IGR Ren

So here it is:\n\n<<if $pain > $strat>>I want to keep them. I want to keep as much of them as I can. The older I am, the older I can stay. I <div class="tooltip">[[can't|age]]<span class="tooltiptext">Do you truly have no power?</span></div> age up. I die now, the next Ren ends up five, with a five-year-old's understanding of what I've lost.<<else>>I don't want to be eight again. I don't want to be <div class="tooltip">//[[younger|age]]//<span class="tooltiptext">Do you have no choice?</span></div> than this again. I'm sick of it! I can't do anything. Give me the time to work up to late twenties, maybe early thirties, and if you kill me then I won't even avenge it.<<endif>>

I'm...I'm begging you. Your...your mercy is the only way //I// can survive this. I don't care about //Renatum An Amurum//. They can go to Hell.\n\nI just want to save <div class="tooltip">[[everything]]<span class="tooltiptext">What does make you Ren?</span></div> that made me Ren.

<<set $strat +=1>>Yeah, I reckon. Oh, //no//, what're you going to do, <div class="tooltip">[[kill]]<span class="tooltiptext">I see no reason to change tact now.</span></div> me? Yeah. Yeah, <div class="tooltip">[[we're]]<span class="tooltiptext">What would you have from me?</span></div> sorting something out.\n

They expected me to know everything and at first it felt so obvious. Of course I was more than I was. Of course I was part of something - \n\nThen I worked out it must've gone wrong. //Their// Ren, late thirties, early forties, desperate or just so stupid that instead of searching they settled for some pathetic baby nobody, and I didn't have anything that I was //meant// to get. Just the feeling.\n\nBut they //wanted// to believe in me, and if they knew I was broken...so I played my role.\n\nWhen I die I don't know if I leave behind myself or something that thinks it might have been me once.\n\nI need <div class="tooltip">[[help]]<span class="tooltiptext">So. Make your case.</span></div>.

This has less to do with you than you flatter yourself to think.\n\nYou're not the first force to threaten the country, the world, all of known existence. You're not even the first we've faced. Well, not this face, but - \n\nWe didn't all make it out alive the first time, <div class="tooltip">[[we|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">Always the 'we'.</span></div> haven't this time, but we always do win. The world's not gone yet.\n\nI'm not gone yet.

<<set $strat +=1>>Arzan all over. Tragedy determined to be heroic epic which just makes it more tragic when it becomes the tragedy it was always going to be. \n\nNo-one else expected a heroic epic, so Arzan comes out of it the worse.\n\nI'm not living out a tragedy, by the way. Doing what you have to do to survive the way you want to, that can't possibly be a tragedy. That's called life, right? You do you. \n\nNariya liked saying <div class="tooltip">[[that|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Stolen philosophy. Profound.</span></div>.\n

By that point I was numb. There was still Demir left.\n\nLet me level with you.\n\nI //hated// Alemayehu. More than I've ever hated anything, for all I've been alive. I hated it with everything I had. Not just because I don't understand it - it was the opposite for <div class="tooltip">[[Nariya|Nariya.]]<span class="tooltiptext">About Apollinariya - </span></div> - but it didn't understand //me//.\n\n<<if $pain > 1.75*$strat>>Sometimes it felt like Alemayehu was the only one that was real. That I could believe in.\n\nAlemayehu was the only thing I knew was real and it didn't care. I don't know if it didn't see that or it couldn't see that or for all I knew it made a //decision// to not care and it doesn't matter because it's mud underfoot now. But that's the truth.\n\nI don't care that you killed it, not even a little.<<elseif $strat > 0.75*$pain>>A million billion years from now, intelligent life - people - they're just going to burn themselves out from the ground up. This world's going to be mine way after you're gone.\n\nYou think I wanted to share my world with //it//?\n\nYou did me a favour on that one.<<else>>I don't expect my shoes to understand me, either, but I don't have any reason to.\n\nI don't care, okay? If I had energy to care I wouldn't waste it on a <b>thing</b>.\n<<endif>>\nIs that what you <div class="tooltip">[[expected|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>?\n

You have done well <div class="tooltip">[[this|job]]<span class="tooltiptext">At what?</span></div></div> far.\n\nBut now Renatum An Amurum has arrived and I //will// be heard. I have a <div class="tooltip">[[deal]]<span class="tooltiptext">You think you're in a position to negotiate?</span></div></div> to make.\n

<<set $strat +=1>>Gave Nariya seven years and she shaped a space in the world, sculpted herself into it. People have the capacity for such...change. //Growth//.\n\nI've seen evil overlords rise and fall before. Nothing new under the sun, yeah?\n\nAfter, it gets good. That's what they say happened last time. None of stayed to watch, though they tried to find us. The world was waiting to see what came afterwards, and then it realised that we'd left, so then //it'// must be what came next, and up rises - \n\nIt won't be me. You have my word. Whatever this is, it's going to keep going.\n\nThe rest of the world's got nothing to do with me right <div class="tooltip">[[now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.

Whoa, whoa, don't just - calm down. We can reach an accord where neither of us have to bother with that. Just <div class="tooltip">[[hear|keep]]<span class="tooltiptext">What are you after?</span></div> me out.

<<if $pain > 1.25*$strat>>Arzan always saw me for what I looked like. Him and Nariya, questing across the land, Nariya's blood pulling at her heart, and what they were seeking out...well, Nariya showed me a portrait once. I was tall...long hair, ivory pipe. Back then I must have looked like all the power in the world. \n\nAnd then out I come and leap right into their arms. Arzan thought I was my own child, and Nariya tried to take me for what she knew I was - but she had plans that she had to change, when she saw...<div class="tooltip">[[this|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Did you come here to be self - indulgent?</span></div>.<<else>> I look like what I need to look like to play what I have to play. //This// is tactical, obviously. Expectations being high means nothing but trouble.\n\nYou underestimated me, didn't you? There you go. I'm telling you this to your face and you still can't help it. You <div class="tooltip">//[[still|now]]//<span class="tooltiptext">Did you come here just to talk yourself up?</span></div> think I'm everything I look like.<<endif>>

<<if $strat > 2*$pain>>That couldn't have gone more according to plan if I'd been in charge of the conversation.\n<<elseif $strat > 1.5*$pain>>Lost my composure a few times, but I think it went the way it needed to.\n<<elseif $strat > 1.25*$pain>>Could have gone better.\n<<else>>That was close. Barely in control of the conversation - kept it together by the skin of my teeth.\n<<endif>>\n[[...]]

<<set $pain +=1>>I'm not going to put you in a position where you have to beat up a kid. Just getting that out of the way - <div class="tooltip">[[best]]<span class="tooltiptext">We would not have qualms.</span></div> for us both, you'll agree.\n\nDidn't stop you killing Nariya or Demir of course. Won't draw a line - but if you were going to draw a line it'd be here. //Look// at these chubby little cheeks.

If you think for a moment that I'm going to //choose// you out of an entire world to explain how I work - \n\n<<if $pain > $strat>>It doesn't help. //I// don't help. I couldn't help <div class="tooltip">[[them|People]]<span class="tooltiptext">Tell me about them.</span>.</div><<elseif $strat > $pain>>If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Why do you think the <div class="tooltip">[[others|People]]<span class="tooltiptext">Tell me about them.</span></div> had to die?<<else>>That's not part of the bargaining. You're not getting knowledge, you're getting life. It's more than <div class="tooltip">[[my lot|People]]<span class="tooltiptext">Tell me about them.</span></div> got.<<endif>>

If you've seen one golem you've seen them all and people are the same if you see //enough// people. I've seen everything the world has to offer.\n\nExcept for Nariya. Things - the shape of her face wasn't right. Her stance. There are always people who talk different but Nariya spoke like the world was wrong, but if it was, she'd be wrong, too, just to fit in. She didn't care.\n\nI don't know how I feel about Nariya. I've never known how I ever felt about Nariya. I don't know how to understand this.\n\nI wanted to see her through, though. I <div class="tooltip">[[wanted|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div> to keep watching.

//No// no no. I'd very much rather not.\n\nI need those ten years. I need someone to guarantee <div class="tooltip">[[those ten years]]<span class="tooltiptext">...why?</span></div> and when Renatum An Amurum needs time, I throw my luck in with the side that'll be standing at the end.\n\n<<if $strat is 4>>Put aside whatever it is you think you're feeling. Be sensible.<<elseif $pain is 4>>For those ten years, everything I've got will be at your back. Do with it what you will.<<elseif $pain > $strat>>I can't accept that there's no part of you that will see sense.<<elseif $strat > $pain>>It's just strategy. They're - we're - not going to survive you.<<else>>That's the way the world goes.<<endif>>

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<<if $roll is 1>>Is that <div class="tooltip">[[all]]<span class="tooltiptext">That will do.</span></div> you wanted<div class="tooltip">[[?|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">One more.</span></div> I have a limited patience with this.\n<<else>>That's enough. I'm not here to eulogise. That's not the <div class="tooltip">[[point|all]]<span class="tooltiptext">Then get there.</span></div>.\n<<endif>>

It //started// with an uppity kid who figured we were less real than mythologised deciding to come find us, like it hadn't been long enough, like there was still an us, like //we// stayed connected. \n\nI always knew <div class="tooltip">[[everyone|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">Go on. Say it.</span></div> was out there. That was enough. Not a one of us made the effort.\n\nNot a one of us ever wanted to claim what the world wanted to give, afterwards.

<<set $pain +=1>>You've heard of me. This is what I do.\n\nGranted, I'm out of the running for a solid ten <div class="tooltip">[[years]]<span class="tooltiptext">That seems an overestimation.</span></div>. No arguments.\n\nI'm <div class="tooltip">[[helpless]]<span class="tooltiptext">You want to be underestimated.</span></div> right now.

<<set $strat +=1>>Yeah, well planned, neatly done, all that. But you don't have me yet, and you won't. That's not what either of us <div class="tooltip">[[need|keep]]<span class="tooltiptext">And what do we need?</span></div>.

Your age has ended, Ren-An-Amur.<<timedgoto "2" 4s>>

<<if $pain > $strat>>I don't think I normally see people more than once. Renatum doesn't return to the same people repeatedly, I hear. I don't jump in and out. Watching growing up from the outside is strange.<<else>>Big hulking brute of a thing. Shook the earth when she moved, and taller than anyone has any right to be. The way she swung that axe - like the blade of judgement descending from on-high.<<endif>>\n\nWhat do you want to know about Cevahir? <<if $pain > $strat>><div class="tooltip">[[Who|temperament]]<span class="tooltiptext">Did you like her?</span></div> she was? <div class="tooltip">[[Why]]<span class="tooltiptext">Did you fail her?</span></div> she died?<<else>>Her <div class="tooltip">[[role]]<span class="tooltiptext">What did she provide?</span></div>? How she <div class="tooltip">[[made it|lasted]]<span class="tooltiptext">How was she the last?</span></div> so far?<<endif>>

It is time for what comes next. <<timedgoto "4" 4s>>

There is more than one prophecy, Ren-An-Amur.\n\nThere is more than one chosen.\n\nThere is more than one way.\n\nThere is more than one family that has quested and lost in pursuit of their destiny.<<timedgoto "6" 10s>>

Sometimes it's negotiating with the dead. Sometimes it's just people who want to change. \n\nIf you're a nameless nobody and Renatum An Amurum makes a bid for your body...not many have refused and it's been a while.\n\n//This// was a bit of a desperate bid. But they were convenient and they were more or less empty. A few compromises with someone who didn't have the words to negotiate and: mine. Fresh start. A couple of years with the parents to repay the favour, but they could tell the difference and they didn't like it. Infinite mind, body of an eight year old, you get it.\n\nWhoever the kid thought they were, it's all Ren in here now. I'd like to <div class="tooltip">[[keep|in]]<span class="tooltiptext">So. Make your case.</span></div> it that way.

On my life, I will not let these losses be forgotten.<<timedgoto "8" 4s>>

I am as desperate as you are to survive to see the end of this.<<timedgoto "7" 4s>>

<<remember $rending to 1>>I grant your request.\n\nMuch good may it do you, and your legacy.

Renatum An Amurum

<<set $pain +=1>><<if $strat > 0.75*$pain>>Slow and soft the lot of them but when they get riled up: out come the teeth, froth from their lips, little slivers of pupil, and she destroys everything in her path. I don't think her mind even slightly functions. She sees us go into a fight, blink, fight over - saw. I meant past-tense. \n\nI can't fight, not like that, but your soldiers got her riled up and here we are. She made a dent in your numbers, I'm <div class="tooltip">[[sure|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.<<else>>There's two ways of looking at it. I can't decide which is better.\n\nShe's the only berserker I ever met. Don't know how it works. //Defense// was never a word in Cevahir's dictionary. I mean there weren't any words, I don't think she could read, but you see.\n\nThe second is that she died to save my life. In full possession of her mental faculties, even knowing that I'm inherently expendable and that she's one of a kind - she chose to save my life.\n\nI'd have stopped her, if I could. I'm //intrinsically// not worth it. But there's one thing I can do for her now.\n\nThat's what we're here to <div class="tooltip">[[negotiate|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.<<endif>>

Did you truly believe you were all that would ever be? <<timedgoto "5" 4s>>

<<if $pain > $strat>>Please let me keep them.\n\nThat's - that's all I have to say.<<else>>So what do you say?<<endif>><<timedgoto "1" 3s>>

<<set $pain +=1>>Okay, I can play this game. See? I'm playing.\n\nNariya. Demir. The hero team, those...idiots. Pow!, they're gone, the end. Now I can guaran - fucking - tee you'll get more trouble from me. <div class="tooltip">[[Unless...|keep]]<span class="tooltiptext">Go on.</span></div>

<<set $pain +=1>>Do I strike fear into your hearts right now? \n\nI haven't had the time to become who I should be. Not yet. But I will be back, and no matter what you've done - I'll <div class="tooltip">[[find|best]]<span class="tooltiptext">We could take our chances.</span></div> you. Even if it takes cutting out every memory of everyone I've ever been.\n\nRenatum An Amurum has been built from hate before.

<<set $pain +=1>>I treated it like the others to start. Maybe better than Nariya, because I called it by the only name I knew and Nariya kept tripping up.\n\nSome story there, but it said it was Alemayehu and there wasn't anything about it I bothered to remember for myself. It didn't care as far as I could tell, but Demir didn't like it. I think Nariya apologised to her more than to it.\n\nI made an effort. It didn't let me in. Too late <div class="tooltip">[[now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.

<<if $pain > $strat>>Nariya was too good. When I woke up as...//this//...young, and eager, I had two memories replaying in my mind's eye: my hand settled against the soft down of Cevvie's head right between her horns; and Nariya, flowers in her hair, words lingering on her tongue, fingers itching to slap the pipe right out of my mouth. Like <div class="tooltip">[[no-one]]<span class="tooltiptext">What made her so special?</span></div> Ren had ever seen, drinking it all in like everything was new. She made my eyes fresh. She'd have done anything I'd ask of her. She wanted everything so badly.\n\nThe <div class="tooltip">[[moment]]<span class="tooltiptext">How did it happen?</span></div> you killed her she was having the time of her life. She soaked up power just be being alive but she'd never let it all out at once. And the stuff she had learned - \n\nIf no-one but Nariya was left, you wouldn't be getting a chance now.<<else>>There were two things the last Ren asked me to hold more dearly than anything else. \n\nOne was <div class="tooltip">[[gentleness|Demir.]]<span class="tooltiptext">Who had to teach you that?</span></div>. I gave it a go, but it didn't take.\n\nThe other was hunger. Hunger for more, hunger to do everything in the world and once that's done, tear down the world to force something new to happen.\n\nI've tempered the two my own way, though I haven't had long: Don't take anything too far. Know when to stop, but know that nothing ever really stops.\n\nYou owe Nariya for that. Nariya has made me want to <div class="tooltip">[[see]]<span class="tooltiptext">What do you expect of us?</span></div> what you'll do.<<endif>>

<<if $pain > $strat>>Arzan had kids. He was just about the right age - he'd forget that I wasn't his, that I wasn't anyone's, that whoever's I was has to be a million years gone. Didn't matter what any of us said, doesn't matter that I ran right up to Nariya and swore myself in. He <div class="tooltip">[[snatched]]<span class="tooltiptext">You were stolen into this?</span></div> me from Mum's hands and he <div class="tooltip">[[couldn't|tragic]]<span class="tooltiptext">What do you mean?</span></div> get over it.<<else>>What a small, sad, <div class="tooltip">[[tragic]]<span class="tooltiptext">You pitied him?</span></div> man. Desperate to be the father figure for a lot of people who wanted anything over a dad. Should've known he knew less than any of us, knew us worse than anyone, had no power over us - \n\nShould have known he was always going to be a <div class="tooltip">[[sacrifice]]<span class="tooltiptext">That sounds...deliberate.</span></div> at the altar of our heroicism.<<endif>>

Ha! If you'd ever looked at her you'd know. She wasn't as big as Alemayehu but she was a wild-eyed beast on the battlefield. //It// was slow and Cevahir was frenzied when she warmed up. \n\nAlemayehu wasn't all that great in combat. Last time, big suit of armour, enormous hammer, crush the bones of the enemy soldiers, very impressive I'm sure.\n\nGive a lump of clay seven years to get soft out in the country and suddenly it's striding around wafer-thin and...gloopy. It had its ways, it was never useless, but Demir provided an invaluable service.\n\nYou're just lucky the last one alive is a <div class="tooltip">[[talker|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Nothing //but// talk.</span></div>.

<<set $strat +=1>>Last time it was my job to find everyone, but we had destiny to go on. <<if $pain > 3>>So I'm told. <<endif>>And I was only after two people who wanted to be found. Arzan had something to go on, but there were four of us to find, and there was more negotiation, but - \n\nAlemayehu and I were expendable. //Arzan// was faceless. If he'd considered what happened to the last person who led us...\n\nArzan was there to make it seem like there was something to join - easier than having us start ourselves - and then he was there to die. He did a good job of it, too, and it'd be a story for someone to tell his family, if anyone was there. Well <div class="tooltip">[[done|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Why do you bother?</span></div>.

<<set $strat +=1>>Of course you could. Though you wouldn't want to take it the whole way. You'd have to play it very cautious, the lot of you. \n\nAnd obviously everything you do to me will be returned <div class="tooltip">[[tenfold]]<span class="tooltiptext">That seems specific.</span></div> when I <div class="tooltip">[[return]]<span class="tooltiptext">But you must bide your time.</span></div> to you. \n

<<set $strat +=1>>You pushed her as far as she could go, and it was...<<if $pain > $strat>>I don't know. The words...I don't know what I wanted myself to do, but I wanted to keep my eyes on her. Any eyes.<<else>>beautifully done. Perfectly scaled. Was that on purpose? A marvellous fight. She used to describe it like watching fire work its way across the sky...<<endif>>\n\nAnother like that will never grace the eyes of Renatum <div class="tooltip">[[again|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.

<<set $roll += 1>><<if $roll is 2>><<if not visited("Demir.")>>[[Demir.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Nariya.")>>[[Nariya.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Alemayehu.")>>[[Alemayehu.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Arzan.")>>[[Arzan.]]<<endif>><<else>>Is that what you've been waiting for? You think I can't say their names? You think you can break me?\n\n<<if not visited("Demir.")>>[[Demir.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Nariya.")>>[[Nariya.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Alemayehu.")>>[[Alemayehu.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if not visited("Arzan.")>>[[Arzan.]]<<endif>>\n\n<<if $strat > $pain>>People die. What else is new?<<else>>They're all just names now.<<endif>><<endif>>

<<set $pain +=1>>At stopping us. <div class="tooltip">[[Killing]]<span class="tooltiptext">We thought it would be harder.</span></div> the //rest// of <div class="tooltip">[[them]]<span class="tooltiptext">We have killed many, child.</span></div>.

<<set $strat +=1>>Once over for every year you refuse me. \n\nWhen I want something, I //am// that something. It eats up everything else. Fills in all that space in my head.\n\nDon't make the one thing in the universe that could destroy you into your <div class="tooltip">[[enemy|best]]<span class="tooltiptext">Should we fear you?</span></div>.

Five's a good number for it. Votes never tie.<<if $pain > $strat>>Maybe another once, too, but - I don't know. I never knew. Not //me//.<<endif>>\n\nDaresay we could've gotten just as far, maybe farther with four even. But that's what <div class="tooltip">[[we|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">Always the 'we'.</span></div> kept Arzan around for. The ties.

Not - not as much as everyone thinks I do.\n\nCan I tell you a secret? I...don't think Renatum An Amurum exists. Not the way I - we - let people //think// we exist.\n\nI have feelings, sometimes. Just...feelings. I know the name. I //know// I'm Ren. I know there's always been a Ren. But other than that all I was given was two memories. Just two tiny moments.\n\nI think I get away with it? The reputation does most of the work. Act mysterious and wise and I don't think they notice. They don't want to notice. There's not that much difference between //won't tell you what I know// and //won't tell you what I don't know//.\n\nI wanted them to realise. I wanted them to work it out so bad - \n\nBut now <div class="tooltip">[[you|help]]<span class="tooltiptext">So. Make your case.</span></div> know.

<<if $pain > $strat>>You've picked a bad one there, I'm afraid. I never understood it, not a bit, and I <div class="tooltip">[[tried]]<span class="tooltiptext">What do you mean?</span></div>. I thought, if anyone would ever understand, then it - but it was furniture. It was scenery. It was a weapon waiting to be raised, and you don't get <div class="tooltip">[[sad]]<span class="tooltiptext">Some would.</span></div> when your shield breaks.\n<<else>>I had a scholarly interest, perhaps. A weapon isn't meant to decide it wants a different name. In a million years it and I could have been the only things still here - and it <div class="tooltip">[[gave that up|traded]]<span class="tooltiptext">What do you mean?</span></div>, I don't know what for. Those things don't usually work that way. \n\nYou see why I'd want to <div class="tooltip">[[remember]]<span class="tooltiptext">You say that word like it means something special.</span></div> that. There's not much I don't understand.<<endif>>

Your heroes are dead.<<timedgoto "3" 4s>>

<<set $strat +=1>>The blink of an eye for somethings like us.\n\nI'll level with you. I //want// to get back to my twenties. I like being in my twenties. If I had a better bargaining chip I might ask for thirties, but they're not worth the risk.\n\nI know the worth of what I'm asking for, y'see. I know how much is fair. I'm not going to push you into doing something we'll <div class="tooltip">[[regret|best]]<span class="tooltiptext">It would not be regretted.</span></div>.

<<set $pain +=1>>She would carry me on her shoulders when I was tired. Not infrequently. Never say anything, just swing me right off the ground up over her head.<<if $pain > 1.75*$strat>> She was the best of any of them. There wasn't a single one as true and honest and...none of us were as //good// as Cevahir. She deserved better.<<endif>>\n\nShe was never really there, not like Arzan and Nariya were trapped in every instant...Cevahir barely saw us, most of the time. You could see it in her eyes.\n\nShe wasn't cruel about it. She could never be cruel, she'd just - you talk to her and she flicks an ear and chews her lip and she's a million miles away, standing in the wheatfield at the start of it. Always on home ground.\n\nI hope she made it <div class="tooltip">[[back|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.

Keep me alive for ten years. However you want, as long as you don't lay a hand on my mind. It's the most valuable thing I have.\n\nOut of everything that exists in the world right now, I know you're the only force that can do that. I've seen overlords rise and fall and I know, I know, if you're in power now then you'll still be here in ten years, if you make a deal with the only force to stop you.\n\nI'll stay in a cage. I'll give you advice. I'll be your goddamn jester if that's what you want.\n\nBut I'm sure you'll see <div class="tooltip">[[sense]]<span class="tooltiptext">You're very confident.</span></div>.

<<set $strat +=1>>It's simple. I can pick what I want to remember, the next time around. The parts that I want to be formative. I bring all of it obviously, but who has time to sort out a million years of memory into a forty year old mind? Everyday, deja vu, so I worked out how to avoid it. It's bundled up neat and tidy and if I need it I can dig it out, but usually...I don't.\n\nThe important stuff I keep closer. I make it part of //me//, the identity, not the backstory.\n\nNow, I suppose, we get to the <div class="tooltip">[[point|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Wait...</span></div>.

Fine. It might make you understand this mess a bit better.\n\n<div class="tooltip">[[There]]<span class="tooltiptext">Once upon a time?</span></div> <div class="tooltip">[[were]]<span class="tooltiptext">Not any more.</span></div> <div class="tooltip">[[five]]<span class="tooltiptext">Does that matter?</span></div> of <div class="tooltip">[[us]]<span class="tooltiptext">'Us', or 'them'?</span></div>, to <div class="tooltip">[[start]]<span class="tooltiptext">And how did it start?</span></div>.

<<if $pain > $strat>>...\n\nHere's the trick of it, I think: the older the mind, the more I can keep. \n\nI think. I //think//. \n\nI don't know what happened to the last Ren that this was the best they could do. I don't know what happened to //this// kid that Ren was even an option. \n\nI <div class="tooltip">[[don't]]<span class="tooltiptext">There seems to be a lot you don't know.</span></div> <div class="tooltip">[[know]]<span class="tooltiptext">What do you know?</span></div>.<<else>>I don't like going down this far. I don't fit right. These arms are too short. I remember looking //down// at Cevvie and Seble and now - before - it's all up, up, up, and sure they were taller but so was I once. \n\nDon't like going up either. Nothing fits right that way either. The closer it is the <div class="tooltip">[[easier]]<span class="tooltiptext">You're not willing to work for it?</span></div> it goes.\n\nIf I can grow up the slow way, I can stay grown up as long as there are older people who'll <div class="tooltip">[[take]]<span class="tooltiptext">You seek permission?</span></div> me.\n<<endif>>

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<<set $strat +=1>>This is going to sound ridiculous, but it will justify something that probably made no sense to you - \n\nCevahir was the baby. Alemayehu and I, we're ancient, Arzan's a grown man and Nariya likes to talk of her childhood like it was another life. When they met Cevahir the first time she'd never left the place she was born.\n\nNariya and Alemayehu couldn't help themselves and Arzan was always going to be the first to die.\n\nAge //matters// to mortal creatures. Can't say I see <div class="tooltip">[[why|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">You speak of their deaths so casually.</span></div>.

<<if $pain > $strat>>Arzan tried so hard to believe in an <div class="tooltip">[['us'|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">An 'us' comprised of...?</span></div>. Desperate even enough to take an us - and - him. Like he was afraid of what would happen if we didn't live up to what he expected we were meant to be - well. Made him so quick to take responsibility for everything even before it started going wrong.<<else>>Barely a <div class="tooltip">[[team|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">Tell me about the team.</span></div>, of course, but Arzan liked his language tricks. Tried so hard to ingratiate himself when really...if you hadn't killed him first, I was a few days off it myself. He threw the group's balance out.<<endif>>

I'm surrendering myself. You don't <div class="tooltip">[[hurt]]<span class="tooltiptext">Why not kill you right now?</span></div> me, I don't come back in a few years and <div class="tooltip">//[[destroy]]//<span class="tooltiptext">How can you be so confident after losing everything?</span></div> you. I could, you know. Not now, but if you did anything, I could.\n\n<<if $strat is 2>>You'd be saving yourself a lot of trouble.<<elseif $pain is 2>>Maybe you didn't care for them, but you //will// listen to me.<<else>>It'll be easier for the both of us to hear me out.<<endif>>

Not like that - easier because it does what I want it to do, and it does it better. If you killed me where I stand, right now, I'd have to find someone to negotiate with, and if I had to go up I'd lose myself, too little of my mind and too much of //theirs// left. Ren tried that once, a thousand years ago, and I could feel myself going before I got out of there - \n\nSo I'd have to find someone ten or twelve. And you know what I'd do? \n\nI'd give up everything. I'd throw out a million years of Renatum An Amurum. Everything I have, except your face, your name, and everything you are. A history of human existence burned away just to kill you.\n\nWouldn't that be a waste of both of <div class="tooltip">[[us|in]]<span class="tooltiptext">So. Make your case.</span></div>?

<<set $strat +=1>>Nah, you don't have anything I want, believe me. I know exactly what I want. I've got it already. \n\nI just need some assistance with <div class="tooltip">[[keeping|keep]]<span class="tooltiptext">And how are we to help?</span></div> what I have.

<<set $pain +=1>>Just one now. But I was just one to start, and one day the world will come burning down, and //this// just one will still be here.\n\nI'm the only one who ever mattered. The <div class="tooltip">[[rest|Rollcall]]<span class="tooltiptext">Keep going.</span></div> were sacrificial lambs.

Canti

<<if $pain > 1.5*$strat>>I want my family. That's all I want. I don't want to pick and choose which bits for the next time round. I want all of all of them and I only get that if I get to grow up.\n\n//Please//.\n\nI'll beg if you want. I'll cry. I might do that anyway. Whatever you want, whatever you need. Please.\n\nThey //died// for me. Whoever I'll be next, my friends didn't die for. They didn't know. I won't know them.\n\nI have to keep them. Let me grow up. Let me keep them. \n\nI'm begging you.<<else>>You see it now.\n\nThere's no great consciousness. If there was //I// never got it. Maybe they fucked up when they jumped into a pathetic useless kid. All I got was a name, two memories, and an inability to be satisfied with who I am.\n\n//Them//, though. They were mine and no-one else's. You can have the world. I just want to save everything I am, right now, and I can.\n\nI just need a guarantee that I'll live for another ten years. Lock me in a cell. Enslave me. Whatever you do, you'll get the closest thing to immortality that exists in the human mind. I promise.<<endif>>\n\n[[...]]\n

There's not much worth trading for eternal life. I haven't found it yet, apparently.\n\n<<if $pain > 0.75*$strat>>Alemayehu had more certainty than I do. //I// have my...ups and downs.\n\nBut the only thing that could tell you why it saved us is destroyed now. I'd advise you to draw conclusions <div class="tooltip">[[yourself|now]]<span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div>.<<endif>><<if $strat > 1.5*$pain>>Alemayehu traded in everything it had become for Demir and me. There's something for you to learn from there. You're thinking I'm the most expendable of all, of course you are, that's what they all think.\n\nI'm the most expendable of all and everyone else still died first. You have to wonder why. \n\nThere are two possible explanations: either I didn't have a chance to stop them or there was a reason.<<endif>> Alemayehu knew I was worth it. It knew there were things I can accomplish that it couldn't. It knew I can beat you, and it knew it couldn't. \n\nSo you're lucky I'm doing <div class="tooltip">[[this|now]] <span class="tooltiptext">Is that all?</span></div> instead.

Or mythologised.<<timedgoto "9" 2s>>