Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”

The Holdfasts claimed all their preferences were divinely moral and treated any concessions as a violation of their consciences; where exactly did that leave the wants and needs of the rest of us? When anything we wanted became a sin or form of vice simply because it inconvenienced them for us to have it? All we did was become what they’d already convinced themselves we were. Ignoble and corrupt.”

The tension between past ideals and present realities is what enabled this war.”

time has allowed this country to begin questioning what is divine, and whether it matters.

The casual way he said it made it sound like he’d been given an unwanted house pet rather than a rabid monster that had a tendency towards decomposing while still alive.

“When I was a kid,” he said, his words rough, “I used to think it wasn’t fair that all the real wars were over before I was born. Used to be afraid I’d be one of the Principates everyone forgot, because nothing happened.” He looked down; he was ripping at his nails, all his fingers bleeding. “I’d do anything to have that now. I can’t taste anything now except blood and smoke, and I don’t feel anything except when I’m on fire. The stories made it sound so good. Fighting for a cause. Being a hero.” He shook his head. “Why does everyone pretend it’s anything like that?”

“Maybe that’s what they had to tell themselves, to live with it. Maybe it’s all they let themselves remember,” Helena said, but she, too, wondered that anyone who’d seen war’s true face would let it be so gilded.

Funny how often people in power hate politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised for it, and if they aren’t, then it’s all beneath them.

Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.

She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up. But you will do anything to save the people you feel responsible for.

“You’re wrong because I’m part of the universe,” she said. “A tiny piece, I admit, maybe never an important or mathematically significant one, but still a piece. You and I are not separate from it. No one is. It matters to me, everyone who’s died and everyone who will, and everyone who suffers. As long as I exist, I will always care. And that means that part of the universe does.” She smiled at him. “Doesn’t that make it all a little brighter?”

“If one person’s actions are enough to damn everyone, then the gods are terrible, and Sol is the worst of all.”

We don’t get to choose when we’ve done enough and leave others behind to bear the consequences. There are no civilians in a war like this. If they win”—she spread her hands—“everyone loses.”

You’ll notice that making humans die for them is the gods’ primary mode of operation.

I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

“What if it’s not that simple, though?” she said. “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we all remember it. What if it’s never that simple?”

Alone. Everyone dead. Because they always died. She tried to save them, but in the end, they always died. Her life was a graveyard.

They’d found each other once, after all. With time, they could do it again.

I’d tell myself: Someday you’re going to run away with him. Somewhere quiet. You won’t ask for very much, just you and him, and that will be enough.” A lump welled up in her throat, and she shook her head. “That was all I wanted. It was my whole dream, to see what we could be away from the war. I thought it would all be worth it for that.”

“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”