my held breath fills the room with blood
hurting in ways I can't describe
The tension and half-withdrawal does not dissuade her. She can almost feel the fissures in Seren, quivering with the breaking apart that will surely come. And it does - the words that follow a far greater moral problem, a heavier burden, than any teenager should ever carry.
"What you're asking is something I can't answer - because it's reliant upon how you see the Ascended. If they are still people, but puppeted along by The Voice, and relatively innocent...then no, that guilt is a burden we must carry, for taking a life. Killing them quickly and mercifully speaks to our honor, not our guilt." Sighing softly, she pulls Seren to her chest, her free hand lifting to gently card through the girl's dark hair. "But others do not even see them as human. They could say they are like after-images of the human they once were from the moment The Voice Ascended them. This is what the Gods think, what they see from far above the situation - and as such, they might not understand why it's such a moral dilemma for us. Why it hurts us to imagine ending their existence, even if they were not already friends, lovers, family." Wessex, Nate, and Kiada's faces flash before her closed eyelids, and Hotaru's heart wrenches. "There is no easy answer to killing in a war." And Hotaru had done her fair share. That experience had done nothing to help her find an answer to that question.
Kissing Seren's head, she holds her close. "It's okay to be scared. It's normal. But your mother tasked you with bringing hope - not devastation. The burden of ending lives is not one for your shoulders, my love." The sentimental name leaves her before she can think about it, a phrase she'd last used for Nate, and her heart breaks anew with it. She knows she's in too deep. She cares for Seren too much already, and that complicates things, but Hotaru knows she cannot stop. "Let us carry that particular weight for you instead. It is our job as your predecessors." Hotaru would wear their blood on her own hands, already desecrated and stained with blood far older than the girl in her arms. And she would do it to prevent a single drop from ending up on Seren's own hands.
"What you're asking is something I can't answer - because it's reliant upon how you see the Ascended. If they are still people, but puppeted along by The Voice, and relatively innocent...then no, that guilt is a burden we must carry, for taking a life. Killing them quickly and mercifully speaks to our honor, not our guilt." Sighing softly, she pulls Seren to her chest, her free hand lifting to gently card through the girl's dark hair. "But others do not even see them as human. They could say they are like after-images of the human they once were from the moment The Voice Ascended them. This is what the Gods think, what they see from far above the situation - and as such, they might not understand why it's such a moral dilemma for us. Why it hurts us to imagine ending their existence, even if they were not already friends, lovers, family." Wessex, Nate, and Kiada's faces flash before her closed eyelids, and Hotaru's heart wrenches. "There is no easy answer to killing in a war." And Hotaru had done her fair share. That experience had done nothing to help her find an answer to that question.
Kissing Seren's head, she holds her close. "It's okay to be scared. It's normal. But your mother tasked you with bringing hope - not devastation. The burden of ending lives is not one for your shoulders, my love." The sentimental name leaves her before she can think about it, a phrase she'd last used for Nate, and her heart breaks anew with it. She knows she's in too deep. She cares for Seren too much already, and that complicates things, but Hotaru knows she cannot stop. "Let us carry that particular weight for you instead. It is our job as your predecessors." Hotaru would wear their blood on her own hands, already desecrated and stained with blood far older than the girl in her arms. And she would do it to prevent a single drop from ending up on Seren's own hands.
my heart bends and breaks
so many, many times
HOTARU
