la_belle_rogue | [Video]

[Rogue doesn't look happen when she turns on the feed. In fact, she seems grim and pensive. She's sitting at the island in her kitchen, arms folded across the counter top, leaning over them heavily. She takes a moment to gather her thoughts before she starts speaking.]

Ah wanna talk about choices for a minute. This place is very unique, in that it offers up an option that should be the hard choice, and makes it look like the easy choice.

Killin' someone should never be considered the right thing to do. Sometimes it's the necessary thing. Sometimes it's the only thing we can do, when faced with an extreme situation. Life or death. Kill or be killed. But the Barge warps that into an easy go to and it shouldn't be. Not every option is life or death, kill or be killed.

Sometimes we find ourselves between rocks and hard places. And in those times our choices are either bad or worse. But just because a choice might not be a good one, doesn't mean that it's not the better one. Just because a choice leaves a mess behind, doesn't mean it's not better than the alternative.

Now before ya'll start in on how death isn't permanent here, let me just say this: Ah. Don't. Care. Wardens are here ta help people get their lives back, and actin' cavalier 'bout takin' someone's life is pretty counter productive ta that, from where Ah'm standin'.

We've got a lot of extraordinary people here, who can do amazin' things, but we have become frighteningly dependent on one lone miracle. We're treatin' death like a time out. Death should be the hardest choice we make, no matter what world we're from, no matter how many reset buttons the Admiral is willin' ta press for us. It never should be treated lightly. Even in a place where it doesn't stick. And we certainly shouldn't get angry at someone when they choose not ta take a life, no matter what mess comes with that choice. Don't ya see how backwards this is? And we've been doin' it for a long time here. Ah imagine a lot longer than Ah've been around, and Ah can honestly say Ah'm ashamed for not payin' attention t'it sooner and speakin' up about it before now.

[She shakes her head, sits back. What else can she say on this?]

That's all Ah've got ta say.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...I'm new here. I don't know if I'm qualified to weigh in on this? But I...died as a result of the breach. Someone killed me, under the influence of that gas on the second level, and someone I love would have been killed if I hadn't stepped in. It was my first time.

...and not knowing what was on the other side...not really, not having died before...it was a very easy decision for me to make. The choice to die.

In my normal life, I'm a hunter. I have to make those choices: to kill or not to kill. I guess I have to make those choices here, too. I do agree that the decision to take a life should never be made lightly...but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be easy.

The man who killed me meant to kill one of my best friends. If I had time? My murderer would be death tolling right now instead of me. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to do.

I can see where the reset button you mentioned might make it easy for some to kill? But...I guess I just wanted to point out that some people here will never take that free pass into consideration. In my case? It's three individuals on this ship I decided to kill for, to die for, long before any of us got here.

If I kill for them? I kill assuming they won't wake up...and when I die to protect them, I do so believing it's the end for me.

And either way, the choice is always easy.

[For this one, she just feels sorrow. Clearly she's seen a lot, done a lot, and there's wisdom that came from it. Finally a warden that isn't harping on the catalyst, but is focusing on the point. But her final statement there is was makes Rogue sad. This girl sounds like an old soldier, and she's so young.]

Ah imagine that ease comes from a long time makin' that choice. Like liftin' a weight, it doesn't stop being heavy, but yer arm gets stronger.

[Allison can almost feel that sorrow, that sympathy, and it bothers her just a little, as it always does because she doesn't feel...deserving of it. The world just works a certain way, and she functions within it.

There are some things that simply are. Abiding by them doesn't make her better or worse than anyone...it's her actions in functioning that do that.]

It hasn't quite been a year for me. And it's still easy, it has been since I knew I had the power to do this for them. To fight, to bleed...to kill.

My people will die protecting others, they'll get killed because they value life too greatly to take it. That's why they have me, and that's where the choice comes in. Blood on my hands instead of theirs, preserving their lives and ensuring they'll keep doing good.

[She huffs, looking down at her hands.]

They think I'm an idiot for it...but none of them understand what they really are. Especially the one I came on this ship to save.

[Wow. This explains her ambition, her drive, and her skill, but the questions he's really curious about are unanswered. Why did she need to develop her kill-or-be-killed attitude? Sure, it had come in handy on the Barge, where things get pushed to their limits and beyond - but was it really that tense where she came from, that she is that used to it?

Duke frowns as he replies, a gesture that is luckily hidden.]

I knew "Katniss" worked for you.

[She's not expecting the message, but hearing Duke's voice makes her smile. She feels a little exposed...but it was in a public forum, so she's not surprised.

Hoping to brush off the weight of her remarks, she laughs a little with a wrinkle of her nose.]

Don't insult me, dude...I have much better aim.

Yeah, I know. You'd win the Games.

[He still sounds pretty pensive. They can dwell on the surface geekiness if she wants, but he's hinting at her attitude too.]

[She gets it, too...and she wants to poke at the geeky parts, but...damn it, it's hard when she feels this way now, and it's audible in the sad, somewhat hollow note in her voice.]

The Games don't end...but if I don't keep playing, more people just end up dying.

When did they start?

...when a cute boy loaned me a pen on my first day at another new school. If you want to get technical, I mean.

It really started when I watched him turn into a werewolf for the first time...the night I knew I loved him.

From:

theresalwayshope - Date: 2014-08-08 06:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

I am death tolling.

Is it painful?

I live in pain.

Good.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for that.

why

Because you were under the influence of that gas.

Would you have gone after Stiles without it?

Whoa.

[That's all she's got to say at first, New Friend. Damn, but she only thought she knew that you were hardcore.]

[And now Allison feels like she's stirred something up, just a little...she didn't mean to say anything profound, she just had an opinion! Her weary features may be a little pink as she blushes and shrugs with a barely there smile and a wrinkle of her nose.]

...yyyyyup.

I guess that's what being born to be a leader will do to you. Of a long line of hunters, no less.

[She's trying not to be a little intimidated. Trying to fit this in somehow with the pieces of Allison she already knows. Trying to sort through.]

I remember what it felt like when I knew Jennifer - what she'd become anyway - had to die. It did feel easy but, at the same time...there were a lot of things going on in my head anyway.