Sorry I haven't posted the last few days, but I've had a lot of work to do. I had three Chosen at once, and no one to help me. At least when we'd get so many before, there were two of us to handle the workload. I do sort of have help, but neither Jet nor Delphi have much (any) experience. Delphi, you'd know her as Melissa... she's made such progress! Her mental voice is a bit clumsy and unpredictable, but she'll be a great interrogator some day.
She's completely healed now. Her and Jet have fallen in together like old friends, else I probably wouldn't have included him in our sessions. Who knows but that Jet and Delphi won't end up as hunters instead of interrogators. With her mental abilities, she'll have no trouble identifying Chosen, and Jet's a teleporter and very good at snatch and grab. I'm still working with her to uncover memories of other lives. She has impressions of many wars... the civil war, I think Vietnam, and so many others.
Well, her ultimate job is for Father to decide when he comes back to check on Delphi's progress. There's no telling when that will be, but she has to face his approval eventually and be given his blessing. What that is, is hard to describe, but not everyone walks away from it. We die a little and are reborn, part of our soul taken by Father, mixed with his own energy, and returned to us. A "reaffirmation of our familial ties" as Mercury calls it.
One of the three Chosen, ugh, he turned out to be Igigi, a bad one. I had to hollow him, and unfortunately I'm not very good at filling up the space left behind. So I hollowed him and gave him a few compulsions and normal urges (you know... eat food, go to the bathroom, obey anyone in a mask) before some of my siblings transported him elsewhere. Someone else will decide who he should be and what purpose he will serve. Hollowing always makes me feel... sluggish. Like I just ate a big meal.
Of the other two Chosen, one snapped by the second day and started babbling in ancient Egyptian. That was interesting. That life must have been very close to the surface. He was a Heri-sesheta in that life, a "priest of the secrets" aka a wizard. (hahaha He threatened me when his other life emerged, thinking I was a demon sent by his enemies to torment his sleep.) His talents will be invaluable to the family; magic is just a round about way for humans to manipulate energy. It's something the Anunnaki once did as easily as breathing, but so much of our power was stripped from us when we were imprisoned.
The third, she might end up hollowed too. She's definitely Anunnaki but so stubborn. If she is hollowed, I'll be very disappointed in myself because she's very resourceful. She's escaped three times, and she's only been with us five days. I mean, that's a useful skill. You can't teach that kind of resourcefulness, least not in the space of a few months, which is all the time I'm usually allowed. She hurt someone the last time though, and that can't be allowed. I'm afraid if she gets out again, my siblings just be too irritable to capture her a fourth time.
Why don't you just let her go if she doesn't want to stay?
ReplyDeleteAlso. You wouldn't happen to know a guy calling himself Onlooker. He'd be tall, annoying, red mask covering 3/4ths of his face, likes to stare at girls just to bug them.
Delphi? I like that... very appropriate
ReplyDeleteI am glad that, aside from the escape artist, things are going relatively smoothly for you...
When you were little, Opal, did your parents ever try to get you to eat something you were sure was gross? And you finally tried it then or years later and realized it was actually pretty good? That is exactly why we can't let Seraphina go. I love her name BTW. Too bad she won't be keeping it. Once she realizes all that's been taken from her and kept from her, she'll be as grateful as Delphi and me and every other Anunnaki who's been woken up. I little pain is worth it, or so they say about the process of birth.
ReplyDeleteAs for your new friend, I thought all boys liked to stare at girls. :3 hehe Maybe he knew you when you still knew yourself.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wolfie :) It has it's ups and downs, but I have a lot less personal time to play on the internet now. lol
ReplyDeleteA better comparison would be a parent telling their child to live there life exactly how they want. This is a bit different then what food she wants to eat. This is a life decision you're making for her. Eating peas won't change who you are so drastically. She deserves a choice in a matter like this, and it looks like she doesn't want to change. You have no way of knowing if she'll be happy with that life, just like a parent doesn't know if their child will like their food or if it will give them an allergic reaction.
ReplyDeleteShe should have a choice.
If she never knows what she's been missing, how will she know what she wants? Believe me, most siblings are grateful for the chance to know themselves and belong to a family that will cherish them. So many of us come from "broken" homes where we were neglected or outright abused by the ones who should have loved us. Here once the initial pain has passed, all of us have the joy of knowing we are wanted, that our family came to find us and take us home despite centuries or millennia of searching.
ReplyDeleteI admit I had started to worry about you a little when those you had previously named as the Assassin and the Acolyte made such a bold attack... I know it wasn't directed at you, and I know you can fight but still... be careful
ReplyDeleteAnd I must agree that I feel much better working with Ritter than I ever did with those who hurt me
ReplyDeleteNothing is ever certain. How do you know you don't just feel happy and think you have all these memories?
ReplyDeleteWhen people come back none of them are especially happy with the things they did while being proxies, and most of them are glad to be who they were originally.
There's also the fact that you and your group are the only ones I've heard of who are preaching this whole reincarnation stuff, so how do you know you're right?
How do you know this isn't all a big hoax to get you to do his dirty work?
And a fun fact on reincarnation. Every major religion in the world says that killing is wrong. Not that dying is wrong, but killing. So quit playing around with life like it's so insignificant, even if you do get more than one. Changing is the same as dying in a way.
Wolfie, I know! No one had heard from them in years, and now the Assassin is hitting enclaves all up and down the east coast. o_____0 There's talk of scattering again... a plan which Liger is all for BTW. :/
ReplyDeleteOpal, considering I have a hand in helping others uncover their previous lives, I think it's a safe bet that I know what I'm talking about. :3
ReplyDeleteAs for those who leave the family, people say "war is hell." After so many years of living false lives, piled one on top of the other, some are just too well buried to remember their duty or their rage. But freedom is worth fighting for, or so the founders of this country believed.
As for every religion, they are all based on the lie that we are meant to serve the gods and be grateful for this life. But this life is a burden placed on us "to redeem us" of our sin of rebellion. The winners write the history, so of course their mouthpieces would try to convince us that this life of oppression is worth living.
Seeing how this is coming from the person who fed this girl's own sister to her, no I wouldn't trust anything you say.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between people volunteering for a war and you torturing them until they decide that they will fight for you.
You aren't other people, you can't speak for them.
Killing isn't any less wrong. Especially when these people haven't done anything to you.
You're acting like the past life is all that matters, but that's total crap. You don't care an inkling about who they are now.
Not everyone comes from a life like yours' you know. Some of us have things we want to fight for in this life. And I refuse to believe the path you're walking is really one that leads to something better.
Freedom is not something someone chooses for you.
Ty, maybe this is a dumb question, but is there any way that you could make a few friends or otherwise arrange to be separate from Creepy McPedocat in the event that everyone scatters?
ReplyDeleteOpal... Don't take this as a personal attack (because if I was going to attack you, it wouldn't be with words heh), but so long as you continue to comment here, I'll continue to comment on your blog. However, you've told me more than once that I'm never going to convince you, and I quote, "If you're here looking for an argument I told you, I'm not in the mood."
ReplyDeleteYet you come here to argue. You clearly are in the mood. You either want to be convinced, deep down inside, or you come here merely to pick at a convenient target. You're just lucky I have more patience than many of my siblings. If you are ever brought to me, I will do my very best to show you how wrong you've been.
As for killing, in the end, it is merely expedient and the lesser of two evils in our eyes.
Wolfie, the problem is Liger's an elder, and while I have certain gifts that make me important to my siblings, I also haven't remembered a single past life, not a recent one and not an early one. I'm completely in the care of others because they don't fully trust that I won't run away as others have. Even Mercury is only about 200 years old, and Liger is much older than that. If we do scatter, Liger is in charge of me unless Father says otherwise. Of course, now that Inquisitor is gone... there's less sense in sending me away. I have work to do. So it might be that Liger wouldn't get his way after all.
ReplyDeleteWay to totally change the subject of a discussion. I don't take it as a personal attack, I'm acting in a way that I hope will possibly save this girl.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes when I posted that last week I really wasn't in the mood because my friend had just vanished for good.
Me and my need to be right however have come back with a vengeance.
Ty- I hope he doesn't
ReplyDeleteNot changing the discussion, just pointing out an inconsistency between what you say and what you do and letting you decide if you wanted to continue to pursue this.
ReplyDeleteDelphi is happier now than she's ever been. Despite what the Darkling did to her, she has a purpose now and a family that accepts her, and her talents are not being wasted and ignored by people who are ill equipped to appreciate them. Her sister was cruel to her. I've offered to list her crimes twice, but you have yet to take me up on it. Their parents turned a blind eye to it... just the normal rivalry some twins developed they supposed. It wasn't. Delphi is much better off with us.
Why torture? Why mindgames? For the simple fact that there's no getting to the memories underneath until the most recent memories are fractured. We've tried drugs... I use some in my sessions. We've tried just digging in and ripping minds apart... that doesn't work so well actually. That just makes fragments, and while some can sew those back together into some kind of working personality, I can't.
The best way to get at these memories is to give them the tools to break through themselves. The easiest way to do that is do things which generally go against societal norms, taboos, cannibalism for instance. Mankind has resorted to cannibalism in the past, even as a funerary rite. But at this point in time, it's rather frowned upon. Given their relationship, Iquisitor decided that was the best way to get Delphi to wake up. It worked. I can't argue with results, even if it's not really the way I would have gone.
I explained our stance on killing. And isn't it just convenient that whenever the predominant religions decide that killing is necessary, they find ways to forgive it. This is a holy war, Opal. Killing is to be expected. Atrocities will be committed. If you've studied history, you know that's unavoidable. Why penalize us for what people have always done? Why this double standard? If you can't absolve the past atrocities of the Christians, the Muslims, the holy wars mentioned in the Old Testament where every living thing was slaughtered, before Marduk (the nameless god of the Christians) was "gentled" by the New Testament and made a "god of love" (which is sadly hilarious considered the atrocities he's responsible for), then you can't condemn us for adopting the tactics of our enemy, which is namely to slaughter those who would hurt us.
And just so you know, remembering the past doesn't necessarily make you forget the present, though it can if the past is strong enough... like my new Egyptian friend (who refuses to give his name for fear I would use it against him). Delphi remembers being Melissa. She also remembers being at least four other people. Knowing her past, she will select from those memories skills her current personification lacks. She will take strength from past triumphs and she will learn from past mistakes, and she will (has) create a new personality which is an aggregate of all of them.
I hope that clears up any misconceptions you may have had. Feel free to ask more questions and will give you in depth answers which will continue to meet with your dissatisfaction. I know nothing I say will ever win with you, sadly. I'll just have to hope your new special friend decides you're one of us and not one of them.
A great deal of Holy Wars was just a cover for political gain, and many of the soldiers were lead astray or corrupt. Those were the most awful and atrocious wars, and the ones where most political problems stem from today.
ReplyDeleteJust some food for thought if that's the best excuse you can come up with.
Very well. Don't say I never tried to stop you from stabbing yourself in the foot with your own pride. Don't think I don't appreciate the opportunity to explain my purpose and parts of our history. If you won't be driven away, I suppose you'll just have to suffer the attention you bring to yourself by talking to me.
ReplyDeleteAs for this War, we didn't start it. We're victims of it, but if we don't stand up to our oppressors, there will be thousands more years of the same. Think of it in terms of the civil war. We are the North, and they are the South. But if we fail, all the slaves get knocked back way past the stone age.
The civil war was fought over something else entirely. No one, not the North or South, really cared about the well being of the slaves. It all came down to resources and money really.
ReplyDeleteI think the example you're looking for would be the killing of the firstborns in the Old Testament.
But even that wasn't as heartlessly cruel as the things you are doing.
Hmmm, I won't mention the Abolitionists or the efforts of the Quakers then. But like many who fought in the Civil War for economic rather than social reasons, you have missed the point of my comment entirely. Reread the first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteAnd killing the firstborns was the work of our Enemy. It's an insult to compare us with any of the plagues. I love everyone, and those I am forced to kill have my deepest pity. At least when we win, they will be given every opportunity to reincarnate and be better people without our Enemy's influence.
Well that was the only example of a holy war that had a just outcome, and was unavoidable that I could think of.
ReplyDeleteI don't pretend that bad things don't happen in this world, and I don't pretend that sometimes pain is necessary to bring good.
But this is wrong.
The only sacrifice peace can come from is self-sacrifice. You don't plow over others to get to what you want. It ultimately will just lead to more hatred, more death. The excuse that people achieve happiness through these sacrifices isn't acceptable either.
Giving your own life to save someone is right. Taking the lives of attackers to protect someone is forgivable. Taking the lives of innocent people to save someone is selfish, and disgusting.
If you want to bring peace to the world and true joy, then the path to doing so is through kindness and compassion. You don't declare wars you try to understand and comprehend other sides, and you discuss issues peacefully, and set examples for others to follow.
And if you say something like, "People can't do that on their own," you're only arguing the weaknesses of people. People can do great things through peace, they just have to let go of their baggage and work together. And if people keep believing that cooperation is impossible than bad things will continue to happen.
And if there's anyone in the world who has a chance, and all the utilities to make the world better peacefully, it's you and your possey sweet heart.
Yet you bathe in blood and spend your time justifying it.
Maybe if you quit playing mind games, quit torturing and killing and causing fear, you could do something great.
Yes it's harder, yes it sucks, yes people are idiots.
But it's the right way to do it.
There is no peaceful solution when our Enemy will soon return. You don't understand what's at stake here, and there are some things I can't say publicly for fear his servants might see and be forewarned. Innocent lives... in all honesty, if we fail, the innocent are better off for having died now.
ReplyDelete