|
Post by demikara on Mar 28, 2020 11:02:26 GMT -6
"A quiet sort of background hero." Hope corrected. "Not the sort whose in the public eye, which I don't recommend. Though I doubt you have a choice in staying out of the public eye at this point." She was trapped here, and apparently by her own choice. "I'll try not to pity you. But I don't think I could understand you. Perhaps it's because I still don't understand humans half as well as I would like. You're very confusing creatures." She didn't understand them at all, though she had tried multiple times. Erutin made more sense to her, and even they, her own people, could be so incredibly confusing. She supposed that was her own fault though, for not simply accepting the fate decreed on her birth.
"You'll have to properly introduce yourself to Amanda, you know. That way I can come visit every now and again, and pick your brain. Though not for secrets. I can get those from other people, after all." There was more than one way to get a secret.
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 28, 2020 11:31:33 GMT -6
Drulović shrugged lightly, though she winced with the movement. "We're not so confusing, I don't think," she said. "We have basic needs for food and water, perhaps shelter, and companionship. That last one, well, it's a terrible thing to be deprived of it." She remembered those long years in solitary confinement, interrupted only for unspeakable torture. "I suppose my daughters have simply found their comfort elsewhere. I can't blame them." She looked at Hope, her eyes empty. "What would you have done, if your own mother had somehow ordered the strike that killed your firstborn son, the issue of your very own flesh and blood?" She pressed her arm, the one she could move, closer to her chest, shivering again. "What does it matter where I go, when I know I'll never escape that truth?" What would an Erutin understand of human lifespans anyway? What could Hope ever know of that, when the gulf between her and her children was something else entirely? The old woman felt her daughters' absence clawing inside her.
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 28, 2020 11:42:06 GMT -6
"I don't think I'd speak to her again." Not that she spoke to her now. "I certainly wouldn't speak to Liese, if she had ordered a strike that killed the children." And Liese was her friend, not her parent. It would probably be a worse betrayal for it to be a parent. "Though not speaking to her would be the least of it. I'd likely try and kill her for it. Then again, you are a hard one to kill. People have tried over the years, haven't they?" Through torture or maltreatment. A different sort of seeking for death than what you'd normally deal with, but a seeking all the same.
"Then again, people have tried to kill me and failed too. In that, we are alike." Torture was another way they were similar, she supposed. Or the survival of it. Really, it was like looking at a human version of herself, one who hadn't had the benefit of advanced medical technology to be healed with. She was a terrible mess now. "I hope you'll forgive me, but I do hope I don't end up like you in my old age."
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 28, 2020 11:58:10 GMT -6
"Oh, they've tried to kill me, many times over," said Drulović, eyes narrowing slightly. "I think I've lost count by now of the shootings and bombings. There had even been that awful incident when Langara's Mr. Montgomery barged into my hospital room on the heels of another attempt before him, and tried to finish the job. I don't understand why all these assassins can't simply get the job done quickly and spotlessly. Their kills are so messy and require such immense cleanup afterward. It's a disappointment." She looked away from Hope again, watching plumes of dust rise in the yard, blowing about their feet. The prison had issued slip-on shoes made of simple cloth and cheap rubber soles, and hers were slightly too large. Even at home, it'd always been hard to find shoes that fit. "Perhaps one day, I'll be so lucky as to finally meet an assassin worth her pay." Drulović too had been rumored to have carried out near hundreds of kills in her day, but she wouldn't breathe a word of it to the press. She never spoke of what she did, only what she'd survived. "It's a shame the line of those waiting for the chance to do it is so long. I hope for your sake, that you become as unlike me as possible, as you grow in years. I wouldn't wish what I've lived through on any other soul."
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 29, 2020 13:55:14 GMT -6
"Maybe they'll succeed next time. Security here isn't exactly the best. Pretty sure they don't even have anything to detect erutin here." She looked amused. "Not that those work, by the way. Not reliably at least." Terra was behind at that one, though most people didn't bother with them. Most of the other nations only used things like that in sensitive areas. There was a reason Erutin cheerfully dominated the prison industries black market. "I won't send anyone to kill you though. You're kind of....well, you haven't done anything to piss the erutin empire off, that I'm aware of. Just regular business."
Well, regular intelligence work. She kind of expected the spies and the like after all, and she was sure Terra had some spies among the empire. There would always be people for sale after all, and she had no doubt there were some erutin in service to Terra.
"And I wouldn't wish what's happened to you on anyone either. You've been badly mistreated."
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 29, 2020 14:06:45 GMT -6
"I'm sure Ms. Khayyam will be mightily pleased to know we're not like to become targets of Erutin," said Drulović, her eyes narrowing and taking on a bit of a sly look to them. Cunning, she had been, for far too long. "As for me, well. That's part of the conundrum nagging at me, you know. Had I been where my daughter is now, I'd have killed the one responsible for ending my firstborn son's life in an instant. I'd have accomplished the task personally and efficiently, and made sure the deed was done. It would be the very least I could do." She watched the guards, distant enough that they almost resembled birds on a power line. "My daughter is a soldier, Ms. Anona, but she won't lift her hand against me. She simply lives in the world as if I no longer exist in it." She laughed, bitter. "I think I'd much rather stare down the barrel of her gun instead. But I suppose that would be too easy."
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 29, 2020 14:11:55 GMT -6
"I'm sure Ms. Khayyam already knows. And perhaps your daughter made her choice because she knew you'd rather her simply kill you for it. It would be a guaranteed way for you to suffer more, after all." Why she hadn't simply killed herself if she was suffering that badly, she didn't know. Hope smiled with sorrow. "It seems to have worked. God knows it hurts you more, after all."
"I'm surprised you didn't kill yourself. That would have been your grandson. You must have wanted to." To cause the death of her own grandson? Hope couldn't imagine doing that. It was beyond her, and she wasn't even remotely maternal. The children were still precious to her, after all, in their own way. Nothing bad would ever happen to them under her watch.
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 29, 2020 14:30:21 GMT -6
"I've wondered about death for a long time now," said Drulović. Two others emerged into the yard, both fairly young, maybe only in their thirties, lighter complexioned, with Losenji features. One whispered something in the other's ear, and her companion laughed a little, covering her mouth as if afraid someone would see. They moved farther away from where Drulović sat with Hope, and the old woman watched them gently clasp hands, one folding over the other. "I've wanted to die many times over. I never imagined I'd survive Lipljan, or Langara, or Niihama. I never really wanted to know what it would feel like to be alive after that." The yard was small, not more than a hundred feet across, because they'd put her in a restricted communications unit. She'd asked if she couldn't live among others, but they'd said no. It was for her own protection. She'd rolled her eyes at that. "I doubt Jelisaveta thinks about this. I think she's too steadfast in her misplaced loyalty, this odd quality of hers." The old woman had listed both of her daughters on her visitors form. But of course, she knew they would never come.
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 30, 2020 16:44:15 GMT -6
"Then why haven't you? It's not so hard to die, I think. Though you seem to struggle with it, so maybe it's harder than I think." Hope considered this. "Would you like help with it? I could probably arrange something." There'd be a price to pay of course, but that went without saying. There was a price for everything. Hope tended to keep her prices low, given trading in favors was something she greatly enjoyed doing. Though there was no favor the other could do at this point.
She was too proud to give up information. She had no access to her accounts, assuming she had any accounts to speak of at this point. It was an interesting position to be in, Hope decided.
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 30, 2020 18:03:52 GMT -6
Drulović laughed shortly. "Dying is something better done alone," she said, "if one is to do it oneself. Better not to involve others who may develop inconvenient moral predicaments about the whole sordid affair." She eyed the Losenji women, watching as one braided the hair of the other, catching glimpses of their smiles before they turned fully away and wind blew hair over their faces and hands. "Besides, with a ten year sentence, I think Ms. Khayyam means for me to die here. Were I your age, perhaps a Terran decade might be but a brief stroll through a bucolic park, but I'm afraid I'm too old for that." The familiar pain crept in around her knees, radiating outward from there, and points along her shoulders and the arm that could still feel it. There was little that did not hurt these days. She could chew a bit more, but it was hard, and there'd been no talk of replacing the teeth now missing for the third time in her life. The morning's breakfast earlier had consisted of some thin soup with vegetables, and she'd been able to sip at that, but found the vegetables entirely too tough to handle. The previous night's dinner had been worse. Drulović shrugged. "It's not the worst place to die, though a lonely one."
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 30, 2020 18:37:27 GMT -6
"You are up there for a Terran. But I'm surprised they didn't try for longer, just in case. Ten years makes is sound like they are being lenient, due to...'services rendered' or something like that. But it's a death sentence for you for sure." What a bother. "Well, befriend Amanda, and I'll drop by when I'm on Terra. There's not too many who can say they've worked their way up in our fields, not as far as we have. We should stick together, even if we can't discuss a single thing about work."
That wouldn't stop them. "You can be sure to lecture me on not spending time with my kids." And remind her of what a terrible mother she was, as if she wasn't well aware. She had done what was best for the kids. Given them up to people who could care for them and who would care for them a damn site better than she ever could have.
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 30, 2020 18:48:36 GMT -6
"You'll come to regret not doing so," said Drulović, looking sidelong at Hope in her assumed form. "I can assure you of that, if nothing else." Even - perhaps especially - with both of them sitting on the bench together, Drulović seemed frail and small, as if the smallest wind could send her tumbling. "I've hated to be alone, you know. Once you've suffered years of enforced isolation, it's difficult to be around other people again, and yet, you can never stop craving their company." She watched as the other women continued the braiding, seemingly laughing with each other. A strange thing, she thought in passing. Something in her craved the kind of touch they seemed to share with each other. It was a loving, tender touch. Her soul ached. Vestiges of a hand clasped tightly in her own flickered in her mind's eye. "Tell me, then, how things go with you? What news do you bring with you? Surely, you have matters to tend to other than wasting a day with me in Ĭtpraṽmår."
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 30, 2020 18:55:02 GMT -6
"Political grandstanding." Hope answered easily. "Officially, I've been asked to personally ensure that the empress' Terran residence is ready for a visit. And I've been asked to be visible as I do so and play nice with the politicians. So I'm here as the Hero for Erutin Independence and not as the head of intelligence. Right now, I'm supposed to be at some meeting with, hm, your foreign minister. So I am." Or her double was, at least, and her double was recording the entire event. Hope would run it past her processor after the event. "But this seemed more interesting than playing politics, so I'm here too."
This was much more interesting. "Her imperial majesty plans on a brief vacation to Terra. As it's a public vacation, she's going to get absolutely zero relaxing done, but she likes the planet. Met her first husband here, after all." Before he went mad from his own magic. "Terra is near and dear to the Erutin Empire's heart. I'm sure that's what the fuss is about."
|
|
|
Post by Ylanne on Mar 30, 2020 19:09:57 GMT -6
Drulović half-shrugged. "It's a shame you're not there yourself to meet Mr. Dvořák. He's a jolly fellow, full of sharp wit in his dinner-table sketches, and sometimes brews hooch in a shed in his backyard. It's an old habit." She smiled dimly, and sad. "You'd enjoy his company, I think." She remembered boisterous Christmas dinners, begun days in advance, with nearly two weeks of festivities, the grandchildren running through the hallways with pine boughs and hot apple cider and eggnog and things they didn't yet know how to pronounce that their grandmother had made, in different cities in different years, and sometimes in different countries. They were all much too old for that kind of revelry now, the kids were. "It wasn't his firstborn who died in that strike. It was his second, his son." The last time they'd been together as a family had been at the funeral. Even Ivana had come with their girlfriend. The old woman had been to confession for weeks afterward, until the priest had finally asked why she still felt the need to come. Once was penance enough. But not for the old lion.
|
|
|
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 16:15:21 GMT -6
"Maybe if it weren't for work I would. I enjoy very little about work." But it was what she knew to do and so it was what she did. Not that she'd had a choice, not since she signed on the dotted line all those years ago. It was funny how held hostage you could be by a single chip. Hope had signed her life over when she was a kid and determined to break boundaries. She had no freedom now and envied people with it. She still didn't understand why Arianne wouldn't seek her own freedom.
"My double is better at rubbing elbows with politicians than I am. And the chip means it's like I was there myself." Hope admitted cheerfully. She was well aware the other had to be aware of the chip she was speaking of. The Travelers were spies in addition to explorers and joining them meant getting cybernetically enhanced and a dangerous brain surgery. All Travelers, but especially their head, the spy master of the empire, would certainly be 'chipped' as they would, to a one, cheerfully describe it.
It was not always a happy cheer, but it took a solid decade to realize there would be no retirement, no leaving. You were bound to be a Traveler until the day you died, in service to the empress. And obedience was bought with threats of lack of maintenance and the dangers that would bring.
|
|