probe | Audience: Harrowhark Nonagesimus

[that's probably because she is nervous, harrow, considering everything that's being discovered and talked about. but lust at least keeps quiet and lets harrow talk, listening to her. there are little waves of surprise, uncertainty, sympathy and eventually settling on understanding before she nods.]

...so what do you think of everything now? Things have changed a little, right? We never befriended you guys as a way to lie to you or anything.

I think it's a little preposterous that you'd be offended by a breach of privacy and my lack of trust when it was so obviously warranted. I should have looked through everyone else's things while I was up there, too. [The lesson here is to never be nice or feel bad about snooping through a girl's love notes and instead always just do the terrible things you feel inclined to do because they're definitely correct.] Then again, I'm no longer certain that's what was actually going on.

[Was Lust just afraid of being confronted. She doesn't think Lust is some. . . ridiculously manipulative person who found it easy to lie to them.]

Whether you befriended us as a way to lie to us, or whether you just befriended us while you happened to be lying to us is a distinction without a difference to me, I'm afraid. [A little spike of anger at that, but she's fairly calm.]

[this would have been such a drastically different conversation if it had been any other day which is what's hilarious. she should maybe be mad. or defend herself. anything. but instead she listens and it's just...defeat, maybe. something in her that doesn't care enough to argue about it anymore.]

Sure. You're allowed to feel that way. [there's no apology or anything because it doesn't matter.

literally...nothing matters right now, weirdly.]

I befriended you because I wanted to. And if you're angry about all of it then that's fine, too. [no regrets there either.] Why are you actually here, Harrowhark? What do you want?

[This would have been a drastically conversation from her end, too, but she is angry.

And maybe she would partially like to have a fight, with someone who has reasons to feel wronged on her end, too. She just grows frustrated when Lust tells her she's allowed to feel that way.]

I'm here because unless I've drastically misunderstood you, I don't particularly think you're a remorseless killer. I'd like it if we could just be honest with one another. I'm trying to get my head around what's happening.

[rip harrow. the growing frustration does make lust a little prickly though, so maybe she'll get the fight she's looking for after all.]

Surprisingly no, I'm not. What does "honesty" mean to you in this case? What is it that you want to know? [while lust has the ability to eavesdrop...she doesn't most of the time.]

[She would love that. Honestly. Enough weepiness and doubt. Let's just have it out, girl. Maybe we'll both feel better.]

Is honesty an especially hard to understand concept? I'm sure philosophers throughout the ages have debated whether a lie of omission is truly a lie, but omitting intention to feed us to a creature that wants to consume our souls probably counts under any metric.

[doubt it!]

You could stop treating me like an idiot for asking, first of all. [the tone is suddenly surprisingly cold.] What do you want me to say? Yeah, we didn't bring you here but there was always a chance this was gonna happen when you guys started murdering each other?

[No, good. She seems to appreciate the coldness back a little more; some of her own rage simmers down in return.]

That is along the lines of what I'd like you to say, yes. You don't owe me being nice about it, or trying to make me feel better about any of it. Honesty here can include the honesty of "Harrowhark, you're being a bitch to one of the few of us who is definitely not actively trying to kill you." That is fine with me.

You really didn't invite us, then, and this wasn't set in stone - until the killing began?

Okay, then Harrowhark, you're being a bitch. [THAT'S FINE. it also makes her less prickly, a little more even and she pauses long enough to stew on her answer a bit.]

It's a little more complicated than that. We were here for a while before you guys were ever invited, but you weren't invited by us. We were just told you would be here. It's...the indulgence would have been gathered just like it has been. But it wouldn't have gotten this bad if the killing hadn't started, yeah. This thing grew out of our control way before you ever got here.

And there was never really a polite way of saying "your indulgence is helping us get our wishes, too."

[She actually laughs a little at that, relieved. It's not condescending, it's genuine.]

Isn't that better? [Like, she came to Lust for a reason. She doesn't feel like having someone try and convince her to still like them right now.]

The information that is being shared is that we were invited by you, and that you always intended to feed us to it. Though the implication being that that extends to only some of you.

[she wants to say no but also, yeah, it kind of is. wild. so there's a sense of disbelief but also a little more calm.]

No, that's wrong. [shaking her head!] It's more like we knew you were coming but it's not like we went out and individually offered you a chance to get the power you were looking for and then brought you here. We learned about it, and then we got stuff ready around the base.

But...like I said, we did know that's what would happen if things progressed a certain way. And then they did. We all agreed to become Avatars, but some of us feel more strongly about what that means than others.

[She's proud of you, Lust. Live your meannest life.]

Can we discuss how it's supposed to happen? We start killing - it generates fuel and food, from the dead? Was the end result for all of us to die?

[no :(]

Probably. [she'll be honest about that.] Obviously that's not ideal, but given how it functions that's likely what the endgame was.

How is that achieved? Was it going to be just. . . getting us to keep killing and executing until we're gone? Or is there another way we'll get killed?

...do you remember Nathan?

I never really spoke to them. They disappeared - supposedly for lack of indulgence?

Right. There's a reason we kept encouraging you guys to keep indulging even while all of this was going on.

[don't indulge, you die faster.]

But if we don't fail to indulge, and we also don't kill each other, what happens then?

...it'd probably go the way things went last time, to be honest. It'd start showing up to encourage you to start picking each other off anyway and to indulge more. But since you guys started doing that on your own I have to wonder if that's why it took so long to show itself.

Why doesn't it just kill us itself? Less fun, or is there a reason why it can't?

Why go catch a fish yourself when you can go to a restaurant and have a sushi roll made for you?

[she just believes it really doesn't want to unless it has to.]

Where does your win condition come in? If we're all devoured, you get your wishes granted and can leave?

Supposedly. That's what we've been told, that it should be enough for us after that.

[She considers this; her feelings are all a lot calmer now. She taps her hand against her cheek.]

Do we have a win condition, that you're aware of? Or are we fucked?

Normally I'd say the latter. [which inspires a whole other mess of feelings that aren't pleasant.] But...this went differently than our time. If you're hearing from the dead and you're seeing this thing and you're learning stuff about it....that's more than we ever got.

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