o1; audio

[crimsoncrow]

—ere we go. Hello? If anyone can hear this I've got a question that's been rolling around in the ol' noggin for the last week or so if you don't mind humoring an old man, uh. I know this might be a sensitive topic to some people and I don't intend to pry if it is, but I'm curious...

_{[ There's a brief pause as if the speaker is hesitating out of nerves, but he's taking a moment or three to put the right words together. ]}

These crimes that we've all — I'm assuming it's all of us — have been accused of. Is... anyone actually guilty of them? I can't exactly argue 'bout mine when it's true on my end, but we can't all be "criminals" here, can we? What even determines that? 'Cause I promise you that where I'm from, something like... I dunno, stealing food for example is a matter of survival versus an actual crime but the more I listen to the folks who live here...

_{[ A shuffle, followed by a slow exhale. It's still so weird after the life he's lived. Eventually he'll Get It, but not today. Nope. Stars. Can't do it. ]}

Sorry. I'm, eh... I was raised in a world completely different than this one. Having the freedom to actually talk about this sort of thing is pretty new, 'specially in a place that looks like this. Speaking of, I've got one more question for whoever might be listening:

What does it mean to you? Freedom. There's no wrong answer so don't worry 'bout that.

Comments

[crimsoncrow]

Do you feel like you've had to do that here? Or has it been easy to relax and take everything in?

_{[ He can relate to that much at least which has to count for something. ]}

[grappler]

Yeah. Not having to look over my shoulder is just a dream. Not that anything's happened, but that's what worries me.

[she's a little jumpy.]

[crimsoncrow]

That makes two of us, then. I'm trying to enjoy everything that's being presented to me while I can, but I've got that little voice in the back of my head tellin' me that this might be too good to be true.

_{[ A lifetime of living under Renans'll do that to a guy, but hey! It's progress. ]}

Still, it's... kind of nice. Strange, but nice all the same.

[grappler]

Oh, definitely too good to be true. You ever been in jail before? Nothing like this.

[she won't say it's nice so much,]

It's not terrible. The fresh air's a good change.

[crimsoncrow]

More times than I can count. Mostly as a kid, but there were a handful of times as an adult too. I got pretty good at springing myself out after awhile, but... If you mean recently, then yeah. Wasn't looking too great for me that time.

_{[ Him?? A rulebreaker? Scandalous. ]}

Would it surprise you if I said even that was strange to me? The fresh air.

[grappler]

Must've been nice to be able to get out so easily. So we got some regular old criminals here, after all.

[they'd put her in a high security section of the jail, though it hadn't really stopped her from getting into fights. just enough that escape attempts ended up being foiled really quickly.]

Nah. Sounds like everybody's worlds are some version of fucked up, so who knows where you come from.

[crimsoncrow]

Getting out of the cell was the easy part. It was all the armed guards and zeugles that made it less so, and I've got my share of scars to show for it.

_{[ One would think they'd have thrown him into a ditch somewhere, but they didn't know what they were dealing with back then. And vice versa. On the upside he hasn't seen any sort of prison system here yet, so hopefully it stays that way. ]}

What was it like for you?

[grappler]

[she snorts.]

Lots of fights. Because I'm such a friendly person, the staff thought it'd be cool to beat the shit out of me on the reg to try to teach me a lesson. Spoilers, it didn't work. I just got more pissed off.

[yeah.]

I got some cool tats while I was there though, so I guess I can't say it was all bad.