apocalypsehowcomm | let it all burn down, burn it to the ground

[Caitlyn's gaze is fixed on the stranger. She won't look at her mum and dad; she can't. Because deep down she knows that the stranger is right, that this version of her parents would choose the stranger, and she knows looking at her parents would only confirm that. It would hurt too much. So she focuses on the stranger instead, on finding answers.]

Not angry, no.

[She knows the stranger's accent because it's too like her own. She's looked into those eyes and seen something that reminded her uncomfortably of herself, of the type of person she could all too easily have been.

She's not angry, but neither does she have the patience for playing games.]

Take off the mask, Aelwyn.

[For a few moments, she's taken aback.

Well. Caitlyn is an impressive one. It's a dream, to read her within the bounds of her own seat of power is... interesting. Sharp.

Aelwyn is a liar, a cheat, a thief and a murderer, but she can show respect when it's warranted. So her hands reach her mask, and rip it off. It feels rather a lot like severing a limb, but in the dream, the pain is inconsequential.

Aelwyn Abernant looks back, a small smile on her face. It doesn't meet her eyes. Now might be the point where Caitlyn can notice that it almost never does.]

You're quite good at this, you know. I underestimated you.

[Caitlyn doesn't return the smile. Even if she felt like it, Aelwyn's smile doesn't seem like one worth returning. There's nothing warm in it.

She's not going to be distracted by Aelwyn's compliment. She knows she's good at this, and she's used to people underestimating her. So instead of responding to Aelwyn's words, she simply narrows her eyes, frowning at the other girl as she tries to figure out what's really going on and, more importantly, why.]

Why are you doing this? [She's more thinking aloud than directing the question to Aelwyn.

The portraits featuring a little blonde girl where Caitlyn should be, the extravagant meal piled onto Aelwyn's plate while Caitlyn got scraps, her parents' affections... Does Aelwyn want all this for herself, or does she simply want to take from Caitlyn? Or, perhaps, both?

Either way, Aelwyn doesn't seem to be enjoying herself very much.]

Is this really what you want?

It's what I am. [She says that with so much certainty. It's not sad, it's not cold, it's just a fact.] I take things from people.

And I needed the fear to win.

[Caitlyn did provide her with it, but not enough. Fear. She needs fear. She needs to feed. If she doesn't, Ava will continue. And then...

Well. She has a long list of people she needs to destroy.]

Nothing personal.

[Ah. So this is about feeding an Entity. It never would have occurred to Caitlyn that someone who works with ADI would try to do that. Not deliberately. Not to this degree. Which Entity is it, then? This all seems designed to twist Caitlyn's relationship with her family, to... corrupt it, destroy it. The Corruption, perhaps, or the Desolation. From what Caitlyn's read of the Entities, it could be the Lonely or the Stranger.

I take things... The Desolation?

She can't help her mind beginning to spin in an attempt to figure out which Entity is at play here, but she also knows that's not the most important thing.

It's what I am. Caitlyn grew up in the same circles she imagines Aelwyn did; the veneer of wealth and gentility barely covering the the greed, the manipulations, the backbiting; the overwhelming pressure to look and speak and behave a certain way; the recrimination for failure to conform to the narrow box in which one is expected to fit. So is what Aelwyn says about herself true? Or is it merely the box in which she's been put?

Caitlyn would very much like to say something petty and biting about Aelwyn being either a servant of the Entities or choosing the most moronic way imaginable to fight them. But instead, she bites her tongue - and, momentarily, her lower lip - and tries a different approach.]

This doesn't have to be what you are. Not if you don't want it to be.

[She hears Caitlyn's words, and it's like someone's added a feather on an already huge mountain of slights and resentments. She feels a deep hate for this world down to the rotten depths of her corrupted evil soul, and her fists clench so hard against the table that her knuckles go white.

'I just think there's another way' 'I just want to change the way you see things' 'They're all misguided' 'It's like an addiction' 'Magic shouldn't be used under any circumstances.'

She wants to kill Cait right there. To wrap her hands around the other girl's throat and do what Adaine should have done to her on that rooftop - rid herself of the parasite.

But instead.

She laughs. It's... almost fond?]

God. You even sound like her, too.

The choice has always been to be this or be the victim of their abuse. Here it's just a little more violent - where victim means being ripped apart by insects or fed to a fire god. Sorry, but I made that choice for myself when I was just a little girl. You're not going to convince me.

I'd rather burn this world to ash than let myself be helpless again.

[She scoffs.] You hurt other people to stop yourself getting hurt?

[The logic seems utterly backwards to her. The more pain and misery one inflicts, it seems to her, the more pain and misery will exist in the world, and that... well, it sounds painful and miserable.

And Aelwyn, from what she's seen at dinner, does seem pretty miserable.]

And to keep others from getting hurt. At least here, I can do that. [She looks out the window at the repetitive circle of houses, all identical, all just as empty as this one.] You really don't understand, do you? And they say I'm sheltered...

[She crosses her arms and leans back. Her eyes are sharper, evaluating. There's a fire brewing beneath, of course. She remembers why she hated to live in this family, how weak they made her feel.]

The past doesn't matter. In this world, I need to feed on fear and pain, or else I'm powerless to defend myself. Like you are. Right now.

[Caitlyn scowls. Even if she's loathe to admit it, she knows she's not as worldly as someone who's had opportunities to see more places and meet more people. But she does hate to be called sheltered.]

I get by just fine without inflicting fear and pain on others, thank you.

[There may be some nerves hiding beneath her rather terse tone. What Aelwyn's saying sounds like it could be a threat, and if Aelwyn has magic, Caitlyn's not sure what she could do to protect herself from that.

But she's also noticed that Aelwyn's smile never quite reaches her eyes, and she can't help but wonder about this scenario Aelwyn's cooked up. Caitlyn's always had her parents and Jayce, and even though they have their differences, she loves them and knows they love her. Does Aelwyn have a family at home who loves her, or were her family dinners more reminiscent of the awful affair they just suffered through? Is Aelwyn the sister left out of the family portraits?

Her eyes stray to one of the paintings hanging on the wall, and the little blonde girl who doesn't belong.]

[The painting seems to flicker into another visage the more that Caitlyn looks at it, as it becomes more of Aelwyn's dream than it is her own. There's a cat where there wasn't before, perched on the blonde girl's shoulders, and the smile that was on her face is gone, replaced by a dead eyed stare. Her dress is splattered with blood, and Caitlyn's parents have had their faces completely burnt out. Except for the eyes that aren't theirs, large and judging and cruel, with no scrap of love between them.

On the edge of the painting, there is another person, like she's been deliberately left out of frame, but her outfit - or what little is seen of it - is identical to Aelwyn's.

The cat looks at Caitlyn and winks.

Aelwyn doesn't notice. She just scoffs at Caitlyn's naive posturing. She doesn't know what she wants from this. Does she want cold dismissal? Anger? Sympathy? It's all a dream, and she knows how these go at this point. She's only been through this a few dozen times.]

Do you?

[She snaps her fingers and shatters the glass of the front window, letting the cool air into the empty house and flickering all the lights off. She smiles, satisfied. The cat's eye only grows brighter.]

I do want to help, you know. I don't expect you to believe me - nobody else does, they think I'm a monster - but I do want to save the world. It would have all been so much easier if I didn't care at all.

[The shifting painting captures Caitlyn's attention completely. Those aren't her parents in the painting anymore, she's sure of it despite their faces being gone. Are they Aelwyn's? How badly did they hurt Aelwyn to make her believe that the only way to keep herself safe was to hurt other people? She's so enraptured watching the painting change and puzzling over it she doesn't realize what Aelwyn's doing until the window shatters.

She cries out in surprise, flinging an arm up to shield her face from the flying glass.]

I believe you. [She does.] But you've chosen the worst way you could to go about it. How can you fight something when you're actively feeding it?

[She says she believes her. That's... honestly a relief. The only person she trusts to know her intentions is Mercy. The only person she loves. Her only reason for living.

Jeff might have understood, but he didn't care what happened to the world beyond the fact that he lived there. She's no better, she's sure he understands that. She's just more... single minded and obsessed with a goal that's impossible to reach. If she can pull it off, she'll be worth it. Everything she did will have been worth it.

Does Caitlyn understand? Really understand? Maybe not. But... Aelwyn, even in her state in this dream, she suspects that she wants to.]

We're feeding it either way. [She smiles.] The entities are fear. Fear is in everything. You don't put your hand against the stove because you're afraid of what'll happen when it burns you.

ADI feeds it by throwing us at it undefended. They feed it by ripping our identity away, our agency and our strengths and threatening to lock us up for continuing. Every single time we go up against them, we have nothing to fight with, but they send us anyway and tell us we have a choice. [She looks at her hands.]

Normally, I subject the other monsters that feed on people to the very same fear they think they've escaped. They're like me, so I know on an objective level that they deserve every horrible thing that happens to them. [She looks up at Caitlyn carefully. Her eyes are clouded, both by hunger and the exhausted emptiness that's followed her.] ...You're not like them. Like me.

[Our agency and our strengths... Magic? That's the only thing ADI would lock Aelwyn up for continuing. Caitlyn has no magical abilities, but if it were possible for ADI to restrict her proficiency with a gun, if they told her to do battle without one... she would feel as helpless as she imagines Aelwyn does. But when she needed to, she gave up the gun, and she's got to convince Aelwyn to make a similar sacrifice.]

We're surrounded by fear every day, you're right. And if they told me I couldn't use the skills I have to fight and threatened to lock me up for doing so anyway, I would resent them too. But avoiding touching fire isn't the same as this.

[She gestures at the empty nightmare version of her home they're sitting in.]

And your strength doesn't come from magic. Hurting people, even ones you've decided are monsters, won't make you stronger or safer. We can work together, with-- [She almost says 'with ADI,' but cuts herself off.] --the others, to fight the Entities without needing to feed them like this.

[She pauses, glances up at the painting again.]

Is that what they made you think of yourself? That you're a monster? [It's a bit of a leap to assume Aelwyn's parents are the ones who instilled that idea in her head, but the eyes in the painting, the merciless reproach in their gazes... For all her disapproval, Caitlyn's mother has never looked at her like those strangers staring down at her now from the remains of their burned faces.

It's not easy to look objectively at Aelwyn. Too much about the other girl reminds Caitlyn uncomfortably of her own upbringing. But she's sure Aelwyn isn't the monster she claims. Cynical, unscrupulous, incorrect. But not a monster.]

[She feels disappointment fill her chest. Of course. To her, it's just a skill. That's all it is to any of them. They didn't build their entire life around their skills, their entire culture isn't built around their skills.

They just see her as a human, just one with extra pointy ears. They've never seen her at her strongest. She almost wants to show Caitlyn now - how easy it would be for her to kill her. How easy it could be for her to kill Ava or Fenix or Pyre or Ren, if only she was strong enough.]

It's not my strength. It's everything. If they'd cut off my limbs, cut out my tongue, cut out my eyes, that I'd understand. I'd resent it but I'd understand.

They've stolen something much more precious than that from me. They've stolen everything that makes me me and they've reframed it as an addiction I need to be cured of. All because they're scared of us. Way more scared than they are of their enemies.

[Her hands are sizzling, smoke rising from her fingertips, and the wooden table begins to react to the heat as well.]

My parents gave me everything. They showered me with praise because I did everything right. I followed the paths they set for me, I turned on my little sister and left her as a scapegoat for my every flaw. When my mother instructed me to put a man to sleep and then cut open his chest cavity, I did it. When my master told me to murder the Elven Oracle, I sunk the entire ship she was on.

I am a monster, Caitlyn. They didn't have to tell me that for me to realize.

let it all burn down, burn it to the ground | October Catch-All

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cw for codependency in aelwyn's thoughts bc she's so normal

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