caughtinanetwork | 17; video/action

[There's a dissipating shower of purple flecks behind Walter, this time with more black and belts, when the feed comes on. More than that, half the trademark severity from his features has gone—he's clearly not in the mood to punch someone's lungs out. Which is new.]

Vatheon—[he grasps the cloth wrapped around his hair and pulls it off, suddenly seeing no point in it. His tone is softer from its usual guttural gruffness.]

. . . What's a soul?

action;

[After a moment of waiting, Walter cranes his neck to the side. He hasn't come to the abandoned village in months; the area's about the same as the images his memories convey him. And now, he's a little more keen about disregarding appearances to dig around.

He slides in and out of the broken buildings, taking a moment to wander each interior before moving onto the next. His hands are smeared with grime in minutes, and he rubs the flat of his fingertips against his thumb at a juncture. It's all so familiar in a way, yet he feels nothing more than . . . apathy.

People lived here, once. Probably.

Outside, he leans against what remains of a wall and looks up, his arms crossed.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

like being kind to other people even if there mean or helping other people out with stuff

[What more do you expect from him, exactly? He's only been alive about 2 and a half years.]

That's too vague.

[It's the person's opinion, though. He'll give it the credence it's due. (Besides, is this a child or someone who's not big on typing? The lacking punctuation and the spelling aren't exactly up to par with the standard.)]

You're saying that life is meaningless for those who do anything other than "good." And those without soul have no place, even alive?

i dont knwo about meaningless im just saying what i was taught but the second part i know is right becasue thars what i feel!

[He's getting upset now, evidenced by the typos. He's just like the others, telling Sola he's wrong without really knowing. He hates it...]

[An exclamation point. That's a change. A sign of growing tension?]

Did I say you were wrong?

[He never contested that, exactly.]

[The response is downright sulky.]

no but i could tell you think it

It's only my own thoughts. I can't tell you for certain whether you're right or wrong.

[A pause.]

But you're going in circles.

circles? what do you mean?

One without a soul is denied an afterlife, yet there's no place for one among the living. You search, but you'll never belong. You've condemned yourself to that thought; of course you feel that way. No amount of searching will change that.

If life is a gift to those who thrive in death, then shouldn't life be the realm of the soulless?

i live but i dont feel like a part of anything because people with souls are supposed to be here and people without them are not we werent made by the gods or goddesses we were made by magic or science that cant make life for real just tools to do what they say

i was made to replace someone but i cant and now i have not purpose

i live and breathe and think and i want things but i dont belong im always outside and worthless because i just know theres no real place for me i have a name but its just a word for a thing and someday ill fade away and it wont matter

[It's the most he's ever said to anyone on the subject and he's too upset to make it private. He knows there are people who would argue, people who deem him special and important but there's a coiled ball of heavy knowledge sitting like a stone that weighs on his heart, a knowledge that there isn't any life - this or any that exist after - where he actually belongs. He lives on stolen time, stolen through magic by his master and elongated by Zelda, but stolen all the same.

He's convinced that no one with a soul could ever understand.]

["Replace" stirs something in him. Walter ignores it.

He has no attachment to this person, whether from this conversation or prior (a quick glance at the identifier—unfamiliar); objectively speaking, probably, there's no place for one who was made for a duty and has failed. To fulfill one's duty lends the consequence of earning a place.

It's all very distantly familiar, but the past ache of that seems terribly foreign now.]

Then why do you dwell on it?

because i want to belong

[It's a simple answer for a simple question yet somehow so complicated that it encompasses the meager wealth of Sola's experience. Why he feels the ways he feels, why he does the things he does, all to seek that impossible goal of belonging, of maybe somehow making a place for himself in the world despite insurmountable odds.

It's either that or give up.]

[And there makes the circle.

This has gone beyond the realm of what he was intending to explore with souls, and he's not nosy enough to pry any further when he's got most of the philosophy. They're beginning to veer off of that territory.]

I see.

[No, at this point they've already breached a degree of personal matters.

No purpose, he said?]

Then that's your purpose. Your new purpose.

[He'd never thought of it like that. It's possible that it could be his new purpose; to find a place in this world, to make one for himself. He's already trying so hard though and it still feels out of reach. He has a name of his own, friends, family, someone who loves him, even a belief in a greater power. He has all of those things yet he still doesn't feel complete, doesn't feel whole.

But he's tired. Conversations like this, not that he's ever had one to this depth, but conversations like this take it out of him something fierce and he simply decides to let it go out of sheer weariness. Maybe he'll find Johnny and curl up in his lap for awhile. In that way this curse might be a blessing; he can't answer what's wrong if he has no voice.]

maybe you're right

i have to go now

[He's never managed to master the graceful exit.]

[He doesn't write back, given that that was the equivalent of a farewell to a conversation. Walter pockets the communicator and looks up, at the deteriorating buildings in his surroundings.

A new purpose. That's a foreign concept even to him. He realizes that he'd never given it thought in the past—not so much as a week ago in spite of the year-long limbo in which he's been drifting. And though he considers it now, there's no appeal to derive from the thought.

After all, a purpose is for the living. That's what he thinks.

. . . and now isn't the time to dwell on that anymore.

He moves.]

17; video/action

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

no subject