fridgetothefire | 043 ☣ to live and die before a mirror

[She's smiling with all her teeth, effusive, almost glowing.]

This was my second flood, when I first came aboard. Christmas cheer, and then truth. It ripped me apart. I told people who would become very dear friends that I wanted to see them and everyone like them wiped out. I told people about all my shames and fears and weaknesses. I told myself - because I knew, deep down - that my rationalizations were worthless, that I'd done unbearable things.

And then I had to bear it.

I'll always love this flood, for forcing me to face myself. For those of you who don't know me well: I'm Anya Lehnsherr. I murdered my father and I'm not sorry. I tortured my sister and I am sorry. I love more of the people who have hurt me than I probably should, and I love this place even though it's terrible.

I let Arthas make me into a vicious undead thing full of corrosive power a few months ago, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. It got me graduated, actually.

I've been here for sixteen months now, and I've seen and done and survived more than I ever could have imagined. I used to keep secrets like breathing, and I'm learning to let almost all of them go. So I only have one question.

What do you want to know?

[Private to Sylvanas, the third day]

I forgave you a long time ago. I thought you should know that.

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Why did you do it?

Do which part of it?

[He pauses, thinking of the signs he needs to be able to convey everything. He's affected, which means he has a sort of word vomit situation going on. Sorry, Anya.]

Your father, your sister. How did you torture her? Why aren't you sorry about your dad? Will you save her? What is family?

[She doesn't want to get this wrong, and she doesn't know all the words she needs - and she's not sure her voice will hold out, answering all of these - so she switches to text.]

He kept me prisoner and treated me terribly. Not violently - though I was afraid - but making me feel worthless, telling me I was, untrustworthy and insufficient, telling me I was just like the people who hurt me, who threatened all our lives, and that I was weak and useless because I didn't have powers. I believed him and I didn't believe him at the same time. I hated both of us.

He was going to take over the world, and he could have done it, too. Take it over to protect people like him, with the power to rip apart the planet with a thought, from people like me, who were bitter and scared and dangerous. He was going to rule them like he thought he ruled me.

I understand him a little better now. He wasn't pure evil. But he was a horrible person who once loved me, who took that love away and replaced it with contempt and controll, who warped me and forced me to live alone and in pain when I needed him most. And he was too damaged and too powerful to leave alive.

My sister could have helped me, but she wouldn't, because she was loyal to our brother, who had abandoned both of us, and it made me so bitter and furious. It started with solitude and sensory deprivation. Leaving her alone in the dark, in some awful corner, day after day. The more she refused the angrier I got. I hit her. It wasn't skilled. I didn't know how to torture people. But I knew how to rig up a current. I electrocuted her a few times. Eventually I killed her too. I could never let her go once I'd crossed the line like that; she'd tell father and he would kill me, or worse. So I killed her and framed him.

My first deal will be for her. To save her, to help her, to send her somewhere far away from all of us where she can have her own life.

Family is the people you're stuck with, or the people you stick to.

People fall apart when they lose too many things, too many pegs that they've decided will hold them up. But I think you're right. Understanding that people do things because they're hurting doesn't mean you have to let them go on. People treat forgiveness and empathy like it's going to give the other person license to keep abusing them when really it might just mean you connect with the person before you pull the trigger.

What happened after you framed him? Was your sister like you, without any powers?

My brother killed him for me. He thought he was bluffing, but I arranged it so my father would choose not to defend himself.

And then the war began, and I died.

No, Wanda had powers, she just couldn't control them well enough to protect herself from me. It was another division. Jealousy, and - just what I'd been taught, that we were on different sides.

I've found that the only families that really believe in sides are those that are climbing some kind of social ladder. What's yours involved in, politics or crime?

Yes.

Which is to say, terrorism.

[It takes him a moment to respond. The word carries a different connotation to him than it would to many other people, just because of the social climate he's from.]

Who are they trying to take out? And are you sure your sister would want to be away from it?

Humans.

Yes.

Edited 2014-04-03 14:06 (UTC)

You've proved the humans can win.

Why did your dad keep you around, when he knew you are human?

Edited 2014-04-03 18:27 (UTC)

Sentiment.

Glad you ended up here instead of him. [Even though it means she must have died back home.]

What would you do if he did show up here?

Laugh.

Scream.

Enjoy being in a position of power over him, and try not to abuse it. Explain things, if he'd listen to me. Meddle. Avoid him. Watch him seethe and squirm. Give him exactly one chance. Give him the same chance every idiot here gets. Give him no chance at all.

Pitch him over the side once, just for the hell of it.

Visit Erik until the urge to make him orange tarts and tell him how much better I am and beg him to love me passed.

Conduct myself like a mature responsible warden. Go a little crazier. Endure.

It's a peculiar thing about us all that parents hardly ever earn the devotion we give them.

He probably doesn't deserve to know you, even though he thinks he does.

I know.

Did yours?

No. Maybe. As a punishment, I suppose. I'm very much like my mother, in all the ways he hates, and I don't think it helps when I'm not around in his face with it. I guess you could say, I'm one reason he drinks. She's the other.

I'm sorry.

Thank you. But people find reasons to make all kinds of mistakes, and the reasons almost never add up.

Your father probably was the same way.

[It was all to protect you.]

Yes, something like that.

If he does show up, let me know if you need anything.

[You might have to remind him, but.]

043 ☣ to live and die before a mirror

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