jagura kitten | "jaguar"/mamiya (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
formaliteas) wrote2020-01-17 11:20 pm
formaliteas) wrote2020-01-17 11:20 pm
Entry tags:
REGISTRY ♔ KYRIAKOS
✔ = priority ✘ = locked ✿ = | |||||
✘ "....because we're friends." ✿ ✘ Freedom. | |||||
✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ● "I'm sorry." | |||||
● A recovered heirloom. ✿ | |||||
✿ ● Mastering telekinesis. ● Mastering cryokinesis. ✿ ✿ | |||||
● Learning to play the guitar. ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ | |||||
✿ | |||||
✿ ● Euphoria's decline. ● Forced splicing. ✿ | |||||
✿ ● Realizing that the Flock is basically a cult. ✿ ✿ ● The amusement park. | |||||
✿ | |||||
✿ ✿ ✿ ● pain resistance ● durability ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ● marksmanship ✿ ✿ ✿ | |||||
○ neutral
Being passed over.
taken: day 118
witnesses: N/A
Visits made to the Little Brother's Orphanage never fail to get a reaction from the young boys that call it home. They crowd to the front, sometimes elbowing or shoving each other to get a better spot, peering up at the unknown adult or adults with both hope and desperation. You never elbow or shove (not anymore, that is) but you're no less anxious to make sure you're seen, noticed. The desire to be taken home to a new family is a fierce one for you.
It's not a bad life in the orphanage. You're aware of that, and are both intelligent and mature enough despite your tender age to be grateful for the fact. You could be dead or even worse: starving, cold, eking out a dirty and diseased existence on the streets. Yet gratitude can't hold a candle to your loneliness, that awful twisting ache in your heart for acceptance and love. Gratitude doesn't change, cannot mitigate the raw and soul-deep nature of your grief, your loss.
A new family could be a new start. It's a dream to strive for and to focus on, a way to keep afloat of a pain too great to be articulated. But no one ever chooses you. The hope that you've harbored is steadily eroded by degrees; the desire to be adopted loses strength each time it's thwarted. There's never a reason given, no explanation for why you were passed over. There never is for anyone (nothing spoken aloud for childish ears to catch, anyway) but that doesn't lessen the sting of the not knowing, the dreadful power of your gathering doubts.
Eventually, you stop joining in the rush to the foyer area where visitors come through. You turn away instead, immersing yourself in chores that will keep you out of sight.....and out of mind. What does it matter, anymore? It's obvious enough that you don't deserve a new family, that you're lacking somehow. Boys that were here long before you arrived, boys that showed up only a day ago, they're the ones who end up being chosen. Never you.
You're left behind, smiling calmly to hide your pain, trying not to begrudge the other boys their good fortune and not quite managing.
✿ content + consequences
● His real name would normally be remembered in this memory, but is blurred/missing/not mentioned.
● Jaguar takes a rather severe blow to his self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
● He realizes that if he's in an orphanage, his parents are either dead or didn't want him.
● Because the memory is about being passed over for adoption several times until he had lost all hope, Jaguar's inclined to believe that he was abandoned.
● He was polite and dignified even as a child, using good manners and composure to hide negative feelings, so he'll continue to be that way in Kyriakos.
● This was in his early years and doesn't feature Euphoria beyond the Little Brother's Orphanage, so he's not yet aware that Euphoria is actually a city built underneath the Atlantic.
Meeting Eleanor. 1/
taken: day x
witnesses: character (audience; day x)/character (viewed; day x)
The world is insensate oblivion, until it's not.
You awaken from a state of drugged unconsciousness exhausted and aching, tasting a still-flowing nosebleed on your upper lip. Your face is pressed against carpet, prone limbs heavy with the lingering influence of a sedative, the smell of spent fire and ash growing stronger and stronger as reality steadily reasserts itself. After what feels like hours but is really only a few minutes, you manage to open one eye enough to look around. Trying to see, to know, to understand the surroundings that you've been brought to.
Plush covers, velvet drapes, a luxurious bed. All manner of elegant trappings and furnishings....all of it now torched into blackened remains. There's scorch marks on the walls and ceiling. Stupefied, your gaze slips over everything until finally coming to rest on the girl that's standing across the room. She's wearing a light dress that contrasts sharply with her watchful expression of suspicious hostility. Recognition and bitter understanding bleed into your waking thoughts, then. Sharpening them, strengthening them, drawing your mind further out of its doped sleep. Eleanor. The daughter of your enemy, the presence on the other end of the line that's been tapped into your soul.
You slowly ease yourself up into a kneeling position, moving with the wary caution of a cornered animal that knows the odds aren't stacked in its favor, and remain silent once upright without so much as edging closer to the young woman. You only sit, and wait, and watch Eleanor with a mixture of suspicion, weariness........and expectation. You've already grasped the situation; it's not yet clear whether she has, too.
The chemical fingers that had invaded your mind, violated it, hadn't quite managed to overload your brain into simply popping like a sick gray balloon, nor wipe your psyche clean of all sanity and identity. Perhaps the splicing you were forced to undertake had attributed to that resistance? Well, the specifics didn't really matter. Not anymore. The job was done; an empathy bond binds the two of you together now, a permanent and inviolate leash.
She meets your look with a cold stare. The silence stretches. You wait for her to break it first.
After some time, she does, her voice a hostile demand.
"What do you want?"
The tight lines of your body ease a fraction — not a lowering of your guard, but a resignation to the current situation. "Me? Nothing." Your voice is quiet and calm, but your eyes remain wary and alert, untouched by that soft composure. "Slaves know better than to want anything." Feigning a disregard to your own words, you turn your attention to your nosebleed, reaching up to first thumb away the stream and then pinch your nostrils shut to stop the flow. "Well, the preferred term is 'assistant'....but regardless, this is about what the Flock wants. More specifically, what your mother wants." You return to watching her closely, remaining stationary.
"But you knew that already."
It's not a question. Eleanor Lamb was many things, but "stupid" was not one of them. Only Sophia Lamb could be responsible for this latest twist in her daughter's life.
Her eyes narrow, masking confusion and surprise. "Is that right?" She exhales, a bitter smile curving over her lips. "How funny. Mother with her speeches and dreams of utopia, and here she thinks to gift me with a slave. I'm touched." Eleanor's voice is low, dangerously soft. "I hope she isn't expecting to see you back in her service. Except in pieces, perhaps."
This time, the cold cruelty in her smile reaches all the way up to her eyes.
2/
"Ah, but a gift is supposed to be a desirable something-or-other that's offered with kind intentions. None of that applies to me. Isn't that so, Master?"
Part of you is wounded deeply when addressing Eleanor as such,. When you take that first crucial step toward cementing a dynamic of steep power imbalance into place. The rest of you is too coldly pragmatic to be much concerned, and proceeds to (slowly, gradually) roll up your sleeves to check whether the injection sites on your wrists have healed yet. For now, you study the skin there instead of Eleanor.
"Honestly, that's part of the reason why I'm here. Rather than set your bedding afire, your mother would prefer that you and I make good use of each other. Or something like that, I suppose — I wasn't in much shape at the time to properly listen. ....She probably is, though, is bound to be doing so right now."
You look up just to glance around in a bored sort of way, as if idly expecting to spot a microphone jutting out of the walls. You wonder if Sophia will have Words for you when the time came for you to report back, but you don't much care. The time when you wanted her approval more than anything is long since over.
"Incidentally, my name is
Mamiya.But I doubt you care about that, so I'll answer to any name you bother to give me."There's only acid bitterness in your eyes when you regard her despite the calm acceptance of that humiliation, and Eleanor in turn gives you a long, measuring look of cold neutrality, one you meet and hold.
"No, I don't think so. I'm tired of playing along with her little games." She turns away, her voice quietening. "So go back to where you came from,
Mamiya.I don't want to see your face again."You continue to watch her when she turns away, right up until that tired edge creeps into her voice. It's that subtle note which gives you pause, makes you shift focus back down to your wrists where the marks of forced splicing still remain. Behind the caution and bitterness that surrounds you like a protective cloak, her rejection is considered to be perfectly natural.
"....Sorry, but I can't." And you do sound (and feel) genuinely apologetic, although without any expectation of being believed. You know better than that. Who could trust anyone in this kind of situation? You would act no different in her shoes. "Even if there was a place for me to return to, they won't let me leave your side. Mm, except to tell them what they want to hear about your condition." You let out a humorless chuckle that dies quickly as you get to your feet.
"Especially not after all the work it took them to force you into my head and me into your own."
Eleanor's head comes up at those last words, an expression flickering across her face almost too fast to identify. Then fury is radiating down the bond she shares with you, white-hot and seething, before the connection is abruptly blocked. That surge of infuriated emotion through the link that neither of you wanted is the only warning you get and comes far too late to be of any use.
Between one breath and the next, Eleanor disappears and rematerializes across the room with a bang of displaced air, slamming you up against the wall with bone-bruising force, fingers around your throat. Holding you up with ease, flush with power, stronger by far. You struggle: writhing and thrashing against her iron grip, half-strangled snarls of defiance spilling out into the air still thick with the smell of burnt cinders. Something full of bloodlust and black joy comes crawling out in the bright gleam of her eyes.
"I can sense your ADAM. Not much, but it’s there."
Her voice is soft and amused, as if this was play and nothing else.
"Mother took away my toys, so I might just have to settle for ripping out your throat instead. All their hard work, gone to waste. What a shame that will be."
Kill you. She's going to kill you. Yet you force yourself to go still. To block out the pain, remove yourself from the dizzying sensation of too much adrenaline, stare down at Eleanor. Meeting that crazed, dangerous, euphoric expression with eyes narrowed almost to slits from agony. The corners of your mouth quirk into a weak grin.
"L...Less than you were expecting, huh? Your mother had me spliced. Never touched a implant before."
Before. A single word to neatly encompass all that has either been lost, or forcibly taken away. You struggle to keep speaking. If these are to be your last words, you mean to have them.
"Hhh....I'd rather not be killed just so you can spite her. We both know that she would just send in another one of me. She'd crack open your mind as many times as she had to. We're all resources to her......she wouldn't think twice." A derisive snort that unfolds into a choked, empty laugh. You aren't trying to convince her to spare you, after all. "But it's not like I can blame you. Only a puppet wouldn't lash out when it's been violated."
You touch the arm that ends in fingers curled tight around your throat, but gently. No strength in the gesture, no gathering charge of an implant. You smile down at her sadly, pained and expectant. Are you afraid to die? Yes, part of you clamors — but another part simply wonders why death has been withheld from you for so long. You never had the right to live after your parents had drowned. Perhaps having your throat torn out is simply karma for that one unforgivable sin.
Heat builds in Eleanor's palm, pale flame flickering over her knuckles. The fire that is her fury made real inches closer to the pale, delicate skin of your throat, flames licking the underside of your clenched jaw. Burning you, raising blisters, cultivating scars.
You don't break eye contact. Looking death in the face, resigning yourself to a slow and agonizing end.
Mother, Father.....when I see you again, if I apologize, will you forgive me? I—
And then she drops you like so much trash, turning on her heel and stalking across to the other side of the room. That bleak thought is snapped in two with a gurgle both surprised and pained as you hit the ground for the first time in conscious memory and the second in actuality. You watch her stomp away without a sound, without moving, relief and disappointment each weighing heavy in your chest like a disease.
You notice that her hands are shaking, that she balls them up into fists until the trembling stops.
✿ content
● After being drugged at some point, he was tossed inside of Eleanor's "room" (really a gilded prison, once she set afire) to make introductions.
● His clothes are a mess, ripped and stained, and physically he feels terrible.
● Confirmation that he had been spliced against his will, his DNA altered to give him powers (called "implants") that would otherwise be unobtainable.
● After he explains why he's here and what's been done to them, Eleanor lashes out, pinning him against the wall by his throat and nearly burning him alive.
● There's feelings of hatred for Eleanor by the end of the memory, yet they're tempered by pity and some measure of understanding.
— Also, her bloodlust and apparent cruel joy at the thought of killing him is something he finds to be very disturbing.
Sophia explains their purpose. 1/
taken: day 142
witnesses: N/A
You go rigid beside your less-than-desirable companion when the office door of Sophia Lamb is approached. For just a moment, the mask of composed almost-insolence falls away and your aura erupts with a black, vicious hatred despite yourself — despite knowing better than to lose control. But it's just so difficult to stand here and feel nothing, to be utterly detached from the memories of various betrayals that now fill your mind's eye. Sophia Lamb reaching out to you, supporting you, teaching you.....and then stabbing you in the back, torturing you, violating your mind in an attempt to break you down and make you hers.
Part of you wonders how Eleanor must be feeling. The rest of you pushes that thought away. The facade of steely composure reasserts itself an instant later.
"Because you're not as stupid as she seems to take you for." It's a response delivered in calm, flat tones. Not an opinion, but a fact, as bluntly impersonal as the truth sometimes had no other choice but to be. Part of a not-as-yet remembered conversation. A pause, and then you reach out to open the door for Eleanor — that, too, is a lesson learned by heart during the formative years of your childhood.
Eleanor's shoulders are stiff with tension as she approaches that same door. The sudden flare of fury and hatred down your shared link catches her by surprise, and she stops in her tracks to stare at you as you pull open the door. Then bitterness fills her eyes and catches in her throat. She looks away, walking past you.
"And yet, here we are."
She steps through the door into a blue room, majestic and elegant with gold trim. You follow, ducking in a moment later. The woman behind the desk looks up at the two of you. A small, casual movement, yet Eleanor very nearly flinches away and it takes all of your restraint to not snarl. You had both forgotten the sheer power of Sophia's presence: commanding attention just by existing, the magnetic pull of her certainty that she is right in all things. She stands up from her chair, mouth curved in a welcoming smile even as her eyes remain cold, frozen.
"Hello, Eleanor,
Mamiya," she says by way of greeting. Her voice is warm and welcoming, a mother's voice.The use of your first name is like salt in an open wound. Before, you had politely corrected most of those in the Flock who had tried to refer to you as anything other than "
Mr. Tomoe". Emotional distance, a defense mechanism, a small yet crucial bit of safety. It didn't matter with Eleanor — the mental link that had been forged between them without their permission meant it was far too late to build that particular wall. But you had trusted Sophia, once. You had even admired her, easily adopting the ideals she espoused as your own. For that woman to speak to you as though nothing had changed was a slap in the face."...Miss Lamb." The most shallow of nods. You rest your hands in the small of your back, where they curl into loose fists. The idle thought of could I freeze her solid and then smash her apart? do I have that chance? dances across the surface of your mind very briefly. But then Sophia looks at you, seems to see through to the heart of that dark fantasy. You settle instead for a thin, cold smile.
You're about to speak again, but Eleanor gets there first. Knowing the value of discretion, you hold your tongue and wait.
"Hello, Mother. Is this a bad time? I'm sure you must be very busy, when you aren't occupied smothering your daughter or getting your soldiers slaughtered." Eleanor is pleased to hear her voice shake only a little, as Sophia gives her a long, hard look, brows furrowed.
"Eleanor." Sophia's voice is chiding, and Eleanor's lips draw back from her teeth, voicing the snarl that you had contained.
"No, Mother. How dare you pretend you still have any claim on me. After all you've done to me, to the others....After what you did to Father—!" Hot fury burns in her veins as she strides forward, all caution thrown to the wind, slamming her hands palm down on the burnished wood of the table. Every loose object in the room jumps up by about a foot and stays afloat, drifting toward Eleanor in a tightening spiral, a maelstrom.
Sophia closes her eyes for a moment, and when she speaks, her voice is equal parts regret and command.
"Stop that once, Eleanor."
Like puppets with their strings cut, every floating object immediately drops to the floor. Eleanor jerks back in shock, hearing the crunch of broken glass.
"Sit down."
Eleanor refuses: her shoulders stiffen, body going rigid, eyes flickering from side to side as she fights her mother's command.
"What Delta did... that was unforgivable. You should have been... a leader, a paragon among men. Under his influence, you learned only violence and selfish corruption. Oh, Eleanor, I would have spared you that. I had hoped—" And here, the full force of Sophia's eyes turn upon you. "—that a new companion would ease the transition somewhat."
"But it may be that I was wrong."
It's strange, but Eleanor's outburst of fury manages to drag you away from your own boiling ocean of vengeful hatred. By the time that Sophia turns her attention upon you, it's clear enough that you have to try and defuse this situation somehow, or at least lessen whatever ugly fallout potentially awaited. You meet that steely gaze with one of your own, putting most of your considerable willpower towards keeping your gaze utterly flat, completely inscrutable. You can't afford to show the smallest shred of weakness; she would see it, exploit it, weave a noose from it to hang you with at a moment's notice.
"Pardon me so saying so, Miss Lamb, but I have to disagree. I think things are going quite well!" Your tone is quiet, pleasant, unerringly calm. A series of graceful, deceptively nonchalant steps are executed forward until you're between them. The bruises on your neck have already darkened, the skin around your blisters is red and swollen, yet you calmly smile as though this was just a discussion of the weather over tea.
You look to Eleanor for only an instant — the false smile that wreathes your face doesn't reach your eyes, but something that's almost supplication flashes briefly — before smoothly turning back to Sophia.
"After all, I'm still alive. Your hard work hasn't been wasted. And besides.....ah, how did the saying go? "Rome wasn't built in a day.'" A soft, rueful laugh that masterfully hides the disgust you feel at having to fall back on deceptive charm, especially towards this woman. "Something like that, right?"
Sophia lets the pause stretch and sharpen, her knowing gaze fixed upon you.
"Do you know why I chose you to partner my daughter,
Mamiya?" Aside from the fact that he was the only one to survive the process, that is. "I chose you for your great strengths, the traits you have in abundance: control, restraint, compassion..." She smiles, and there is something (affection, approval) in the curve of her lips, tender benevolence in her expression. She does love her Flock, after all, she loves them all, even the stray sheep that have lost their way. "... and the wisdom to choose your battles."Meanwhile, Eleanor has caught the look sent her way only to dismiss it entirely, throwing herself against the invisible shackles Sophia had wrapped around her with abandon. Her shoulders jerk forward as she voices a low and guttural snarl, feeling something give, fingers curling like claws.
Sophia merely casts another brief look at her, this time of disappointment.
"Eleanor is my final masterpiece, unfinished. But every perfect creation has its struggles; these are merely the birthing pains of the new world. Recent.... events have not been kind to her, but it is my sincere hope that you will be able to temper that wildness of hers."
Gasping a little with effort, Eleanor finds her voice, and the vicious words come pouring out of her mouth in a torrent.
"I will see you burn, Mother. You, and every person in this whole wretched city. When I'm done with you, there won't be anything left but ruin and rubble at the bottom of the ocean."
2/
And for a minute or two, your mask of friendly composure comes dangerously close to slipping. Your aura spikes with murderous intent, a white-hot surge of wounded rage crackling forth from your end of the mental link — the fingers of both hands crook inward just slightly, yearning to turn into fists. How dare she. How dare she lay bare the incontestable blueprint of your soul and look at you with such tenderness. Her affection is a steel-jawed trap; her goodwill is a poisonous lie. The proof of that is just not all around you, but inside you as well, from Eleanor's seething presence within your mind to the marks on your wrists.
The space of a heartbeat. Two, three, four. Then your empty smile grows a touch wider, and your anger and grief is forced back into the cage where it belongs. You gesture to Eleanor with a shrug that gives every appearance of being nonplussed.
"As you can see, Miss Lamb, that's a rather....lofty hope you've entrusted me with. I'd be flattered by your faith in me, but I don't want to become arrogant."
There's no surprise at Eleanor's fiery resistance, only a twinge of exasperation. You didn't expect her to chime in and match your fake sycophancy by any means, but their position was precarious, and futile threats against the one that held all the keys would not make it any less so. Sophia had found the means to choke off her daughter's powers at will; Euphoria will not burn today, nor any time soon.
You glance at your "partner" again, but with resignation this time. Because as much as you were loathe to admit it, Sophia's analysis of you is accurate, especially when it came to the way you picked your battles with strategic care. Cunning and patience are your favored tools of achieving victory. Even if it meant the occasional retreat or temporary surrender, you never ran headlong into a fight that you couldn't win — not unless there was no other option left. And here, the only path forward was a narrow tightrope stretched thin over a hungry chasm....a path that only you could navigate.
A thoughtful pause. You add, delicately:
"But my feelings are irrelevant, of course. What would you have us do?"
Because of course they weren't brought here to be told obvious truths, nor to simply be cruelly taunted by the insurmountable fact of their powerlessness. Sophia was many ugly, despicable things, but above all she was purposeful. There was always a reason behind her machinations, a method to the madness.
Sophia's regard turns once again to Eleanor, who glowers back at her, trying to contain the worst of her fury.
"Eleanor, it's time that you began to dedicate yourself, your talents, to the people. To our Flock."
Catching sight of the expression on Eleanor's face (revulsion, fury, denial), Sophia presses her lips together into a thin line. "But... you have had a surfeit of death of late. Delta's corruption will take years to undo. I know you will see the light, in time. But for now, if you must bloody your hands, then I will ask that you do it in service of the greater good.....as a messiah, bringing destruction and redemption to those beyond my power to save."
There's a moment of silence, and then Eleanor laughs, a disbelieving sound. "You want an assassin, Mother?"
Sophia sighs heavily, voice wistful and full of regret.
"These are difficult times, Eleanor. We are at war. Ryan and Fontaine tear each other apart in secret battles, hiding their knives in the dark, and they will soon turn on the Flock as well. Yours will be the act of a merciful savior; you will bring them deliverance, and their ADAM will live on in your genes, in your memory. They will be reborn."
This is what Sophia wants from her daughter. To kill in Sophia's name, in the Flock's name....... Eleanor knows she'll need much more power to escape, power enough to make good on her vengeance. She can use this.
Eleanor lifts her chin.
"Fine."
Your mind works quickly, rapid-fire thoughts behind an inscrutable gaze. So that was the truth of it.....the core of Sofia's intentions laid bare. There's no doubt that other details have been withheld from them, but you don't pay those missing pieces any further thought. There would be plenty of time, you're sure, to dwell upon them once this debriefing concludes and they are ushered out from beneath Sophia's knowing gaze.
Eleanor's acquiescence provokes a certain measure of private surprise, not in part because it comes with less of a fight than you had been expecting, but after a minute you swallow a bitter chuckle — you can only guess that your unwilling partner must have found a way to turn this forced arrangement to her advantage somehow.
At least in that, the two of you are alike. You have no intention of biding your time just to accomplish nothing. Every person, every plan, had a flaw that could be taken advantage of. It was only a matter of finding that weakness and properly exploiting it.
"Ah, so we're all in agreement? Excellent!" You almost sound genuinely pleased with the warped excuse for cooperation that's been established. Another pulse of black anger shudders through your aura, but it's dull this time. A muted, brooding resentment pulsing in the background like a sick heartbeat. "What sort of task should we pursue first, Miss Lamb?"
There's the slightest hint of rebellious knowledge in your polite, compliant smile. You already understand that there was little chance that their duties (Eleanor's duties) would only involve assassination. Sophia always made the most of her chosen tools, and using Eleanor only for slaughter would be a foolish waste of her daughter's abilities.
Eleanor glances back at you, mouth tightening, not bothering to hide the contempt in her gaze.
Sofia watches you both for a moment longer, blue eyes knowing, before she raises her voice again. Gone is the benevolent concern, the mother and guide. She turns to the two of you now as the charismatic leader whose voice had lead the citizens of Euphoria to riot.
"Ryan Amusements is Ryan's pet project, a monstrous construction equal only to the height of his ego. It is a breeding ground for his cult of personality, dedicated to propaganda and the formative corruption of the young. It also serves as a training base for his armies of indoctrinated splicers. To cut off their supply of ADAM at its source, Eleanor, your first task is to remove the Little Sisters of Ryan Amusements. I have no intention of leaving Euphoria's flow of ADAM and implants in Ryan's control any longer. Unfortunate children that they are, their energies would be better directed in the Flock's service."
Eleanor stares at her mother. "They're not children anymore, Mother. They're monsters. You know that as well as I." A growl. "Is that it, then? Are we done here? I'll need my suit and helmet back, unless you'd like it to be splashed all about the tabloids...."Lamb's Daughter Spotted in Ryan Amusements." Just think of all the amusing taglines that would follow."
You don't need to make eye contact to be privy to Eleanor's contempt — you can feel it in her gaze, in your shared link, that familiar acid burn of disapproval. You don't blame her one bit, not when the disgust you harbor toward yourself is far greater. Yes, it's sickeningly easy for you to lie and play two-faced games of mannerly charm......what's difficult is keeping a wild bark of hysterical laughter at Sophia's brazen hypocrisy from tearing itself free from your throat. All this talk of Ryan's ego, Ryan's faults, Ryan's evil — as though his and Fontaine's are the only soiled hands in Euphoria.
The bitter, hollow amusement quickly turns into a sour dread that settles uneasily in the pit of your stomach. You still can't bring yourself to think of the Little Sisters the way that most people in Euphoria did. They weren't monsters or walking pools of ADAM to be drained dry and then discarded, but unfortunate souls that didn't deserve the awful fate that had befallen them. There was no future for the Little Sisters, no chance to ever again know a normal, happy life. They had been robbed of their innocence and humanity and it broke what remained of your heart no matter how foolish, how futile it was to care about those doomed little girls.
You lacked the power to save them, and no one in Euphoria that mattered wanted to save them. In this underwater "paradise", power was everything, even if it came at the expense of innocent children. Nothing was sacred. You understood that, knew better than to pretend otherwise.....because if the traumatized, penniless orphan of the
Tomoefamily had been a girl instead, chances are that "she" would have wound up as a Little Sister too.A Little Sister accompanied nearly everywhere by a Big Daddy that would defend her with wild, berserk strength. You take in the ruined state of your suit for the second time and makes a mental note to seek out new clothes only after the mission at hand has been dealt with.
"While I think that Euphoria could do with a few laughs, I have to agree."
3/3
"Yes, I suppose so. Until you are ready to truly accept your destiny, my child, we are done."
Immediately, Eleanor turns on her heel and leaves the office without another word or glance back.
You're not quite so quick to leave when dismissed, for all that your desire to break free from this stifling office is strong enough to give Eleanor's a run for its money. You back up to the door without turning around, each step a slow and careful exercise in feigned courtesy. (You know better than to turn your back on this woman.) A shallow bow, and then you're slipping out the door to follow Eleanor.
✿ content
● Strikeouts are missing/blurred information.
● Jaguar and Eleanor meet with Sophia Lamb, Eleanor's mother.
— Sophia's various betrayals are described and recalled in vague terms, the emotional intensity clearer than the actual details.
— She speaks of Eleanor as a creation, a tool.
— Her intentions are political and warlike, shrouded in the guise of benevolent salvation: destroy Ryan and Fontaine, control Euphoria.