needshumility: (eye roll)
needshumility ([personal profile] needshumility) wrote2011-09-26 11:27 pm

1.1.01.01.037: sacrifices for the good of the collective.

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.

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
What the fuck do you think you're doing, you beiging idiot?!

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Just... saying what's on my mind.

Why wouldn't I?

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Is that what it is?

It doesn't seem unusual.

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

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
You don't think all this talk about youknow and...thingying and everything else isn't unusual?

You shouldn't have told everyone that!

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
No... why would it be?

Why not? It's true.

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
If I wasn't down in zero with Sexby, I would throw something at you. Stupid dummy.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not stupid! Why is it stupid?

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not stupid. You're stupid for saying it!

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Why? They're all Previous, they're all telling the truth.

Nobody can demerit us here, why are you so worried?

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not worried! I just didn't want the whole fucking barge to know about the...youknow.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:16 pm (UTC)(link)
But it's true. I don't see the problem.

and there's no need for that language.

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Just because it's true doesn't mean that everyone gets to know about it!

And don't you start telling me what to do. I'll use whatever language I want because it's 'what's on my mind,' Red.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
But I... I could hardly stop thinking about Violet since that flood. And thus, you.

There's no need to get snippy, either.

[identity profile] thebestnose.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't want to hear about that. Keep Violet in your thoughts.

There's always a need to get snippy. Drop it.

[identity profile] 19centconstable.livejournal.com 2011-09-26 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh. Young master Russett. You've certainly gotten yourself into a predicament.
ifightfor: (what was that?)

[personal profile] ifightfor 2011-09-26 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Define "Mildew".

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

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
I'd rather not keep her anywhere, but all these floods seem to have an annoying obsession with replicating real life.

And it's one of the things I admire about you, but I don't know what I've done wrong.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] 19centconstable.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] needshumility.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
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.

[identity profile] 19centconstable.livejournal.com 2011-09-27 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
But you still got her pregnant. It doesn't matter what you want now: all that matters is the child.

darknessb4me: (let your eyes be closed)

[personal profile] darknessb4me 2011-09-27 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
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.
strangehistorian: (the frustrated)

Private

[personal profile] strangehistorian 2011-09-27 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
I'm not a fairy godmother here, but I think I'd like the job better. You two...

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