1.1.01.01.037: sacrifices for the good of the collective.

[needshumility]

You know, ever since that port, I've been thinking about Violet.



She's my fiancee. She's pregnant. I hate her. I don't even feel slightly guilty for consistently cheating on her whilst here with Jane. Because I love Jane. Not because of her nose - that's for people like Tommo. But because she gave me something nobody else could at home - the truth. Which is a very, very valuable thing. In a world where everyone is stupid as a matter of course, which I realised myself in a Chromogencia meeting, and even more so since being here. We're educated, by Rule, 'until we're sixteen, or know everything there is to know, whichever comes first'. Our most clear answer to any question is just 'I don't know'.

So I'm cheating on her. I just don't care. It won't last when I get home. I am forbidden to even associate with Jane when I get home. This, right here, is all I get, before I give my life to a woman I hate.


Violet. She's Purple. Her father is Head Prefect. But her family is quickly heading towards Blue. They needed a high perceiving Red to bring them back. As soon as she knew I was over 75%, she forced me against a wall and kissed me. Soon enough, her father and mine had come to an arrangement. A very expensive arrangement, but that's how the marriage market goes, right?

Her being pregnant was part of the deal, because, well, I was going on a dangerous mission the next morning and might turn up dead. It happens. Especially at High Saffron. They paint the walls with Greed there. That's the colour which causes the Mildew. It's nothing but dust and bones in places. The first thing I knew about the pregnancy half of the deal was when she turned up naked in my bedroom. They'd paid my dad extra for that.

Security, I suppose.

Never the less, I proposed to Jane. In High Saffron. My dad would have let it happen. He promised me, if I loved someone, I could marry them.

The Rules won't. She was 'discovered' to be a Green in her Ishihara - that's a colour perception test - and we were complimentary colours. I couldn't talk to her. Let alone marry her. I am in no doubt Violet's father bribed the Colourman. (Incidentally, I can run circles around the Colourman sometimes - and there's very few people here who remind me of him. Una's inmate, mostly.)

I almost don't want to go home. So I can keep doing youknow with Jane, so I don't have to marry someone I was sold to.

But that would be selfish. I have a greater service to the collective.

That is the sacrifice I will make for it. Having the woman I love.

Don't take it for granted. Never, ever take it for granted. Because not all of us have the freedom to love as we want.

All those things you can have, without thinking twice - books, love, science, the ability to see colour, the freedoms you have, the ability to trust without doubting it - some of us think are amazing. Some of us would be in absolute awe of. Are in absolute awe of.

And then it's so very disappointing when you don't entirely realise how precious that is.

Comments

[thebestnose.livejournal.com]

What the fuck do you think you're doing, you beiging idiot?!

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

Just... saying what's on my mind.

Why wouldn't I?

[thebestnose.livejournal.com]

Because it's stupid! For your sake, I hope that you're affected by whatever it is that is happening to everyone else. Making them say 'whatever is on their mind.'

Dammit, Eddie.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

Is that what it is?

It doesn't seem unusual.

And... I said I loved you, what's wrong with it?

[thebestnose.livejournal.com]

You don't think all this talk about youknow and...thingying and everything else isn't unusual?

You shouldn't have told everyone that!

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

Oh. Young master Russett. You've certainly gotten yourself into a predicament.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

Mister Russett, thank you. I've had an Ishihara. I'm not a boy.

I'm also not sure if I got myself into this predicament, or everyone else got me there. It certainly feels like the latter.

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you have. If you've gotten this girl in the family way there's nothing to be done about it: you've got to marry her.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

She's only 'in the family way' because I was engaged to her. And part of the payment involved me getting her pregnant. No matter what I thought about it.

So I still don't want to.

[ifightfor]

Define "Mildew".

[He's going to try and salvage something out of this through all the mindshattering going on.]

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

It's a disease. You die of it - well, nobody ever dies of the Mildew, they give you the option of the Green Room instead. But you know you've got it because your fingernails start to turn grey, and you start to cough and you're done for.

The swatchmen can show you a colour to give it you.

[darknessb4me]

My sister was given away in marriage when she was sixteen to a man 20 years older than her. It was for diplomatic purposes.

I'm sorry.

You could try assassinating your king.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your sister. It happens to most people in our world, but usually for monetary reasons, or to gain or maintain a position in the social hierarchy. I didn't think anything of it until I came here, and then I realised that just because it's common doesn't mean it's fair. Or that things were always that way.

We don't have a king. I'm not sure assassinating anyone, except Violet or the Colourman could change this.

[darknessb4me]

What's the punishment for breaking the rules?

Killing Violet's not a bad idea, if you can stomach it. Probably not. It would be selfish.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

Demerits. Lose enough and you get sent to Reboot.

It would be. And would ruin other plans. It's the other plans which keep me from doing anything about it.

Private

[strangehistorian]

I'm not a fairy godmother here, but I think I'd like the job better. You two...

Re: Private

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

At least he had a way out.

The thought is appreciated, Chromie.

[betrayalswager.livejournal.com]

Your world sounds quite... interesting.

[Actually, he thinks you're insane and babbling incoherently over the network, but he's willing to humor your ravings for the moment.]

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

Interesting is an odd way of putting it.

[betrayalswager.livejournal.com]

You think so? It sounds completely different from any other period in history.

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about other periods in history - and what I do is from people here, and I can never tell how accurate that is - so it doesn't sound unusual to me where it might to you.

[failedcreator.livejournal.com]

You have brought a woman into ill repute?

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

At her father's behest, no less.

[failedcreator.livejournal.com]

What father would condone such a thing?

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

One which wanted his family to stay Purple, so needed his daughter to have my child, no matter what I thought about it. One who would therefore, pay my dad handsomely for not only marriage, but youknow with his daughter, to get her pregnant before I disappeared on a suicide mission.

If I died, she'd just marry the other guy and tell everyone it was his.