It sucks, but sometimes we must bear the consequences for others' failures. Jack is suffering for my decision to accept the Convocation, and for my decision to enact the Culling.
I wanted to bear the blame on my shoulders, since all these deaths were my decision, but there are those already that blame her for it.
They claim we are essentially the same person (blatantly untrue), and that she should have somehow stopped me. My question is this..
How does one deny the will of a bloodthirsty Fear? Once the idea popped into my head and those damned birds caught wind of it, it was over with. Even i couldn't take it back, no matter how I have wished since to end it.
Tag has been.. helping. Playing chess with me in the wee hours. Slowly coaxing my mind out of the ruins it had been. I still have to concentrate to ignore the whispers of
not good enough, never good enough, why don't you just end it all? The world would be a better place without you in it. It'd be so easy no one loves you no one cares you are a cancer that needs to be eradicated. Just stay in your room and pretend you aren't there make life easier on everyone, who could love a fuckup like you..
I can't get stoned like Jack does. When i get too comfortable, too happy, the birds want to take over. Go watch the deaths in person. Play in the blood and laugh at the suffering. That isn't me. Never was
I.. am still basically the same person i once was. Kind, loving, peaceful. The betrayer of the proxy code that alerted runners to upcoming attacks, tried to teach them how to survive and who to be wary of to survive just one more day. The girl that couldn't handle the pain of the world like Jack could.
I don't know what makes us so essentially different. Why she became fucking Maleficent given form, essentially, while i.. Shattered.
Maybe she became accustomed to the pain, being from the darkest timeline.
Maybe pain became a way of life for her, to where the happiness I felt confuses her. When i send her ravens across the rabbit hole, her words sound so.. cold. So tired. So lonely.
I don't think she really understands how to process emotions anymore. Views them as amusing distractions, just like the pot and the sex.
She certainly doesn't understand what to do with David or Gallows in her home. The last time I wrote her, she told me she's taken to sitting with Graves on guard duty. Quiet, barely speaking, just.. watching. Thinking.
I worry for her, being stuck in my home. She wasn't built to withstand the venus flytrap that is No Man's Land.
The temptation of wanting to stay, forever, and abandon all cares and worries in Overland.
I have heard tales, growing up, of similar from people that accidentally traveled to the Fae lands. Where time passed strangely there, and humans wanted to stay. Be happy.
Makes me wonder if perhaps the old Fae tales were referring to Underland.
It would certainly make sense. The vicious sharpened teeth of the inhabitants, the ethereal beauty, the deadly nature, the games they like to play with humans.
Are the Fears simply the angriest, most violent of the Fae races? Did they stumble into supernatural hotspots like many of us did, and become transformed into these eldritch horrors?
The answer is I simply don't know. The idea bears research, though, now that the Fears encourage the human side of the Great Game.
Could this be why the Fears began to have human faces to Jack? Why we each became more like them the more time we spent in Underland or around them? This begs the question..
Do we even count as humans anymore? And if we don't.. are the voices right? Would the world be better off if all of my sisters, the other Dias, and I killed ourselves before we become like Them?
I can't help but to not trust the voices. The birds. They have never been kind to me, not mentally. Could it be just another test to see which of us survive?
I don't have the answers the way Jack does, and she certainly isn't telling all her secrets. Old Dia habit, I suppose.
I may be leaving Sanctuary soon. I have intercepted..something.. meant for Jack that I believe needs to be chased down. Another Rabbit Hole to jump down.
I can't know for sure who sent it, but it is certainly connected to the notebook. It is also quite clearly a trap. If any of us are going to walk into a trap eyes wide open, it should be me. I have the best chance of surviving what comes next.
Samantha, Eva, any other alternates of our friends we are not aware of that survived the timelines: please. Come forward. We need you.
The Great Game is eight days from beginning in full strength. We can offer protection. We can offer supplies, knowledge, resources, contacts, a place to stay.
Please.
I will be enacting training classes on self defense, healing herb lore, survival skills, technology and computer lessons: anything I can gather Masters for on the subjects, board at Sanctuary offered free to teachers of these classes.
Those that wish to take these classes need do but a few things:
1. We will not charge. Instead, we ask that you help contribute to the classes in whatever way you can.
2. Comment on this status and/or present yourselves at Sanctuary.
3. Take a blood oath committing yourself to the war. No tricks, no bullshit, no fine print. Just your promising to protect the other Underlanders/Rabbits and fight back in whatever ways you can.
4. Take the classes when they appear. These lessons will help you, even in your day to day lives. Our goal is to preserve life, whenever possible.
5. Follow the Code.
That's it. That's all we ask.
Consider what we are offering.
It may be the last bastion of hope left before the war begins.
....I can feel the birds waking.
I must go.
Before they catch wind of my plans.