et tu, Samuel?

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

He'd come to try and see her, this she knew, but she hadn't been ready to speak with him then. Like so many parents before her, the experience of being so deeply disappointed in one that you helped grow, that you helped shape, that you offered the world to, was not an emotion easily managed.

So she had waited, and she hoped in that time Sam would have thought about his decisions. Waiting until the sun had lowered itself down beneath the horizon line but before darkness had taken over the coast, she called out to him.

Samuel...

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? Sam was sat on his bed in Zephyr's home, having a night time cup of tea as he looked over his list of provisions needed for the Grounders, making sure he'd gotten everything they needed, when he heard his name being called. At first he had looked up to see if it was Zeph, but he knew better than that: there was only one person who called him in that way, the way that reverberated in one's soul. Putting down his cup and getting on his shoes, he slipped out into the night, turning the handle before he shut the door so it wouldn't make a noise. As he walked down to the beach and towards the shrine he found himself nervous, unsure if the Voice would be proud of him at the moment or not. He believed he had acted in everyone's best interest, but he had not always seen eye to eye with his 'mother'. Finally reaching the shrine, he sat down before it and looked up at the statue. "I'm here, mother. You called for me..?"

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

Appearing in a bright crackle of light, the goddess sat atop her shrine, peering down at Sam with inscrutable blue eyes. Rather than making small talk or forcing Sam to sit in silence, instead her eyes dipped towards his hand.

"Explain this to me, Samuel. I give you a gift, and I give you a choice. Rather than keep my gift and accept the constraints of my choice, you instead allow your fingers to be cut off in service of the Grounders. The Grounders whom I gave you a way to protect. You argued against the want of your family in protecting them, putting more lives at risk, only to tear out the part of you I made especially for your needs, so that what? Their gods, who actively work against us, can do what you wouldn't do?"

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? When The Voice appeared distant and high, staring down at him, Sam knew she was displeased. Fear bloomed in his chest but something like indignation along with it, because he realised that he knew he had done nothing wrong. It was this knowledge that allowed him to keep a steady stare into the Voice's eyes throughout her speech, this knowledge that let him listen to all of it with an increasingly baffled rather than terrified expression. "..I can explain it, actually, yes." Sam said, voice beginning quiet then raising in volume with a frown. "The way you gave us to protect the Grounders put a lot of our weakest at risk. It would have been...horribly mistimed and I can't see how it could have ended in anything but massacre." He'd never spoken so plainly to the Voice before: a rush of adrenaline went through him and there was a part of his brain begging him to stop, but Sam found he couldn't. "I suspected you were against me in that vote. I still hold onto that position, though." He held up his gloved hand. "This was different. This was something I could do, a sacrifice that only I had to make, to help people. ..Isn't...that...good? Honourable, even? It's not a case of Old Gods against us here. This was going to save lives, mother, in a way that our plan wasn't. I was able to make this choice without putting anyone else at risk." While Sam still referred to the Voice as 'mother', there was definitely something more of a biting tone to the way he said the word.

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

"No, I gave you all a choice. Those you keep saying are the weakest still decided to stand up against the monsters." The Voice pointed out. "All you have done is potentially protect one door. Tell me, in your memories of LongNight, has it ever just come down to one door Sam? Has one door been the problem? Or is it the monsters? You could all have chosen to refrain, sought the ability to become invisible to the monsters, and aided your friends that way."

Despite his rush of words and raised voice, the goddess remained clear-eyed and calm.

"You may hold onto whatever position you like, Sam. That is your choice and one I would never take away. All I mean to point out to you, is that despite the will of your family, you thought your opinions and views outweighed theirs. That you knew better, and so you barred what the majority wanted."

Glancing at the gloved hand, the Voice shook her head. "Something you could do but only through me. Only because of the gifts I have given you. And yet you take the credit for it." Pausing, she tilted her head slightly. "Tell me something Sam. If the logic behind using your upgrade and blood, is that there's something similar enough between an ascended and the monsters that these things will stop them...what do you think they will do to you?. But no. Because you won't even be in the Grounds. But for the rest of our family?"

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? Well, it was true enough that it rarely came down to one door, but Sam had seen it as a decent compromise. One man's sacrifice for one building's protection. No, it would not save everyone...but it could save someone, and that had been enough. "...Most votes...work so that the majority still get what they want. No one had to turn down the opportunity because of my opinions. It sounds like you want me to be silent." Sam pointed out, still baffled as to why only one dissenter had made the whole vote void. "I'm sorry, you know I...I respect you. I do. I think your plan for the future is a good one. But I think we have...different values." Her last point was at least a good one, one that he had considered himself. "If it is used against us, then I will take full blame for that. For the moment, that hasn't happened...and I don't think it will. There are good people on both sides of this." Perhaps he couldn't trust Safrin, but he felt he could trust Deimos.

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

"But they did. Because they cared about your wants in a way you rarely seem to care about theirs." The Voice replied. "And I don't. I would never silence you. All I want you to understand is that simply because you disagree with something, does not mean you should stand in its way. You can disagree and still support what your family thinks best. You seem to only want to be part of this family when things go your way Sam. When things are such that you understand them." Disappointment sparked in her enigmatic gaze as she softly shook her head.

"What good will your blame do? If your brothers and sisters die because they are wounded or blocked by your good intentions, how is that any different than had you all banded together to take on the monsters? At least that was a decision you all made together. This is something you have done, that has ramifications for all of you, and yet you asked none of them their thoughts, even though they asked you, yours."

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? "I care about their lives." Sam insisted, finding himself growing quite frustrated. "Do you really think if Wessex had found herself in the minority she would have been quiet about it? I didn't want our new Ascended to die and...I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm sorry, I just can't believe it is." He shook his head, honestly completely blown away by the Voice's response to this; it was hard to know if he was being ridiculous or if he was seeing some kind of light all of a sudden (he was sure Amalia would insist the latter). Her comparison seemed weak too...had the Voice always been so poor in arguments? "...As you said, it rarely comes down to one door. Besides...I have no reason to believe the door wouldn't be opened for other Ascended, and that is only a chance of death. All of us going in some wild tirade against the monsters...it was nearly a guarantee." He looked up to meet her eyes again, feeling almost out of his own body to be so strongly arguing against his Goddess but unable to step down now.

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

"Quiet? No. But no one asked you to be quiet Sam, they only asked you to abide by the will of your family instead of choosing to stand alone." The Voice countered. "Instead Wessex found herself in the majority and still she abided by your reluctance. That shows a great deal more consideration than you have shown them."

'You have no reason to believe that? On what grounds, Sam? Do you know what it is Safrin promised? Tell me, for I'd like to know, just how you know your kind will be able to safely pass through such a door, even were it opened." The pointedness of her stare suggested she certainly already knew the answer, but that he did not.

"A wild tirade." She repeated, sadly. "I am disappointed in you Sam. That you demand for your voice to be heard, to be listened to, when you have so much of the information wrong. Nearly a guarantee." She added, shaking her head. "You've let your mind run away with you, Sam."

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? "I spoke my opinion. I did not at any point hold anyone down and make them swear to not come." Sam's voice gave into a frustrated sigh at the end as he found himself honestly getting rather fed up with The Voice, something he'd never felt before. "If just me speaking was enough to force everyone to do what I said, maybe I had a point." Her condescending words which at one point would have had him grovelling for mercy just disappointed him: where was the Goddess he could always turn to for support and a decent conversation? He supposed she'd been missing for a while, since he'd never had any kind of justification for the people they had killed. "...I'm thinking for myself lately...And speaking for myself, for the first time in my life. ..Maybe that means I don't agree with everything you say or do anymore. ...Are you going to punish me?" The last question was quiet, a sort of final test. If she said yes, then it was proof to him that she could not take a challenge, that she demanded the sort of sycophantic love from her followers that she was accused of.

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

The Voice shook her head, disappointed. "No Sam. Wessex, like me, wanted consensus. Neron declined because of his vows to Halo, but you? You did it for yourself, even though you cited the protection of your kin. They had their own voices just as you, but you wanted to take their choice for them. What you don't seem to understand is that having an opinion is not the same as having your way. They heard what you had to say and disagreed. Why not think perhaps the majority knew better than you?"

As he continued, acting ever more the child he professed no longer to be, the Voice merely nodded, resigning him to his selfish ideals.

"Punish you, Sam? Why would you think that?" She asked, eyes narrowing with curiosity and sadness. "Is that what you want?" The Voice is inclined to think yes, so that Sam might have something objective and clear in the arsenal he seems to be building against her. "No punishment, my bright one." But no gifts, either.

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? "Why did we need a consensus, though? Why couldn't the majority have just had their way? I don't understand why you so badly needed us all to be on board. If the decision had been made, I would have stayed in the Hollowed Grounds to help with the fight as best I could, even if I thought it would be a disaster." Sam couldn't let go of the fact that The Voice had put this needless requirement on the decision, one that had singled him out, then was blaming him for having dared to have a different opinion. It was bizarre, painful and reminded him of everything everyone had told him about her. At least there was no punishment coming. He sank down a little from his challenging stance, shook his head and sighed. "...I know you can see my thoughts. I know you know I'm struggling to stay faithful. I'm not..I never...try to be malicious. I'm just trying to find out what I think is right. Frankly, it frightens me that it seems to not match up to what you want...I don't know where else to go." Sam shook his head, sure he shouldn't be saying this to the Voice but the words simply needing to fall out of his soul.

i'll be your hope, i'll be your love, be everything that you need.

"Why, Sam?" The Voice repeated, looking properly surprised. "Because I have never been in the business of using you all as pawns. As simply telling you what to do and expecting you to heel without question. True, there are times I cannot be fully honest with you or forthright, but only because there are things that you are not ready to hear." What it sounded to her, was that he very much wanted a god like the old gods were; a voice to simply tell him what to do. "You are a family, and you should be able to come to decisions as one, even if there is disagreement. I never asked you all to have the same opinion, just that you all come to a decision together."

With a sigh, the Voice simply shook her head. "Well, why don't you take some time to find out, then? See what life might be like without me." There was no venom in her words, just a soft offering. If Sam was experiencing the need to rebel, then she would let him with open arms.

Samuel Tell me little dear if you've only lived here, have you ever really lived at all? He just shook his head at her further explanation, thinking that this seemed like a fundamental difference in the way they looked at things rather than anything he could come to see her side on. Maybe that was egotistical, given his position as a mortal and hers as a Goddess, but over the last year he'd begun to think less and less of the God's omniscient brains in general. There was genuine surprise on his face as The Voice offered him a chance at freedom, at an opportunity to find his way without her. He had though that impossible, had had to deal with criticism from all sides about this aspect of her. "...You..mean that? I think...I think that would be good." He said quietly, anxiously, starting to stand up.