I didn't. Steven was the one who pulled my gem from the mirror. He even fixed my Gem. [And honestly, even if it's been such a short amount of time, she misses him a lot? He'd know how to better teach her about human bodies and all this stuff anyway.]
[ She stays put, fiddling at the bed she's been laying on. Plucking at the threads idly, a dull sound that she tugs and tugs with. ] Do you miss him, your liberator?
[ And because she can only be so understanding, to a point. ] Is he why you're so adamant in your cowardice?
[ It's nothing she'll forgive, loved ones weren't worth it if someone was willing to sacrifice others for their affection. She could never accept someone for doing that, and refused to let herself do the same. ]
It's not cowardice. [It's partly cowardice.] Steven wouldn't like it if I hurt more people. A few hundred years ago you'd probably be dead. [Lapis gives an open palmed shrug. she clearly isn't saying that as a threat.]
I'm trying not to hurt humans so much anymore. You'd understand if you'd met him. He's very convincing.
[ She shakes her head, not - not cruelly this time. She's met plenty of naive people, in her life, Sir Galahad among them. How desperately he clung to his understand of the world. That his precious Lords could not be part of such slaughter, such cruelty, such treatment of life. ]
Perhaps I would. [ She pauses, trying to form the words. ] You need to understand, then, that you are and you will be, if you ever assist them, the cause of thousands more deaths. They will not be in battle, not all of them, they will be in famine, in disease, in disabuse. You say that it means nothing, now, because many people have such short life spans, then I will put it to you in centuries, for that is how long, if they win, these people will suffer. Just like my own do.
Seems to me like people are going to die no matter what side I'm on. [And Lapis still doesn't understand the concept of fighting with your own species, even if she's experienced it first hand.]
Besides, how are you so sure that this is a bad thing for them? There's plenty of food here, and plenty of medicine. [The word sounds so weird on her tongue, Gems just don't get sick.] Clearly your side of things isn't doing so hot already if they need to resort to stealing these things just to survive.
[ This time at least, she doesn't lose her temper. Accepted apparently this - creature that was not originally human.... couldn't understand how these matters went, the problems that she could so clearly see and had suffer from. It sets her teeth a little, to be dealing with someone or something not human at all but - she wasn't a halfbreed. That had to ... count for something. ]
Because if it really was about helping, why do they need to rule these people? If they just wanted to share with them, why do they have to have them kneel?
[ She swallowed, and far be it for her to share anything part of herself. But at least to put it in context. It is not as though she had much in the way of secrets now, anyway, was it? ( except the only one that mattered. ) ] We might be called exotics and outsiders, but they are just as much the same. This isn't their home, who are they to decide its fate? Should it not be the people that have worked this land, grown up in, call it home, should it not be their choice about their fate?
I'm really not the best person to answer that. Honestly I think it's a plus that they're not wiping the local inhabitants off the face of the planet with their tech. Seems like it'd be easier, honestly, so I think they're being pretty nice at trying to rule them instead of outright murdering everyone.
[Seriously, with all the tech here, and with how much of a pain these locals are, why haven't they just done that?
[ At least she holds her tongue enough for that comment. Pressing her lips together in something like disapproval and a swallowing of her ire over such words. ]
They can't. You can't enslave a dead people. There are no resources to be had when there is nothing left, no one to work the crops, no one to pay them taxes and tributes.
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[ It's nothing she'll forgive, loved ones weren't worth it if someone was willing to sacrifice others for their affection. She could never accept someone for doing that, and refused to let herself do the same. ]
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I'm trying not to hurt humans so much anymore. You'd understand if you'd met him. He's very convincing.
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Perhaps I would. [ She pauses, trying to form the words. ] You need to understand, then, that you are and you will be, if you ever assist them, the cause of thousands more deaths. They will not be in battle, not all of them, they will be in famine, in disease, in disabuse. You say that it means nothing, now, because many people have such short life spans, then I will put it to you in centuries, for that is how long, if they win, these people will suffer. Just like my own do.
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Besides, how are you so sure that this is a bad thing for them? There's plenty of food here, and plenty of medicine. [The word sounds so weird on her tongue, Gems just don't get sick.] Clearly your side of things isn't doing so hot already if they need to resort to stealing these things just to survive.
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Because if it really was about helping, why do they need to rule these people? If they just wanted to share with them, why do they have to have them kneel?
[ She swallowed, and far be it for her to share anything part of herself. But at least to put it in context. It is not as though she had much in the way of secrets now, anyway, was it? ( except the only one that mattered. ) ] We might be called exotics and outsiders, but they are just as much the same. This isn't their home, who are they to decide its fate? Should it not be the people that have worked this land, grown up in, call it home, should it not be their choice about their fate?
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[Seriously, with all the tech here, and with how much of a pain these locals are, why haven't they just done that?
A mystery for the ages, honestly.]
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They can't. You can't enslave a dead people. There are no resources to be had when there is nothing left, no one to work the crops, no one to pay them taxes and tributes.