thefarshore | (no subject)

Date: October 14
From: Anonymous

If, in part of your job, you capture an intruder at your workplace and used them as a hostage to call out their comrades, who had previously been found intruding and trying to steal something very important that you can't allow get stolen because protecting it is part of your job, and one of the people you know want to keep that intruder as a guinea pig (though you know that they probably wouldn't treat the prisoner badly, per se), and another wants to kill the intruder and all their comrades, but you think neither is a great idea, what would you do? I did as I was told and let them handle the decision making because my job is everything I have back home and I couldn't risk getting fired, but what if you could choose? Would it make a difference if it's an adult or a kid? This isn't ethically speaking, or what one should do, but what you would do in a similar situation, without caring about that.

[ So he recently remembered this scenario happening. He knows his decision wouldn't change because, his work in the military was everything that he had when he was alive, but if he'd had options..... He doesn't know what he'd have done then. Maybe that's why he's posting this question. ]

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[ D2 first remembered things back while Hakkai still was amnesiac, and that was not a time to tell him about ten years of interactions with a good friend and fellow soldier. ]

Doing my duty was what I was supposed to do since it's well, my duty. Doing as I'm told certainly makes things easier, but sometimes it still makes me wonder. Some people would surely not agree with either decision no matter the circumstances and I can understand that perspective. This particular intruder D4 had caught was a just kid and most of her comrades were probably teens so that wouldn't make matters easier. I have killed children before, but they were soldiers. Kids shouldn't be forced to be soldiers but in some parts of the world they unfortunately are. But I don't think that these ones are, even if I'm not sure. I would do as told, yes, but it still feels a bit different.

Yeah it doesn't. I really don't think that Professor Horner would do anything really bad, but I also don't remember enough about to know for sure. Still, if you ever happen to encounter him you should not tell him that you're not human.

I understand. But I'm also not the right person to judge anyone for killing, even killing children. If you had let them go, and they'd tried again, would you really have been saving them? Or just passing the difficult decision on to someone else?

Sometimes, there's no good path of action. You do what you can live with having done.

And thank you for the warning. Should I run into him, I'll keep it quiet.

Perhaps. I'm not really looking for judgment or agreement or anything, it's more, sorting out my thoughts on it and seeing what other people think, I think. Nobodys opinion would change my decision. If I had let them go, I would at the very least ended up on probation. But no I doubt I would have. And if I had then yes, it would have been. And in this case I was supposed to follow orders, not make my own decisions.

You're right. If only life was simpler though.

I'll warn you if I spot him. But he's short and eccentric, generally wears a lab coat, stands out a lot.

[ He could have said "easily distracted with pudding" except he doesn't remember that yet. ]

There's just something worrying about a person who thinks a lab coat is an everyday fashion statement, isn't there?

Ha ha. And in any case, I'm glad you're not looking for judgment or agreement. Your decision can't be changed, after all.

Life is so rarely simple, it's worth embracing it when it is.

You think so? You have experience with someone with a similar fashion sense too then?

Yeah it can't, well I wouldn't change it anyway but what's done is done and all that.

That is truth worth poetry.

A former god of mine quite liked them. Luckily, I wasn't with him for too long.

A bad god, was he? Or an unpleasant person?

Both, but I asked him to name me for those reasons. I hadn't taken my previous god's disappearance well, so I thought I'd inflict myself on someone who deserved it.

"Inflict yourself"? What are you talking about? You're too self-deprecating sometimes.

Though I can understand a bit.

It's not self-deprecation, at least, not in this case. I felt terrible guilt for having failed him. Naming me, at the time, was its own punishment.

[It hadn't ever really improved, at least, not until his ablution.]

How do you think that you failed him? If you don't mind me asking.

I don't mind you asking, but I'm afraid I'd rather not discuss the details. They're very personal.

In general, though... I'd been causing some problems for the Heavens. My first goddess disappeared immediately after the worst of it, and my second god after I'd started to get involved again.

Since then, I've accepted that we don't control who comes and goes, but at the time, I feared they were being punished for my sins.

Of course, I understand.

That's not a strange thing to believe. Even when one's been told that it's not under our control, it can be hard to come to terms with at first.

Yes. It's nothing other shinki haven't experienced. I realize I don't know... how many of your gods have disappeared?

Somehow it becomes normal after a while. Forrest is my third. He's lasted much longer than the other two did but I can't stop worrying a little.

A sort of normal, at least...

I can't blame you for worrying. But he's been here a long time, which is encouraging.

Yeah.

It is, yet it's something that can't really be controlled here so, well. But it was worst around the one month mark.

Yes. That's

I do remember how that felt. I'm sorry.

You don't have to say that. Still, somehow it feels like it matters more when someone who can relate says that. But it's fine.

I know I don't have to. I want to, that's all.

Yeah I know. Thanks, Hakkai.

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