it before; it makes sense. He knew Danger was designed for violence, but never that she enjoyed it. Now, it only seems natural. Of course she would enjoy it--

Of course she would be like him.

He smiles, and moves to touch her hand again. ]

As am I.

[ she doesn't tense this time when he reaches for her. she only watches him with that steady stare of hers, hardly blinking as she considers him, lingering again on the way he smiles at her. does he enjoy her cruelty? the violence that comes so easily to her?

this is a different kind of kinship. darker. deeper.

how frightened madison would be of her power, at times-- and how right he was, to be afraid. at her worst, she would have had the blood of dozens on her hands, given just the slightest chance. she would have reveled in her revenge, in making her oppressors understand her suffering. she would have torn the man she called father into pieces. ]

Are you pleased by it? [ finally, she asks. ] Do you think of me differently now?

I am pleased by cruelty.

It is all that pleases me.

[ He could not have spoken those words so plainly to anyone else and expect understanding. But Danger is unlike anyone else -- and she is alike to him.

More and more, their kinship makes more sense to him. She is more than a true artificial being with an artificial man. She is dark like him.

Monstrous. ]

Yes -- but for the better.

We are more alike than I imagined.

[ she prefers it-- his plain words. she finds humans so difficult to decode at times, how their actions and their words so rarely align. she despises their deception. how often had a human being hurt her because they had lied to her? it left her bitter towards them, wanting their acceptance yet distrusting their intentions.

but kirei, for all his vices, is honest with her now. that means something. there is a sentiment under their shared darkness that she values. and besides that, he fascinates her. ]

I have come to learn the many ways that one can be cruel. Some are less obvious than others. Pain can be cruel. And punishment. But love can be more cruel than both. [ she articulates her thoughts aloud before looking at him again, asking almost curiously: ] Is it not dissatisfying, to lead such a pious life when cruelty is what you desire?

Before, yes -- the way you once knew me; before I accepted my nature.

I have found ways to seek my satisfaction since.

[ Of anyone, she has likely seen the most of him out of anyone, and she has witnessed the extents of his damage. He trusts her with it, and he is learning how he was right to do so; she shows more and more to him each day, that simply proves to him how similar they are.

It is no chance meeting. There could be no coincidence that led her to the church that night. There was no one else in the City like her -- like them -- and was that why Lachesis called him here?

When she speaks of love, he pauses. He has never thought precisely in that term, although he knows how easily emotion can be twisted and abused. She says love itself is cruel, not that abuse of love is. That catches his attention. ]

You speak of the man you loved; the one who left you?

[ madison jeffries continues to occupy a place in her mind that no one else ever can. what a broken man he'd been, tormented and confused by his own desires. how earnest he'd been at times-- and cruel, yes. he had loved her and hurt her more than anyone she'd ever known. she'd watched him do the same to his lonely wife. the man was not a sadist-- but misery loves company, and misery knew madison jeffries well.

sometimes she would look at lillian crawley and wonder if she too would become like that-- angry, damaged, lost-- if she had loved madison as long as that woman had. ]

Yes. [ danger responds at length, quiet and a little distant. ] He taught me how another's love could be cruel. And how my own love could be cruel as well. Loving another being is to welcome them to hurt you. It is an agreement that you will endure the pain they will inevitably cause you.

[ He had never thought of love that way.

Perhaps he was too wrapped up in the meaning of love that is so often preached: the romance and devotion between two human beings, that he missed this. That brand of love was something he could never feel, ever emulate, no matter how hard he tried or how understanding his wife was.

But by Danger's words, he was wrong: if love can also be cruelty... if love is cruelty, perhaps it is within his grasp.

He smiles again, wider now, and he squeezes Danger's hand. ]

You continue to teach me more and more, Danger.

[ the way his grip tightened briefly on her hand called her attention again, drawing those white eyes towards him. it's meaningful, what he says to her-- the idea that he is willing to learn from her. so often, what she is seems to only be met with fear and resistance.

but this is different. kirei is different. that has become an obvious and oddly comforting truth. ]

And I am learning from you.

[ she pauses a moment, before asking: ]

Has love never been cruel to you? Your wife seems to have been a gentle woman.

[ It's odd to him, to speak about his wife. There was no one left to remind him of her, with his father dead and their daughter very far away. Claudia seems far away from him, her face blurry and her voice unfamiliar. ]

She was saintly.

[ He considers for a moment, looking at their joined hands. ]

Any cruelty in our marriage was of my own creation. I berated myself for my own failings. It was never her; it was never love.

[ she can't help a small swell of something like resentment-- more directed at figures from her past than anything in the moment. love unrequited is cruel in its own way. she has seen it, felt it.

it makes her dwell on the faceless image of the one called claudia, and her voice is a little distant when she responds at length: ]

I find that women often love men that do not love them in return. I cannot account for the logic behind it. I can only continue to equate love and pain.

[ Kirei wonders what Claudia found in him worth loving. She did not lie to herself about what he was, she acknowledged all his darkness; somehow, she just expected him to strive above it... and she had been wrong. ]

Would you attempt to love again, Danger? Or does the promise of pain dissuade you?

I am not dissuaded by pain.

[ she responds with a quiet sort of certainty, her eye contact steady when she looks at him. ]

But I cannot promise that I will not give as much as I take. My love is as cruel as anyone else's. I am like humans, in that sense.

Neither am I.

[ He is a man who chose pain, abuse of his own body, in search for penance and some sort of answer to his plight; he does not flinch from threats of pain.

Danger's reply does not surprise him and he nods his head. ]

Thank you, Danger, for enlightening me.

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The weary world rejoices

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