toujoursfluer | Log 12 [Video]

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Log 12 [Video]

[Robin is sitting at her desk with a curious dog in her lap. Yes, that is a mustache. She looks neutral though the dog looks faintly worried--or perhaps constipated--it's difficult to tell]

For those who don't know, Marco has been kidnapped. Let's hope he comes back as something bearable, ne? But I would prepare for the worst. The Malnosso have been too kind lately. [She pets the dog's head lightly as if this doesn't bother her overly much]

A lesson to all you new feathers, the Malnosso will come for you one day without fail. There is no fighting them yet, though of course you should try. Don't allow yourself to be taken easily. However, when that time comes, you will be taken in--experimented on, tortured perhaps--you may remember it, you may not. You may be changed, you may not. Either way, your existence will be altered.

Though, on the bright side, the effects are usually temporary. After all, there's no point in permanently incapacitating a test subject when they are needed for further use.

[Locked to Norma]

I don't know if I will see you before Marco returns, but he wanted to let you know he loves you. Take care, ne? And if you need anything don't hesitate to call me.

[and with that she closes the journal]

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... Yes, you're probably right. We will have to clean up the mess they leave then.

[He hums a bit at her next words, and it takes a moment before he answers.]

Are you sure that's what would be better for him? I don't deny that he could be better off back at your world, where he can move on rather than sit and wait. But your world-... Moving on doesn't always mean getting better and as a phoenix I think there are more chances of him burning himself alive than advancing on, depending on the type of crap that future holds for him there.

[He snorts and shakes his head.]

Tch, forget that. It's not really my place to think of that.

Place has nothing to do with it, really. You're welcome to think and say whatever you wish.

And perhaps he will burn himself alive. But death is inevitable no matter where you are and if I know Marco, he will burn himself alive for something he so strongly believes in that he is willing to die for the strength of his belief. I believe it's better to die well than to live a half life here, being manipulated and torn.

No- I mean, yes, you're right there. But I doubt it's going to end the way you think. Marco is a phoenix, even more than I do. Death can't have a hold on me for long. I doubt it will have a hold on him either.

He will burn himself alive and then rise once more to do it again. And for some time it may be good, your world sounds to be screwed enough and hard enough to make that burning will something good. But sooner or later it will end, for good or bad, one day there won't be any more reasons to burn himself for something he believes in. Be it because the world changed, because that Luffy kid fulfilled what he has to do, because Ace's and pop's murderers paid... One day nothing of what made him burn will be left and after that, what would await him is far worse than death.

I want to destroy this place just as much as everyone else, but I'm not looking forward to Marco going through that. Even if he may get help and be saved from part of it on time like I was, it will only make it a little bit better. Of course it's all moot point, no one cares about what we want or don't want.

[Does the devil fruit really work that way? She can't really say. Yes, he is a phoenix--but-- well, in either case. No, there is no in either case. If what he says is true than even home seems a miserable existence after a time. Years. Centuries. Surely he would find others to care for in that intervening space? Here, Ace may yet return someday. Even Whitebeard, perhaps, or Thatch, or anyone else he's missed. And yet if he remains it will only be to watch them suffer at the hands of the Malnosso unless they find some other place to be]

I don't know.

[And though she was fine before, she's filled with a sort of aching sadness now, filled with the inevitability of everything]

Here or there, I just want him to be happy in the end. [and for there to be an end]

Me too.

[Ikki's reply is low but clear. He sighs before he adds something else.]

Robin, if I tell you a really foolish idea, will it stay between you and me?

[Basically, not telling Marco.]

It will barring extenuating circumstances.

[She's not promising any certainty to an idea she doesn't know]

Edited 2013-03-10 17:02 (UTC)

Hn, good enough I guess.

[It's really just a foolish idea anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter if it doesn't stay between them.]

You just said you wanted him to be happy in the end. I want that too, but despite how much I hate this place and how much crap it throws at us... I think Luceti is the only place where that can happen. Simply because Luceti is the only place that guarantees us an "end".

I don't know what death is to you, but we can actually die, the problem is that we don't remain dead for long. Soon enough our consciousness returns as well as our bodies and it's no different from having gone to sleep, pain suffered aside. This place isn't our home, our world and whatever memories we make here, whatever feelings we have, whatever thoughts we get... Everything is going to vanish, you know? As soon as we are sent back, everything will leave us, it will vanish and maybe lost forever. For both Marco and me, I think that's the closest we can get to dying. Because even if we will return to our worlds and continue living there, the "us" that were here, the Marco that met and loved you, the one that called me "phoenix-bro", will be gone and there are high chances of him never returning even if he's sent back here.

What I mean to say is that... Here he can meet new people, make new friends and still have a good chance of seeing Ace and pops and everyone else he lost back home. He can be with them again even if it's just for one more day, it will still be an extra day that he could never have anyway. And in that aspect it won't be different than being back home, sure, there it will take longer for people to leave his side and go where he can't reach them. But it will still happen. You could say that this place presents what our social life will be back at our worlds in a fast-forward pace.

I think that if even with that he still manages to be happy, if he manages to be here for years, even if it's trapped and subjected to this crap, one day everyone will be freed, everyone will be sent back home and then he will "die". And if he managed to be happy, to have enough happy moments to outweigh the crappy ones... Then maybe he will be able to do it again back at your world, even if back there, the chances for an "end" to exist are so low that they almost don't exist. But even if it doesn't, even if his life back there is just a living hell from then on with just years and years of pain until your world ends and maybe then he gets to end with it. At least he would have been happy, you know? At least here, he would have gotten to be happy, to have his girl, to have extra time with his brothers and with pops and to have an end. So even with everything this place is, I would prefer for him to remain here until this place ends, so he can have that even if it will mean nothing for the him back there.

[He coughs, his throat feeling dry after that. He doesn't often talk that much and after saying all that he gets uncomfortable with it. The things this place makes him think and say. He excuses himself the best he can.]

I told you it was a very foolish idea.

Edited 2013-03-10 17:24 (UTC)

[She takes in his words. Though there is nothing new she hasn't heard before. More than once]

So he's said. So he's always said. It feels too much like giving up. Like settling, ne? That all he can do is endure and hang on to the past with nothing to look forward to except this place. This--unending torture. It's prison and all people can say is...well at least there are good memories, good friends which turn into people they have to protect and they are too heart broken to leave even if it kills them to stay.

[She's seen the way it wore Nami down. The way it's wearing Sanji down, bit by bit. Marco is strong but even he suffers. And she hates this place. She hates it. She refuses to bend to it. To make excuses for its existence.]

I can't accept it. I won't.

[Even she is saying too much but it hurts too much. And it sounds foolish but they have made their way by being foolish. Reaching for the unreachable dream and she will, too. As hard as she can. As much as it hurts]

I didn't say you had to accept it. But it would be nice for Marco if you could understand that this place and your world, from a phoenix point of view, aren't that different. At least not regarding how it's all reduced to how many people we hold close to us and how fast we lose them while trying to get new people, because without that then we will have nothing. The things you see happening here, are going to happen to him to a very similar extent back home.

Don't think that just because right now back home he has something else to do, to watch over Luffy and make sure he survives and reaches his dream and all. Marco's existence eventually will go down to be just like the existence he has here. A life of seeing people enter his live and leaving, while only he remains and can do nothing but hope for some vague end to arrive. Unless he's lucky enough for his devil fruit's weakness to work enough to actually kill him and stop him from returning if he jumps to the sea.

[Here or there, there's suffering only awaiting for them in the long run.]

I understand what you mean, but there's a difference between rejecting and fighting something that you don't get and doing the same with something you at least understand. Until then all we would be doing is waste time and energy. Marco's way of fighting it may not be what you approve, but trying to gather as much happiness as possible so it out weights the shit he has to deal with, is still a way of fighting and rebelling.

I understand it but I despise it. I will help him gather all the happiness he can--for as long as he wants it. For as long as his world view remains even if it never changes.

[But she hates it. She hates it. It is sad and bitter and angry all at once and there is nothing she can do to change it, nothing she can do to bend the universe to her will--even for one she loves. Even for her own nakama. All she can do is catalog the past.

Still--this argument is pointless.]

Either way, I suppose it can't be helped.

Despising it is good. We hate it just as much or even more. Many people crave for immortality, but we who have something close to it would give it all away just to be able to have that one live normal people have. Even if it's filled with battles and suffering. At least then we could choose the way we died and it would remain a sacrifice rather than a "see you later" while everyone else gets to sacrifice themselves.

[He grunts to himself, frustration spilling as much as his anger for the situation. He didn't ask for this, no one told him, no one knew, that being the Phoenix Saint involved so much of being a phoenix. Everyone thought it was a title, a cloth. Did Marco ask for it? Did he eat the devil fruit because he wanted the power it would give him? Whatever power it could have been, or did he know what it meant? Did he underestimate what being a phoenix meant? Did he eat it by accident? It doesn't really matter, nothing changes that.]

Shouganai. There aren't many expressions that I can hate more than that one. But unless Marco stops being a phoenix, there's really no way around it.

I don't suppose he ever told you how he ended being a phoenix, right? Besides the obvious "ate a devil fruit" part.

He's never said. Though I half wonder if it was accidental, even if I can see him eating it for Whitebeard's sake. It's all conjecture. I hate that expression as well.

[sometimes. She hates so much right now. But that wasn't-- she couldn't let herself fall to this. Even if she despised this place and everything that was happening right now, she couldn't let herself sink to the level of misery. Though she can't see her way out of it right now. The only one who is strong enough to bear her up is gone.

Marco...

She swallows]

At any rate...if...Marcchan said if I had questions about the dog that I should ask you. So if they come up, I will certainly do so.

[He wonders the same indeed. Though he wouldn't be surprised if Marco meet Whitebeard actually after turning into a phoenix and a loner due it. If it had been like that it made Whitebeard's death and everything else even more tragic for Marco.]

I heard him say that, yeah. Beats me why he thinks I can help properly, it's as if he thinks Hyoga is being well raised.

[Ikki has his doubts.]

If you ever want, I could take him to walks with Hyoga and me. Or you could come as well and talk or read a book or do something else you want while they play together or something. I don't know, just an idea.

[Being social and helpful, what's that.]

[she's not an altogether social person. Not when being with...someone reminds her too easily of all that isn't there. But she won't make a decision just now.]

Thank you. I'll-- I'll let you know.

Whenever you want, Robin. Take care.

[He can understand that, but still he has to offer it, he has to try. After all Marco is his friend, this is the least he can do.]

You as well.

[And she quietly shuts the journal before burying her face in her hands.]

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Log 12 [Video]

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