Riptides in still waters; A journal.

Within the ruined cathedrals of a wasted mind resides the falling star.

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Riptides in still waters; A journal.

Post by Fourth »

Sunday, August 2014.


Three. Three in less than one year. One I killed with what I did wrong. I hurt Terry because I felt scared. And now, this one's the worst. I don't think I hurt her, but I didn't do anything to help her. So much has changed in the past few weeks, days even. Those I held closest, I can't help.

I can help the ones who won't ever see my face. When I can be a shadow in the dark, I can be the savior, the fighter no one wants, but everyone needs. The one they don't deserve. I feel like an outcast. My people lied to me. Revan lied to me last night. He's just another one that wants to use me.

It's become obvious, you know? There's something that everyone misses. The ones who don't miss it, they're the ones I've hurt. I needed them all. I'm not perfect. I'm not emotionless.

I hurt too. I cry just like the rest of you.

I can't say it enough. I've killed tens of thousands, I'll kill more and more. Endlessly, until the day when the sun's death heralds the eternal night's life. Clarice, Terry and Peaches. The ones I loved, the ones I held so dear or still do, were hurt. The nurse was right, the one who stayed by Peaches' side when I was there.

I'm bad for her. For all of them. I'm poison, toxic. I'm a pollutant on a world that doesn't want me for who and what I am. At best, I'm a weapon. At worst?

I'm a weapon that can't control who it cuts.

Putting on fake smiles and empty laughter's too easy.

I need you, Terry. Now. You're sleeping and I don't wake you, you look so peaceful. I wonder what that feels like, I really do. I hate it, the not knowing what the rest of you know. We all hurt, but at least you feel better after a time, don't you? I hope you do, all of you.

Please wake up.
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Post by Fourth »

She's not dead!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. We talked, she and I and Terry too. We sat on the same couch, the three of us, at the Outback. That place feels like home. I love it, you know? I didn't do so well, but that's not the point.

She's alright! She seemed tired, Peaches did. She seemed fatigued, but aren't we all? I don't care. I was just glad to see the girl again. She's been, time and time again, my safety, my outlet. Without saying a word, she's been there. I needed her.

I needed her so badly. More now.

My world closes in, my people come looking. The walls are breaking, my mind is falling apart. I'm growing stronger, but at what cost? How many more do I need to kill? Why won't they give up?

Why won't they let me be me?

I am a traitor, a heretic, simply because I am who I am. Are they blind? Can't they see? My hands are washed in the blood of my kin, and yet I stand. Always, I stand. I don't know how many more, I don't know how many more I can fight. It's not that I can't beat them, no. It's that I don't want to.

I gave up this fight before I came here.

Why has it come back?
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Post by Fourth »

It's always the same.

Don't they get it? Charlie pissed me off last night. He expects me to be fine. Do you know why I left my people to die?

They expected me to be fine. They expected me to be a pretty image, a billboard during the day, a sex toy at night and a perfect weapon when the world was dying. They expected me to be a leader, an icon, a toy, a weapon a killer, a hero, an inspiration, a commander all at once. They expected me to be what they created me to be, what they wanted to be.

What didn't they expect?

For Apsala to become as much Melanie as Melanie is Apsala. That's the twist they didn't get. None of you do. People want to see a fighter. I've been fighting you ever since I knew my own name. All of you. I fight your expectations. I won't **** it up this time, I promise.

My fight's against myself, the world and all of you. Every single one of you. You're fighting your own fight against sadness, poverty, loss, an enemy. I envy you.

I'm fighting just to be who I am.
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Post by Fourth »

I just found out I'm fighting Harris on Sunday for Pathfinder. The second time. I lost the first time, but you know what? I didn't mind.

Fighting Harris isn't ever about a challenge, an Opal, the Diamond Quest or even the win, not at all. I'm arrogant, I know. I can back it up, all the running my mouth does. I know that, too. It's been proven a hundred times over and I'm not even done. I'm a competitor, a perfectionist. At home, it was a battlefield. In Rhy'din it's a ring or a back alley, a place where everyone can see or a place where no one can see.

I hate the secrets. All of them.

Fighting Harris isn't about proving that I don't need him anymore. It's past that. I do need him, I need each and every person who's ever been in my corner. I just don't know how to say that. It's about proving something.

It's not about proving anything that I've done. Far, far from that. It's simply about this.

I want to prove to him, myself and everyone else that the time he spent with me wasn't wasted. I'd not be anywhere near where I am without him. I know that more than anyone else, in so many ways.
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Post by Fourth »

They came again, my people. They came like shadows in the morning sky, an eclipse on what should have been a beautiful day.

My old war group, the men and women who trusted me and relied on me. Those were the troops they sent to find me. This time, however, they didn't bother to ask. They came in guns blazing.

How could I ever have been a part of such a pointless cult? They must have known, and yet they fought. If they thought I would turn my back on another group of people, they could not have been more wrong. They can't understand what I've become. What she's helped me become.

They all died. Blood on the risers, blood on the armor.

I can't ignore this anymore. It's getting out of control. I can't hide the cuts and bruises from her. She knows that there are wards in the Arena. That can't be an excuse. I can't keep my clothes on all the time.

I can't keep pretending to take walks so I can hide my tears.

She can't see this. Ever. None of them can. I don't deserve them. I'm still a killer, remorseless. I'm damaged goods. I know I'm enough of a problem to be around. They don't need this.

It's my poison to swallow. All of it.
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Post by Fourth »

I lost.

I hate thinking those words. I wasn't good enough, not that night. I lost to one of the greatest because he forced me to fight his style, not mine.

Never again. Never again, not in this life and surely not in the next, will I change who I am and what I am to suit someone else's plans. It moves past anything close to that fight, it's a microcosm of what's been happening. I built a reputation away from this place by being nothing, absolutely nothing but what I am. I built one here by the same method. At the end of the day, when the viper eats the sun, I stood and will stand, bloody handed and broken, as I am.

True to myself, true to who's behind me. In the end, I don't want to be known as a winner. Titles fade, wins get forgotten when someone else comes up behind you. At the end of the day, someone else is always better. I don't want to be remembered as the best, that's a false term. Last night proved that. He was the best that night, that takes nothing away from me. Maybe in the future, I'll be the best for a day.

Until I lose.

Life's not about the shots you make. People remember those until someone throws a better punch, lands a cleaner take down. What haunts me?

People remember the chances you didn't take. What did I learn from last night? All I can do is take the chances I've got in the future.

That's tonight, that's right now. Never, never again will anyone change who I am or how I go about what I do. Tonight's another chance.

Another chance to be the best for a few hours until someone comes up, knife in hand, from behind.

I want to be known as a fighter, not a winner. I want to be known as someone who, when their back is against a wall, shot back. I think I proved that last night. I think I can prove that again tonight. When all is lost, when the fight's slipping, all I can do is grip one more time and hold on.

Tonight that's all that matters. Chin up, defiant to the end.
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Post by Fourth »

I can hear him calling, I can taste him time and time again. A black orb, turgid. He inspires torpor in others, or so I'm told. Doom and gloom, he's the prophecy of the damned and the pleas of the condemned.

I need him. We're so alike, the spirit of ShadoWeaver and myself. Just a few more days. I can taste it, feel it in my hand and hear the screams in the night that shadow blankets with such ease.

Twisted around my mind and lost within my heart, I can see what's missing. I need my chains, my bonds.

Don't set me free, give me back my anchors, reminders of what I once was.
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I sat and spoke with him for the first time in what felt like years. Revan, my old friend. I tried to apologize. How could I have known until I had the epiphany? How could he have expected me to know when, all along, he never told me what I needed? How could anyone have expected me to be anything but what I was born into? I never got what I needed when growing up.

Oh, how I see now. I understand, my old friend, in spades. I can't help but see it. And again, when the bridge became weak, my mind, another showed me the way.

I've transcended. You made me into this, Mandalore, and now she's set me free. She's my own personal light. The way of kings is not lonely, no. That's the way of the weak, my old friend, dear patron. What you could never be because, at the heart of the matter, both of us, we're warped and broken. We stand as the darkness, the two of us, an eclipse chasing someone else's sun. I pity you, Revan. You looked in all of the wrong places.

The way of kings is allowing another the chance to understand and accept. The rock is heavy, the mountain lonely only so long as we allow it to be.

I've ascended with her help. Silent nights and scream filled hours, she stood and watched. Bloody water and twisted dreams, she accepted. She never questions, she never degrades. As I'm the shade she lives in, she's the sunlight that dapples the grove of my mind with calm, warm touches.

And do you know what else I've learned? The way of kings, as you once told me, is the belief, a firm conviction, that one's own power is less important than the results one can attain with said power. There's no right and no wrong, Revan, that's where we disagree. You believed in right and wrong, I believed in anarchy through responsibility. I still do, I lead that charge.

I've learned, my lord, so very much.

Anarchy through responsibility, you called this suicide. The masses were weak, the fools were selfish and wrong, quick to side with the strength. Now that I know true power, I don't want it. That's the way of kings, old companion. She's shown me this. I want what makes me powerful, what made me understand. I've found the one thing I won't sacrifice for more power, more control over my own self. In a sense, I don't need that bargaining tool anymore. You can take it back.

She's set me free. Anarchy through responsibility, Revan, morally applicable actions. These are best taken by those who have a choice. All of my life, I'd never had one. And now I see you for the genius you are, the cold heart, callous and uncaring. You loved me more than I knew.

Now that I've got a choice, you knew which path I'd walk. You knew that which I would never throw away. You knew that field of battle I would stand on, you knew the throne I would sit on. In my heart of hearts, when given a choice, I took the right path, right for me and right for all of us. My days as your apprentice are over, Revan, my days as Mandalore's Claw are over.

The masses will be weak, they will be selfish. That's alright, though.

It's the way of kings, isn't it? I've got a choice, I've got the freedom to be who and what I want. I'll never be anything but what I have been, this I know.

What else do I know? When they are weak, I can be strong. When they are alone, I can be powerful. That's the choice we both sought, Revan. The choice to willingly do right and expect nothing in return. Humility is a leader's garb, his clothing is service.

I've made my choice, and on this field of valor and hidden glory, I linger in shadow. On this death ground, I stake my standard and pledge my life to those who can not make the same choice. I chose, you do not have to.

This, my old friend, is my last act of homage paid to a dread liege, patron of the damned and composer of the condemned's march to Hell.

No one walks alone. Not anymore.
Last edited by Fourth on Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Fourth »

January the 8th.

It's been too long, journal. Far, far too long.

I know she tries, damn it I know she does. She has to understand that I try as well. She has to know that. I don't mean to be cold, I don't mean to be hard to get along with. I know I'm both of those things, but she fell in love with me and I fell in love with her. That's the beauty of this, this relationship. Even when I was with Clarice and she was with Daxia, the two of us knew each other as friends and as lovers. We didn't rush into this. I know her better than I know anyone and I'd like to think she knows me best of all.

I hated myself last night because, as I sit and write this, I know that. How can I be angry at her? I know her, damn it! I know she'd not do anything, or at least I convince myself that I know she won't. I think that's good enough, really. That's faith, and I have faith in her. I have faith in the fact that she loves me like she's never loved before. I believe when she says those words, and I believe that she'd not stray.

But it still hurt. I wanted to be her dream girl, I wanted to be her sleeping thoughts. Not one of my best friends. I'm jealous of Peaches, I always have been. She makes everything look so easy, people adore her.

I make everything so hard, people hate me.

Why, why Terry, why her? Why are you scaring me right after I gave up everything, every little shred of my life, my living child, my former husband, because you said you loved me? Do you? Prove it.

I need you to remind me, to make sure I know each and every single day. All the times I make you pancakes shaped like hearts, the notes tied in ribbon, the lingerie, the paintings, Terry. That's me showing you how much I love you, how much I need you to accept me. No one else, not a single soul, not Clarice, not Bra'kat ever made me want to show them how much I cared for them.

I need you to show me why I stayed. Don't let me be wrong, not now. Please, not now.
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Post by Fourth »

February 3rd, 2015.

She still makes me nervous. Of all people, she does like no one ever has before. Butterflies and all, but that's not what bothers me. Before, the first time this happened, I wanted so much to be a family. Not here in Rhy'din, no. That was a sinking ship, easily enough seen half way through. I'm not if not a pragmatist, and if all she wanted was an exotic fuck buddy, at least I can say I dressed well. That wasn't hard, I'm pretty good at getting fucked and doing all the right things. When I want to. She was good at that, at least. Fun while it lasted.

That's been the story of my life. Fun while it lasted, a nightmare while it lasted. One side of the coin is, more or less, the same as the other.

Not now, however. Not with Terry. See, there's been a theme. My people will likely be as fine as they have ever been without me. They were able to deal with me walking away. No one cared when I left. Clarice? She walked away, so she clearly didn't care. See point one. The moral of my story is that I'm always leaving, or being left, and the world goes on as it did before. For the most part. I'm a comet, a meteor that burns the sky, burns up in the glow it creates and then ends up in a dark hole of its own creation, a place where no one goes and a place that's unsafe. And then, then a few months later? Written off as a bad memory and something to forget. That's what it's felt like, at least.

And what's making me nervous? I don't think she'd forget that easily. I don't mind being tied to people physically, that's fine. But emotionally? It's not that I don't want to stay, understand that. I adore her, I'm more in love with her than I've ever been, and it grows with each silly conversation, every soft smile, all of the quiet words that no one else sees and each time she wakes up and reaches for me. I thought I couldn't fall more in love with her, but she, time and time again and in so many ways, proves me so very wrong.

Though they're covered in roses and fond kisses, though the windows are tinted in the color of heart shaped chocolates and the lights are dimmed inside this lover's bedroom, they can't be seen for anything but what they are. They're walls, these feelings, walling us in. At times it feels tight, like there's no where else to go because there's no where else I want to go. And while I know that's right, that's what I need and want, it's still frightening. What if this does work, will I be a good partner? Can I be one? Can I be part of a family?

The last one I was a part of fell prey to the meteor analogy. I landed, crashed and burned everything around me to dust. It's a bitter thought. I don't know why they lied to me, I guess to use as an incentive to come home? Seeing them again, seeing all of them appearing to be the very same only made it more clear. I'm not one of them anymore. Thanks, Terry, for giving me some emotional control.

Fuck me, that's the problem with my people. We deny emotions in the face of logic and wonder why we're famed for dying. Fucking morons.

On the plus side, it's so warm here. I love the sand, I always have. Ten millions grains, each the same but each sparkling in the balmy sun, each just as good there as it is here, somewhere. Anywhere.

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Secondly? I'm starting to like colors outside of black, white and red. Strange, right?

I promised myself, once on the edges of a moonlit garden, myself and someone else as I looked over my shoulder for what I thought would be the last time, that I'd not change too much.
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Post by Fourth »

I can remember, so clearly now, words that I'd once forgotten. She does this to me, Terry always has. Being close to her, allowing her to be close. I can't stress how important that is. It's not only because I love her, but there's a shameful truth I've only ever hinted at before.

I need her like a human needs water, like a human needs air. I'm too far adrift by now, too filled with things I can't control, things I can't touch. They look like stars I can't reach for no matter how hard I try. The stars are always on fire, yeah? These ones explode when I get close. They burn my hands, hurt my eyes, give me headaches.

It's all the anger, all the hate and hurt. I feel like I'm halfway between them and Rhy'din. Terry's always been that anchor. She's allowed me to remember so much that was swallowed up in those star lit explosions.

The very last thing he ever asked me, seconds before I jumped off of that cliff and left them all behind, was what I wished for. What could he give me? What could he do to make me stay?

I told him, sadly, likely with tears staining soot tinted cheeks, that all I wanted, all I ever wanted, was more time.

I think he stared back at me, probably quite confused. I'm more eloquent than most of my people, abstract where they are pragmatic.

The one thing I can recall most clearly is his expression when he heard what I had to tell him. I laughed, I'm quite sure, and murmured that all I've ever wanted was more time, more moments in my hours, hours in my days, months in my years. More time to do what I could to keep them alive. More time to spend with him before this inevitable moment tore us apart.

I think, no I know, that he reached out and wiped some of those stains away and finally realized what so many seemed to forget or ignore no matter how much I attempted to tell them.

I was never the betrayer. I only ever walked the best of the worst paths possible. And I will never apologize for that.
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Post by Fourth »

What use do dates have now? Time's a fleeting attempt at justifying humanity's achievements, nothing more and nothing less. Time. I did this today, I will have this by tomorrow. Why do you need so much structure? Can't you see that what you judge us by has always been your greatest flaw? Can't you see?

Can't. The word doesn't exist in my own tongue; people never understand why. They think we're arrogant enough to believe that failure isn't an option. It's the easiest and, frankly, the most common answer. We've mastered failure, we've perfected failing so fucking gloriously that it can't be undone. I mean, what's failure when the entire world burns with you? Sure, I lost but can you stomach what winning cost you? Absolutely not.

There's a word for won't, however. Can not is translated into will not among my people. There's a pattern here. Honesty. Won't, no time. For all that we've done, there is no justification, no petty excuse and surely no bullshit rationalization that's allowed us to convince anyone that we are anything but what we have been, always will be and always should be.

Dear journal, why can't they understand that? Why do they ask me to be what I'm not, why do they seem to think I'm anything but who I am? They want, they demand, they ask and they beg. I will not be anything more than what I am.

It hurts, sometimes, to see my friends together and happy. I wish I knew how, I wish I could. They say that time heals all wounds and that death comes before growth. Even the Opal says that. I used to think that I couldn't grow or that I couldn't be happy.

Now I've come to realize that I simply won't be those things. You be those things, I sincerely hope that you enjoy them. Someone has to hurt, however. Someone has to burn so everyone else has light, right?

Time. I can see it passing, or so I'm told. How do I see time?

Maybe it's because I was always told that my only worth would be my death. Time well spent? The pleasure is in the journey? I always thought leaving my nightmare would be the start of a dream.

Little did I know I've only entered his.
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Post by Fourth »

For the longest time, I never really knew what I was. Not who; that's obvious enough. It doesn't take much to figure that out. Sure, I do what I can to hide the obvious truth from everyone around me but I can't say that it's likely very effective. You all can't be that stupid, can you? I'd assume not - hell, I'd hope not.

It's considered an insult to deprive someone the chance to get to know the real person in my culture. We're not really secretive because we're assholes, we'd just sooner see who's willing to take the time to unravel the puzzle that is each and every single one of us. We've no common heritage, no common traits, you know? We just wanted to see who would come knocking. What did we learn? Not that we couldn't be found, no. We learned that so few came looking and that, after all those years, that knowledge, began to break us apart. Were we not good enough? We didn't think we were, so we fought. We became what we were known for, not who and what we are. We became savages in the hopes that people would notice and they'd seek out the truth; few ever did. We isolated ourselves by our own petty rules.

That's who I am, not what I am. What I am is afraid. That's a fear based reaction. We're masters of it, fear, we know. We were just too afraid too look. We spent so long hiding what we are, hiding everything, not because we wanted you to come looking.

We put up so many walls because we are afraid of what would be found.
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