040 VOICE LIST SIXTEEN

[deadliestviper]

[Coming out of her first death toll (first real death toll; those times on the Mirror Barge don’t count), Beatrix is in bad shape. Everything hurts and she’s moving much slower than normal, shivering from a cold that just won’t go away. But there are things to be said, news to be shared, and they won’t wait for her to feel better. When the audio clicks on it catches nothing but a breath of air, the sound of hair brushing fabric and skin. Then a throaty voice, hoarse, one straining to sound as normal as possible:]

I want to apologize for everything my other self did. [She pauses; she wishes she could say she’d never done it, but in a sense she hadn’t. She wishes she could say it sickens her to see what her other self is capable of, but all the crimes were those she’d committed before.

Maybe all she can say is that she’ll never do it again.]

I won’t ask anyone to trust me after that. But if any of the people I hurt need satisfaction, whether in the form of words or blood, they’ll have it.

Just make it quick, please. I have unfinished business at home.

Private Messages

[Cecil, Vin, and Bond, separately]
We need to talk. [Mostly about how you’d better not be like that normally.]

[Arya]
I am not happy with you.

[Anya and Ben]
Please know that in my right mind I’d never would do anything to hurt either of you. You don’t have to believe it, but I need to say it.

[Zack]
I… Thank you. Thank you so much. For everything.

And I’m so sorry for trying to kill you.

[Friends and Family]
I’m sorry, again, about what I was.

I don’t know why, but I just – graduated. [She sounds supremely confused about this. Yes, Mirror Barge taught her two lessons, that death is cruel but can also be merciful, that war isn’t always the way to go. They seem like such simple truths, but they’re difficult to realize.] I’m going home. If you’re up for it, I’d like to see you before I go.

Comments

[fridgetothefire]

I'm inconveniently self-sufficient, sometimes.

[Just a little bit wry.]

You were a different person. But I don't feel like I was, quite. I don't need anybody to atone for something I basically had coming to me.

But if you want to do something - when you're doing with the business you're going for, bring me some back some music you love. I'm a lot worse at exploring that for myself than books.

[deadliestviper]

You don't feel like you were? I know I wasn't. Everything she did, I've done.

She just really enjoyed it.

[She breathes a little laugh into the microphone, an unspoken resignation to the recent insanity.]

I'll make you a couple CDs.

[fridgetothefire]

Her life wasn't any different than mine. She just had a few different experiences, after she died.

And now I have all her experiences. So. There's that.

[They don't feel like they belong to someone else. It's like she finally got around to finding more of herself behind a door she'd had the key for all along.]

Thanks.

[deadliestviper]

Do you think it's going to change who you are now?