TAKSHAKA

[soulping]

[There’s room for seven in this weather-worn hut, with seven chairs around a table long enough for seven people.

The center of the table is adorned with wooden jugs of water and wooden snack bowls. It’s primarily fruits and nuts, although there are a couple brimming with Unidentified Raw Meat.]

Comments

[experiencepoints]

... Do they really?

[swordedpast]

I try to remember to be clever and thoughtful for the rest of them, but it's like you said. I'm an idiot in the end, and Takshaka needs someone smart to watch out for them.

[experiencepoints]

...

I doubt it. They seem fine even if they ignore me.

[swordedpast]

Stupid. That first time you were in Nyssa's second game with us. We only got out of that without dying painfully because you were clever and calmed us down with a good idea.

I respected you after that. You listened to our wish not to hurt anyone, and even though you didn't agree with it, you came up with a plan that respected it.

[experiencepoints]

[She seems a bit thrown off by the line about respect.]

... And in the train game, everything I said got ignored and you still won.

[swordedpast]

Well, you might have to try not arguing against saving people. Even dream people.

--to be honest, I'm troubled by what happened in that game. Is it really all right for real people to suffer for dream people? But we were protecting our ideal...!

Ugh. It's difficult.

[experiencepoints]

They don't exist. The 'ideal' is to protect people, not figments of someone's imagination.

[swordedpast]

That's right, but they cried and they screamed just like real people. Will I need to harden my heart against such things to protect our ideal?

[experiencepoints]

If a parrot cries and screams like a person, that still doesn't make it any more of a person.

[swordedpast]

...you've got a way of putting these things.

But then our deaths were hardly real either, since we came back.

[experiencepoints]

...? Obviously. Why does that make it less real?

[swordedpast]

Obviously?

[experiencepoints]

... Yes? Why wouldn't you?

[swordedpast]

I hate to be the one to tell you, Nightingale, but listen.

People die when they are killed.

Normally, they don't come back.

[experiencepoints]

.... That is probably the stupidest thing you've ever said.

[swordedpast]

[pauses, SQUINTS at her.]

You're serious.

[experiencepoints]

Yes...

[I'M CONFUSED RIGHT NOW THOUGH]

[swordedpast]

What the hell would the point of heroes be if everyone came back from dying?! Jeez, no wonder you don't get the hero thing!

[experiencepoints]

... What are you talking about?

[swordedpast]

I--

[catching himself for a second, trying to force the troubled look out of his eyes, going on as calmly as possible]

I have a memory, Nightingale. A memory of walking through a disaster where all around me people were dying in pain and in despair. I knew then that that would be the last for all of them. Their lives would end there.

When I say I need to save people as a hero, it's from things like that.

[experiencepoints]

... What happened to their save point?

[swordedpast]

Their what...?

[experiencepoints]

Save point.

[swordedpast]

Those don't exist.