sirenspull | [Video]

In three more days, it'll be two whole years since I've been pulled here.

[Joe Fieldman is sitting at the top of his apartment building's fire escape, facing the sunset. Ten minute siren warning has just ended, but there's still light left, and the blinking light of the radio tower is not too far off, backed by the skyline of downtown: the shining walls of SERO's ultra-modern skyscrapers glimmering sleek, and the top of AGI's corporate tower standing tallest as a dark spire against the sky beyond that, in the far distance.]

...That's really weird, how fast it's been. It feels like it wasn't so long ago, that I walked into my apartment in the Towers (All the way up on the top floor!) and found out the landlord had already put Riku there, figuring I was the same exact person who'd already lost the room key. 'Stupid newcomers', right?

Two years, and I should take time and look back on everything I've done with it. But that's not really so much as I'd like it to be.

I've made plenty of friends. And had good times with them. I found a name. I got stronger, and fought lots of monsters in the darkness- I've still got to run into about half of them that Darwin's got listed in the guide. Learned bike tricks from the guys at the skate park. Won a film contest, first place (okay, so Mr. Cohen did do most of it, but I was a good 'disciple'). Survived some earthquakes and riots and craziness. I learned a lot about wiring and sound tech and how to put on good music for a club. I joined and then quit a company. Got a tattoo. Got permanently kicked out of SERO's crummy arcade. Fought some witches- which I heard saves the universe, but it doesn't make so much around here any better. Helped run that metal concert, which was a smash hit.

Still, that's hardly everything. And that's what's been bugging me the most. It's been a long time since I've really done anything important. Anything to change this place around, for the better. I mean, I protect my friends, but-

But some of my other friends have gotten killed, or gone away- or other bad stuff's happened to them. And there's not much I've figured out how to do, about changing that.

Does everyone who wants a better life to live in this city ever feel stuck this way? Like you have no clue what you could do next, to really make a difference?

Back in other worlds, some people who get pulled here are heroes...

I've been thinking- maybe it's really time I get serious and do something. But I don't know where to start, in a place like Siren's Port. How to do it. There are still days I feel like I don't even know who to be.

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Mm . . . I'm sorry. It would be really hard to be away from home that long.

Sometimes . . . I've felt like there was more than I could possibly do. Does that count?

This place is my home. There's no place else to back to- and I don't ever want to, unless all my friends can also go there.

Well it's not that I have to do everything. I just think I should be able to do at least something, to make a real difference.

None of this fooling around, kid stuff.

Ah-- [A sharp blink.]

. . .

I guess it would be something to be sorry about for me. I never met anyone who was actually happy to be pulled out of their world.

. . . What kind of difference are you wanting to make?

((ooc: Did you get my email, by any chance?))

It wasn't really a world. Just a place in between. It wasn't really much of a life before, either.

I don't know. Just something that means something. I want to stop the companies for bullying everyone around. I want to make things better for the people I promised to protect.

((ooc: Augh, I kept forgetting to check that, hang on))

[Honestly, Aoko is a little uncertain about this. The idea of going home, being home is so ingrained in her, so absolutely at the core of her being, that it's almost impossible to imagine not wanting to go back. Especially from a world that's so different from her own and . . . well, that hates Newcomers, nonetheless.]

[So for now she puts that aside in favor of the other subject.]

It's a really big goal.

[Did she ever sound like that? . . . Somehow she thinks she did. The thought shifts uneasily in her gut, heavy like a rock. With almost uncharacteristic hesitation, she tumbles thoughts in her head, grasping for the right thing to say. This feels important, to respond to this feeling from him . . . the rock in her stomach is cold with dead weight.]

I think . . . there's always that feeling. That you've never done enough. Even if you've done something huge. It never feels like enough. Feeling . . . helpless in the face of knowing that.

That . . . you're really very small.

So you're saying there's no hope that feeling could ever change. That everybody, even people like heroes, feel that way?

I think . . . heroes and villains, maybe everyone feels helpless. Sometimes.

[It's easy to be philosophical in this kind of situation. But is it something she believes? She finds herself biting the inside of her cheek.]

I'd like to believe what we do about it defines us.

[But she's not so sure about that one either. It feels like something old, recited in the brain until it's made truth.]

[At that moment, the urge is very strong -- to get up, to find Kaito. But again she knifes into the side of her cheek, wraps her legs around the stool, forces herself to stay put.]

I think . . . we never stop feeling helpless in front of what we care about. Because we know we could lose it, and maybe there would be nothing we could do.

. . .

But . . . I don't think that means I would want to stop trying, either. If I could have even the slightest hope, I think I'd still put out my hands to try.

I think . . . you -- anyone -- just have to come to terms with the idea that it's maybe not going to be enough.

[She laughs, and it's a small, wild laugh, half-hiccuped, strained -- potentially dangerously close to tears.]

'M not saying I've succeeded at that, either.

S-Sorry. I'm probably not making a lot of sense.

Edited 2012-03-13 02:23 (UTC)

But that's half the trouble! If I knew what to do- [He begins to protest with a frustrated noise. Knowing the right thing to do... you can feel it in your heart when it's one choice or the other, that's usually not so hard.

But when you aren't sure where to start?]

I don't even know how to try, or where to start-

[He's distracted, though, by noticing the way she laughs- it's tense, and so Joe frowns with concern.]

Hey... hey, are you okay? You sound really hurt. What's wrong?

[She's not doing very well at this, is she? She's not sure which worries her more -- the fact that she's losing some control or the fact that he's recognizing it. Quickly she swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, firming her chest. How foolish is she looking right now?]

S-Sorry. 'M trying to help . . .

I guess . . . I wanted that too, once. To do something really big. I know that feeling -- wanting it so much.

But . . . sometimes it's better to start small. If it's too big . . . it can eat you.

Eat you?

[He blinks, startled by a warning like that, even if he figures she doesn't mean it literally.]

So... How did you start small, instead?

[Aoko really hesitates to answer this.]

I didn't.

Just . . . be careful, okay?

Please?

Look, I don't even know how to start small, let alone big.

So you haven't got anything to worry about.

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