foolishwren | IC Contact

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ffzzbrrttzzckssshhhh

"Yo, it's Heather. I'm probably asleep or Godzilla ate my 'Gear or something so I can't answer you right now. But feel free to leave a message or something. I'll probably get back to you. ... Probably. Peace out."

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
[Need to send Heather a private message but don't particularly wanna spam up your friendslists? Feel free to leave it here! Please include the name of the game and IC date of the message in your comment to help avoid confusion. For OOC contact, feel free to send a PM or IM the mun at Phantastus! peace out yo]

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[After the third attempt to raise Scar on the 'gear, Lust gives up. He's apparently in one of those moods - she supposes she should have seen it coming. It isn't unprecedented, but it's irritating. Things have been going well, as far as she can tell. And now...]

[She grabs a bottle of wine out of the fridge and tracks down Heather. She knows the other woman's home, and she could use an ear. Or a distraction. She doesn't bother to change, still wearing the snug, low collared tank top and gauzy over-shirt she'd chosen for her evening chat with Scar. That - and her makeup - had been a waste of time. He hadn't even picked up, or sent a text message in return!]

Are you busy?

[She holds up the wine bottle and two glasses when she finds Heather, illustrating exactly what she has in mind.]

_{[As if the freaking aerobics session hadn't been suggestive enough.]

[Heather had been where she usually is in the evening, which is parked in front of the TV when Pokemon of varying degrees of sleepiness sprawled and curled around her. When Lust leans in, she looks up and very nearly does a double-take.]}

--Uh!

_{[Her first horrified thought-- seeing the flirty outfit, makeup, and wineglasses-- is that Envy must have blabbed. But logic (or panicky denial, maybe) sets in almost immediately. There is... probably a reason OTHER than that for Lust randomly wanting company.]}

Uh-- nah, no, just watchin' random shit on TV. Hold on-- mmp. _{[She shifts a chubby, snoozing Litleo out of her lap and stands up, dusting off her knees.]}

What's up?

[Good, Heather isn't busy.]

Come drink with me by the pool.

[It's always pleasant by the water in the summer evenings. She has no fondness for large natural bodies of water, but she enjoys small man made ones. It seems like it would be nice, to sit and talk and drink out there.]

My evening plans came to nothing and I don't feel like drinking alone. Guttle's only so engaging a conversationalist.

_{[Evening plans-- oh. Ohhh. Okay. That explains the outfit, and the makeup.]

[Heather lets out a mental sigh of relief, while her heart sinks a little at the same time. Jeez, poor Lust...]}

Oh... yeesh... got stood up, huh?

_{[Picking her way through the small maze of sleeping Pokemon, she heads over to Lust. IT'S NOT WEIRD TO BE THERE FOR YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THEY'RE DEALING WITH PROBLEMS. IT'S NOT WEIRD!]}

Something like that.

[Lust shrugs and leads the way outside.]

We'd fallen into a habit of speaking in the evenings, but he's busy tonight. Or so I assume, he's not answering. God knows what he could possibly be doing....

[He doesn't have friends, not the sort that he spends social time in the evening with. He works during the day. Maybe he's reading. She's reasonably certain he enjoys reading. She'd rather think he's simply distracted than purposefully avoiding her.]

_{[Heather doesn't bother grabbing shoes-- the poolside pavement is still a little sun-warmed. So she pads after Lust in bare feet, swinging her arms a little. THIS IS PERFECTLY NORMAL.]}

Still... kinda rude to leave you hanging...

_{[She sits down in one of the poolchairs, elbows on her knees. She's not sure if it's kosher to ASK, but... on the other hand, Lust is the one who invited her out here with alcohol.]}

No offense or anything... but I really don't get what you see in that guy.

[Lust can really only shrug as she pours two glasses of wine.]

I barely understand why anyone feels anything they do for anyone.

[She hands Heather a glass and takes a seat herself, leaning back and looking up to the sky. It's a fair enough question. Heather knows nothing of their pasts, of anything that's gone between them.]

I know he seems like simply a hard and broken man, but...he's a good man. He's just lived a hard life, it's left its marks on him.

_{[Taking the glass, she turns it distractedly in her hands and watches Lust sidelong, unable to help biting her lip a little bit. GAZING AT SOMEBODY IN THE MOONLIGHT LONGINGLY is probably one of the biggest romance cliches she'd always laughed at, and finding herself WANTING to do it is... embarrassing.]}

Well, yeah... I can believe that.

But... I dunno. He seems...

_{[Is there a word for HE KEEPS SHOWING UP AT THE HOUSE BEING WEIRD AND SNEAKY WHEN YOU'RE NOT HOME AND THEN WHEN YOU WANT TO TALK TO HIM HE'S GONE?]}

Not unlike many victims of terrible war and genocide.

[Lust shrugs again. The war was common knowledge in their home, she feels no betrayal of anything personal in explaining that much to Heather as she sips at her wine. Besides, it's her history, too. She's alluded at least once to her origins to Heather before.]

His life was ripped apart when he was young. It was never put back together, I don't think, not really. He's been on the run for maybe as long as I've existed. He can't be blamed for his demeanor.

[Not entirely.]

_{[At THAT, Heather occupies herself with a long, slow sip from her glass. When she does speak, it's softly.]}

... That's what was going on back in your world, huh?

I picked up from Envy that it was some bad, bad stuff but... none of you have really talked about it much around me and Henry.

Oh, that war was over years ago. I don't speak on it much because I don't remember that place I was born in that the soldiers destroyed. I don't even know what it is to be one of my own people.

[She looks down at her hands, still rather pale despite her forays into sunning herself.]

Of course, Amestris just found other desert peoples to subjegate and attempt to exterminate. That was still happening, when I came here.

[Though she knows she carries some of the stain of that on her own hands. It had been an unfortunate outcome.]

_{[The reincarnation stuff she knows a little about, at least. Both from Envy and from a conversation or two with Lust. She remembers the other woman talking about how she looked differently before. With dark skin, and brown hair instead of inky black.]

[Maybe it's the little bit of wine in her system at work, but Heather can't help but try and imagine what Lust must have looked like back in her first life. Just for a minute. Not that she'd change anything about the way Lust looks NOW, but... god. She must have been beautiful.]

[Heather bites her lip and looks back down at her glass. Probably real fucking inconsiderate to be thinking about something so shallow when they're talking about REAL things.]}

... And I guess Scar must be from the same culture that you were in your first life. That didn't really occur to be before, but... it makes sense.

_{[She says 'first life' because... well, that's what it is, isn't it? She's never considered the Homunculi to be failed half-lives wandering around, paler and emptier than the humans they'd been supposed to be.]

[It's just another life. A different one.]

[Like hers.]}

[Lust nods.]

We're both of Ishbal. It fell to the military forces some time ago, most of her people wiped out. The few that remained were kept in camps.

[She doesn't know quite what's become of them. She's never really wondered, but she does now. She doesn't realize how quickly she's been drinking her wine, more than half her glass is already gone.]

He knew me. In my first life.

[What harm was there in saying so? Envy knew. Greed knew. It wasn't some great secret, simply something that rarely needed discussing. And Heather seems so sympathetic and wiling to listen.]

But I died before the war came.

_{[Heather's eyes widen, and she lets out a soft 'Ohhhhh.']

[So THAT'S the connection.]

[Okay. Scar and Lust officially Make More Sense now.]

[... She feels a little bad for reading him the riot act for getting stuck in her window a few weeks ago. Not like. THAT bad. But a little bad.]}

Do you... remember much?

About your first life?

_{[She can't help but ask-- and her curiosity is equal parts related to curiosity about Lust HERSELF and Heather's own, personal wondering. Envy never really said much one way or another about any past memories HE might have, and Heather hasn't really asked. But Lust seems much more willing to discuss what was than Envy is.]}

No.

[Lust shakes her head. Another source of ceaseless frustration for her.]

Just small flashes. Dying, mostly. Being ill. A fragment here, a voice there... it's all in there somewhere, but buried deep or wiped over by some foul alchemy. I don't know.

[She is willing to talk about it. She thinks about it often, but rarely gives voice to it. Only sometimes, with Greed or Envy.]

I thought if I became human, I'd remember everything. Be just as I was. Sometimes I think very foolish things.

... I don't think that's foolish.

_{[She pauses, staring down into her wineglass for a moment. It's weird-- the prospect of sharing the information she's thinking of sharing is ALWAYS kind of nerve-wracking, but usually by the time she's ready to offer it to someone, it comes out pretty naturally.]

[But her heart is thumping and there's a weird fluttering sensation in her stomach.]}

... I didn't remember... anything about my first life, outside of those kinds of flashes. For a real long time.

But in my experience, that stuff comes back when-- and if-- you need it.

_{[She offers Lust a slightly crooked (and nervous) smile.]}

I bet it'll come back someday.

[Lust shakes her head.]

Who we are is as much a product of our experiences as anything else. Even if woke up tomorrow and remembered all of that life, I still wouldn't be that exact woman. I'd be something else again. What we are is transient. Fluid.

[She finishes her glass and pours another. She doesn't often drink to drown maudlin thoughts, but she feels the need right now. And it makes it easier to talk about all these things.]

How did they come back? These things you remember...were they prompted by something, or did they simply trickle back on their own?

[She pauses, but refrains from asking anything else right now. She has questions, certainly, but...]

Oh god, sometimes I think I don't want to remember at all.

Yeah, you wouldn't.

I think one thing that messes a lot of people up is expecting to be the same person they used to be.

_{[Whether or not multiple lives were involved.]

[She cranes her head back a little bit to look up at the dusky skies, tearing her eyes away from Lust for a moment.]}

It was... it was prompted. And... and sudden. But not all at once. It was more like... a really blurry picture, coming slowly into focus. A lot of really blurry pictures.

_{[She takes a drag from her own glass, going thoughtfully silent for a few seconds, before adding--]}

It hurt a lot to remember. And there's times when I-- when I really wish I didn't. Almost every day, actually.

... But in my case, I needed to. It probably saved my life.

I wonder sometimes, though...if that would make a difference....

[To Scar. She doesn't think about the specific connections between them much, it's uncomfortable and strange. But she can't avoid it right now.]

That sounds like how it was for me, when I remembered what I did. Called by things that made me remember, but I didn't even understand them at first. I didn't even really know what I was, then. But I remembered.

It may not have saved my life, but I think it saved my soul.

Yeah.

I know that feeling.

... It all made more sense when I got it all back.

But it didn't make me the same person as I was before. No matter how much anyone else wanted me to be.

Were there those who wanted that?

[Lust's voice is soft.]

For you to be who you'd been before, instead of who you are now?

_{[For a moment or two, Heather pauses, but then nods. There's no point in acting any differently. So much of what had happened... had stemmed from that.]}

Yeah.

_{[Her voice is equally soft, and trails off in a sigh.]}

Wanted it badly enough to do unspeakable things to get the old me back.

I'm sorry. It's an awful feeling, that you aren't what you should be. Even if it's coming from someone else.

[Remembering or not. She draws her legs up, tucking her knees under her chin and sighing as well.]

I never wanted much, you know. Just to be human, and with him. I have those things, why is everything still so difficult? oh, I know why, I just...I don't care about any of that. What was before. Not as it relates to us.

[But Scar cares. She knows he cares, even if they never dare speak on it. Is that why he's being so quiet of late? Simply a resurfacing of old guilts and shame?]

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