Masheli's Writing Journal

It's not even a matter of her mood, she's just like that.

Today there's peace and quiet for a while.

"You know, it's not often that soft-hearted people manage to survive and do well in the City.  Your accomplishments were honestly impressive."

I freeze; did she just call me -?

"I'm what?"  Bristling is a  reflex; I've rarely been in a  circle where something like that wasn't blood in the water.

"You care about other people, including ones that you aren't personally attached to."  She's leaning her chin on her hand.  "It's not always a weakness, although it does make surviving and succeeding so much harder." 

"You're one of the last people I'd expect to say it's not a weakness." 

"It depends.  I've seen and heard of a lot of people like you.  The foolish ones usually either self-destruct or take on more than they can handle fast, so I only ever dealt with the smart ones." 

And there is no question that her deciding I'm 'one of the smart ones' comes with 'you would've been a target back in  the day'. 

"They were some of the most entertaining prey - not only did they put up more of a fight than most, but they were much less predictable than usual."  

It's one of those times she's not very far from the Head's Arbiter, and the smile on her face makes me very thankful she's settled here.  "Soft hearted.  Right.  You do remember the whole, breaking in to inflitrate and kill everyone here thing, right?"

She raises an eyebrow and stifles a laugh.  "Oh, I do - and you were bad at it in ways that were very transparent." 

I just give her a tired stare; she's going to go on with an explanation as long as I don't cut in.

"You had the most vulnerable among us trusting you completely, and you opted to show support and empathy, without any hint of trying to take advantage of it to push them in ways that would make them easier targets or interfere with the rest of us."  She leans back, picking up her cup.  "I think, if you hadn't Distorted, you would've had great difficulty following through on your attempted betrayal... and even then, your own sense of loyalty worked against it." 

I'd really, really love to argue this, but I know the idea of manipulating some of the younger, squishier Sephirah to lean into their damage feels utterly abhorrent, and even with how fucked up of a mess I was, it was definitely only something I managed to do as a "blaze of glory" self destruct.