"Oh, good. Because I'm shit at warden-y stuff," B says with an amused sort of expression. Mostly at himself, to be honest, because he's still pretty sure he didn't do anything for his last inmate except be in the right place at the right time. "I just visit with people and hope that helps them out."
"That is not a disagreeable agenda," she determines. As long as the topic of conversation does not veer towards how or why she should graduate, she's very agreeable to this lack of warden stuff indeed.
Yeah, he's not going to pressure her about that, that's for sure. The pressure of it didn't help him any. "You know I used to be an inmate, too, right?" he asks. "It's been a few years, but I still remember how it went."
"Did not. Had no idea what had happened," B says with a wry half-smile. "Spent the first whole day and a half just sitting in my cabin waiting for someone to come pick me up and drag me back to where I came from."
She spent her first several days weeping and screaming. She did not want any of this, but when she finally ventured out it was Steve who found her first: with a tear streaked face, looking for food.
She still does not understand the Admiral's ways in this. Why take anyone who truly does not want this? Why take anyone who does not consent? Why does he know better, and does he truly?
"You have not returned, even upon graduation," she observes.
"Oh, no, I went back," B says, shaking his head. "I had some things to take care of, and at the time I was terrified of being a warden, so I got outa here within a week of graduating. I was out in the world for nine years before I came back here."
She blinks silently, surprised by this. She does not truly understand what it would be to return to unfinished business, her world is destroyed now. That is how she died.
"Nobody out where I came from cared about me," B answers frankly. "I didn't have a lot of friends to begin with, and I managed to make myself unwelcome with all of them. And making new friends is hard when you're a former terrorist and assassin. This was the only place I thought I might be able to really start over."
She wonders what she would do if there were such a world to return to. Would she be wounded if no one cared about her? Perhaps only once the Barge made her complacent to such things. Has that already begun? Almost a terrible thought; almost.
"I suppose you are right," she nods. "You are freed from the confines of your story."
But she has also determined she doesn't actually need to graduate to reap that benefit. It comes at her mere presence here.
There is that. B had thought he'd never graduate, anyway, for all he wanted to, in order to help other people. But being here was better than being on the run from HYDRA. Mostly.
He nods a bit. "Yeah. Can start a whole new one, if I wanna. And I did. I am. Figure that's what this place is really for: making new stories, instead of the old ones we lived before."
She purses her lips. She can see the sense of it, but the way her story has been burned into her... She feels quite frightened when she is no longer safely in its confines. Even though that story makes her miserable, terrified, ashamed.
Yeah, they have more in common than Ilde probably expects, there. And he recognizes the avoidance. He does make a gentle effort: "You don't think you can change yours?" Please don't tell him she's like Sweeney and literally created by stories... he's not sure he can handle two of them on the same boat.
"I made a choice," she says, just as softly. Her hand smooths down the cat absent-mindedly. "A promise I prepared myself to carry for eternity."
And it had consoled her when life was horrifying. To give it up now would force her to sit with something enormous and awful. A reality of terror and oppression and madness. It is always there at the edges, all her tears and her wailing and her fear.
"I was considered... holy," she murmurs. "All the death and suffering was meaningless, without my sacrifice. At the end of the world, I die willingly so that we can be free of corruption."
Whether or not this prophecy was true, it had meant a great deal to the last living souls in the Godking's palace. They felt that this would all be worth it, for an eternity of peace. Sometimes Ilde is very certain it was all an act for them, and sometimes she is very certain that it wasn't.
"And I put my mind to it..." Because without it, she was completely helpless in the last days of a burning world.
Well, that's... horrific. Also probably not true, though B has heard enough weird magical things since coming to the Barge that it might be. That's not something he can judge the reality of.
Still horrific, though. Nobody should have that weight on their shoulders. Nobody should ever have to die for somebody else's corruption. (One of his many beefs these days with Christianity.)
B chews on it a moment. "So... you died. And now you're here. And you feel like you can't move on because that'd go back on your promise to save everyone. Right?"
When it comes to Godking Dreus himself... Ilde would very much like to think of him as gone, as dust. However, the impact he and his madness had on her has left a kind of mark in her mind. A pulsing black totem that whispers to her that it is never done. Hakkai has seen it drive her to shrieking and irrational violence. John Doe has seen the thing itself. She should not be here. She should be at the Godking's side, his eternal virgin bride.
When it comes to everyone else, the entire world that he burned, Ilde would very much like for them to all be at peace.
"I think..." she begins, conflicted by facts and fiction and the blurry line between the two. "That if there is even a little chance that my faith can help them... Then I should give it."
"And your faith requires you to be dead?" B prods gently. He has very little in the way of faith in anything left, except the power of soft things, chocolate, and hugs. (God, that sounds corny.) And for the vast bulk of his life, he lived with the sole purpose of surviving, so the idea of giving up your life for faith is almost painful to consider.
Steve would probably understand, though. "You can't have that faith from a new life on some other world out there?"
"That's kinda up to you," B says, tilting his head a little. "If it were me? I'd say, definitely. That's the whole point of a second chance. The whole reason you're here." He shrugs with a small smile. "But me just telling you that, and you believing it-- those're two different things."
"You mean you don't want to believe he'll let you start over somewhere else?" B guesses. "He's done it for other people. My own last inmate, he's off living on a whole new world with his favorite person, now."
"Someone said to me... In this place, his master and his destiny cannot reach him," she answers, seemingly off-topic. "That is all I want, not to take yet another god's hand."
B nods to that. "You wouldn't have to take his hand, really. Could let Iris take you someplace new. Or-- hell, me. We've both got little personal spaceships that travel between universes." Well. Iris's is more a bus than a spaceship. B's is a proper ship, though. "And neither of us are gods."
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She still does not understand the Admiral's ways in this. Why take anyone who truly does not want this? Why take anyone who does not consent? Why does he know better, and does he truly?
"You have not returned, even upon graduation," she observes.
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"What made you return?"
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"I suppose you are right," she nods. "You are freed from the confines of your story."
But she has also determined she doesn't actually need to graduate to reap that benefit. It comes at her mere presence here.
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He nods a bit. "Yeah. Can start a whole new one, if I wanna. And I did. I am. Figure that's what this place is really for: making new stories, instead of the old ones we lived before."
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"I am glad for you."
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"I made a choice," she says, just as softly. Her hand smooths down the cat absent-mindedly. "A promise I prepared myself to carry for eternity."
And it had consoled her when life was horrifying. To give it up now would force her to sit with something enormous and awful. A reality of terror and oppression and madness. It is always there at the edges, all her tears and her wailing and her fear.
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B is silent a moment, then asks, "And you can't keep your promise and live a new life somewhere at the same time?"
cw: the religious abuse
Whether or not this prophecy was true, it had meant a great deal to the last living souls in the Godking's palace. They felt that this would all be worth it, for an eternity of peace. Sometimes Ilde is very certain it was all an act for them, and sometimes she is very certain that it wasn't.
"And I put my mind to it..." Because without it, she was completely helpless in the last days of a burning world.
Re: cw: the religious abuse
Still horrific, though. Nobody should have that weight on their shoulders. Nobody should ever have to die for somebody else's corruption. (One of his many beefs these days with Christianity.)
B chews on it a moment. "So... you died. And now you're here. And you feel like you can't move on because that'd go back on your promise to save everyone. Right?"
Re: cw: the religious abuse
When it comes to everyone else, the entire world that he burned, Ilde would very much like for them to all be at peace.
"I think..." she begins, conflicted by facts and fiction and the blurry line between the two. "That if there is even a little chance that my faith can help them... Then I should give it."
Re: cw: the religious abuse
Steve would probably understand, though. "You can't have that faith from a new life on some other world out there?"
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In her eyes, she has already died once for this faith, why would she change her idea of faith now? Isn't it too late?
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She does not want to make another pact with another thing so much bigger than herself. It does not matter that the Admiral seems benevolent.
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