fourthsaken | IC inbox!

don't believe everything you read in those kinds of magazines.

seriously? dude, that's like, really unhealthy. it doesn't really matter here, but do people not know that smoking cigarettes can like, kill you in your world?

there did seem to be a good bit of gossip in with the articles and pictures....

jade. LIFE in my world kills people. the world itself kills people. our air is a mild poison. there's toxic sludge that causes mutations and sickness all over. almost everyone's sterile. i'm not seeing what's so dangerous about tobacco.

holy shit. the more i hear about your world, the more i think that it's actually safer here...

there's no doubt in my mind. aye aye, monsters...but monsters that live like humans and can be protected against and aren't forming armies to destroy all civilization.

i'm living better now than i've lived...mayhap ever. feel safer, too. my world's dying. it's gone to rot already. it's...it's a terrible place, jade. it was beautiful and wonderful once, but not anymore.

it can be really dangerous here, but i get what you're saying.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry you didn't get a good life before being here and that is happening to your world. you deserve the best kind of life and home.

it's a danger i can live with.

no, don't think my life wasn't GOOD. it may not have been as comfortable or safe or without crisis, but...it was good. i had brothers that i loved dearly and loved me, and we were happy. i had good parents who were PARENTS to me, and there's plenty born gunslingers who can't say as much. had my own pony as a boy and everything. and i was a prince. i was well cared for and given the greatest education that can be had where i come from. until gilead fell, i didn't go hungry or without. aye, the world was going to shit and i got beat a lot, but most of that was my own damned fault.

and my world is OLD. all things, when their time comes, die. even worlds.

you haven't died here, have you?

that's good. i think... it makes sense you were able to find all of that in a world that sucked. you're good at finding your own happiness. i wish i was better at that.

just the once, when i changed. but it was more like...dying all over again. it went the same way. and then it was over.

we all were. it was what we had to do. and i think it makes a difference,
being raised as we were. roland and i were raised up together since we were infants, and al was like a brother since we were four or so. and we were ALWAYS together. we always had each other, no matter what. and roland was a dour fellow and al serious and thoughtful so of course it fell to me to be the cheery one. luckily i'm a natural.

i've died here once too. not during my changes.

it sounds like they really needed you to be. but you know you don't have to be cheery around me all the time, right? it's okay if you wanna be sad or angry or whatever.

just once though, aye?

the rest of our kin didn't like it much, thought i was just a mouthy fool.
but it's what they saw.

aye, i know. and i'm not, i have dark turns. just haven't in a while.

just once. i got trapped in a faerie circle.

i remember. and you tried to deal with it alone first. you can come to me when you feel like that.

even where i come from, that's never a good thing.

i do best dealing with it alone. i just don't like showing that side of me.
it's...it's a very nasty side, jade.

yeah, it sucked. it took me a long time to be able to be near ollie's faerie rings after that.

and you think i don't have a nasty side?

i wot it did.

i think...i think that my world and culture are very, very different than any other. and i think what i consider 'nasty' is a far cry worse than what you do.

i can't lie to ye, jade. there are dark and dangerous parts of me. not to you, never to you, but...i was born and raised a gunslinger. i was born and raised to kill. and when ye are raised, from a wee thing, to kill...

bert. i know you'd never hurt me.

are you at the ranch? i'm coming over.

good. i wouldn't, and i figured ye did, but i wanted to be clear.

aye. but ye don't have to, i'm not upset or having any sort of emotional crisis. I'M alright with the man i am. but i've been here enough and know enough of other ways and other peoples to know that many would disagree with me on that point. so i don't talk about it. it's not out of shame or self loathing, just out of...not wanting to have to defend my culture and raising every five moments in a conversation.

so ye needn't rush to my side to soothe my troubled heart or anything like that. part of training, too. being perfectly alright with doing what are objectively terrible things.

but if ye just want to come over to be together proper, then i welcome the visit.

of course i knew that.

i just... i wanna see you. and i swear i won't make it a big deal or make you defend your upbringing or pity you or anything like that. i just wanna be with you right now.

it's culture, again. in the world of gunslingers...many people fear us.

then come on over. and i want it clear...i don't intend or want to HIDE anything from ye. but there's just lots i don't talk about. like i said a'fore, it upsets people.

i'll never be afraid of you. promise.

i get it, kinda? there's a lot of shit i don't talk about because it freaks people out. like, you don't know how my mom died. or why i've been arrested like, a lot. or how many times i've almost died back home. i've only told you a little about my weird dreams and shit...

that means a great deal.

aye...sort of like that. only...it's different when it's things ye've gone through and things ye've DONE. and when those things don't bother ye and ye come to learn that as it happens, they're things most people would be very very bothered by. and ye aren't in a world where ye can just say 'gunslinger' and it doesn't matter, because when ye're the law, anything ye do is alright, really.

i've done bad things too, but i think i understand. you did things that people here would think aren't okay, but it was okay for you to do them back home?

aye, that's the meat of it. my world is different and brutal and even there, i belonged to a group for whom the rules were different.

i sent my first man to death when i was ten years old. he was someone i liked, he was kind to me, the castle cook. but he was a traitor, he was going to poison a village, kill everyone. roland and i heard him talking about it, we were hiding in the kitchen, sneaking pie. so we told ro's da, the king. and he and his men arrested hax and sentenced him to die the next day and he had roland and i go and watch it. because it was our duty, because his death was on our hands. and that's the sort of thing that's normal in my culture.

they made you watch an execution when you were ten?

aye. alone, without our fathers or our teacher. and they had us scatter sweet bread, under the gallows, after. for the crows. we rode double on my pony down to the field a'fore anyone else to inspect the gallows, and then we sat on a hill and we held each other's hand and we watched.

you must've been so scared. that's so screwed up that they made you do that.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, JADED. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 005.04.008.13 * CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS has joined 005.04.008.13 <JADED> hey, you've reached Jade. <JADED> leave a message or whatever and i'll get back to you. <JADED>** God, I hope this shitty thing actually works.

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>

<Itsallgood>

<jaded>