008 - public, voice...word-vomit ahoy

[intofireforever]

I'm glad that's over. It was terrifying. I don't know why I thought it was the owls' doing. It felt nothing like that. That thing seriously messed with my head, and I've had more than enough of that for one lifetime...

...After-lifetime? I don't know. Whatever it should be called. I might have a pulse here, but I don't consider myself alive. No deal I could make here would bring me back in my world, and I think I prefer it that way. The White Lodge is peaceful, and there's no pain there. I've been tormented and abused since the time I was four or five years old. Death is better than that, even death at seventeen. So as terrible as this place can be, I'm grateful for it because it let me ascend to the White Lodge. I don't think I could ever completely hate it here, even after things like this.

Wanda? Are you feeling better now? I know I was screwed up at the time, too, but I still feel like I completely failed you. I miss Paddy, you know. He was a better father-figure to me than my real one. I feel so lost as a warden sometimes and I wish he could give me some advice. I think I'd do better by you if he was here to help, even though he made a big mistake with me that one time. He was mostly right on the mark and knew exactly what I needed.

I'm sorry I'm not as helpful to you as I feel I could be, but I really, really care about you. I'm doing my very best.

Comments

[intofireforever]

He's not a person. He's more like a force of nature. He's existed since the beginning of everything, and he's been taking hosts since humans have been around. He got into my father's body the first time they met. I don't blame myself anymore for becoming a prostitute, because the fact that I kept him out of my body is...something I can still hardly believe I managed to do.

I don't want you to make it up to me. There's nothing to make up for, really. Wardens are supposed to deal with their inmate's baggage. I dumped mine all over Paddy without a second thought, so I knew what I was signing up for when I made my deal. I'm thankful I get to help someone like you.

This is why it's such a big step for you. You restrained yourself from killing him even though you don't forgive him, even though you think he deserves to suffer. I think he deserves to suffer too, to tell you the truth. But that you can step back and say you won't have a hand in it is huge, really huge. You won't turn into that other Wanda as long as you can do that. You won't let a desire to make him pay consume you, I know you won't. You're strong.

[scarlet_discord]

Well...okay, I'm just saying. I would.

[She thinks about this.]

I think I've realized that it's not even him I hate, at the end of the day. He's not the start of the misery in my family, he's just a carrier. I can't forgive him, but...I can keep from becoming a carrier myself. Of...it. The family demon, I guess you could call it.

[intofireforever]

"The family demon." I like that term.

[For obvious reasons.]

You won't turn out like him. Just wanting to be nothing like him is a step in the right direction, regardless of anything else.

[scarlet_discord]

I screwed up with Erik Lehnsherr here, Laura. I should have kept to my ideals that I tried to, but I was too messed up, you know? I'll have to figure out how to explain it to him.

Anyway, I don't want to carry around all that hate and vengefulness anymore. It clouds my judgment. Makes me into the kind of person I hate.

[intofireforever]

I don't blame you for straying. The stress his presence put you under...I understand.

All you can do now is be better, and you already are. You have remarkable self-control.

[scarlet_discord]

I didn't want to be that kind of person. I didn't think I was that kind of person. It just..snuck up on me. But just because your anger is justified doesn't mean your actions are.

It was such an easy trap to fall into.

[intofireforever]

Easy to fall into and hard as hell to escape.

[scarlet_discord]

Well, it's accomplished, at least for now. The question is, now what the hell do I do?