ataraxion | NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What, like fighting things? Rescuing people? Sneaking in places and stealing stuff? I was there eleven years, Edgeworth. Don't even know how many missions I went on.

Did you -

[He stops himself. After a moment:]

...Never mind.

[A pause of her own, some caution, maybe, but she still says,]

Just ask.

...Were you compelled to kill?

[The way he phrases it gets her caught for a second, wondering if he means compel literally, like some of the pathoses she's encountered can do. If he means kill like assassination, like in the field, attack or defence, like lives lost in the wake of an act of destruction. But there's still only one answer.]

Yeah.

[Right. His throat is stupidly tight, and he mutters - ]

Sorry.

[Not knowing what he's apologizing for. For asking, maybe. For taking advantage of this state. Maybe for the answer itself. Because isn't society supposed to prevent that? Isn't that what he's devoted to - keeping children from killing, keeping them from being killed...

Right.]

[Taylor's never particularly good with sorrys, either giving or receiving them. Giving, they never feel like they're enough. Receiving, she never knows what they're for.]

Not your fault.

[And it probably said something for the way the Academy had trained her that she didn't consider being ordered (made) to kill the worst thing that had happened to her.]

That's not why I...

[He stops and just closes his eyes a moment. Right.]

Are you going to be all right?

[That's not why, but he stops himself. And Taylor thinks maybe it's best not to ask for the rest. So she just answers.]

I'm always alright.

...No, you aren't.

[Quietly enough.]

Yeah, Edgeworth. I have to be.

[And at that point she just looks at the camera for a moment more, before cutting the feed.]

NINE: video

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%

private; encrypted 10%