327 lines
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327 lines
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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 42</title>
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<h1>Chapter 42</h1>
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<div class="o-story_text o_epilogue type-rg type-sm line-caption line-copy pad-x-0 pad-x-lg pad-b-lg">
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: so uhhh</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: dirk needs to be stopped from</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: doin what again?</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: everything!!!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: whatever hes trying to do RIGHT NOW!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: like.....</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: um</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: woof this is going to be hard to explain
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:\</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Are You Sure Jade</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: After All He Is The One Who Provided Me
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With The Medicine That Just Woke You Up</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: he did?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: yes</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: huh</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: ok but...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: hes the one who SHOT me in the first
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place!</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: !!!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: He What</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: why would he do that</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: he needed me to be asleep</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: so that</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: he could... um</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: argh!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: whats going on right now is really abstract,
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im sorry!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: but you have to believe me this is a
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CRISIS!!!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Okay</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: But Maybe We Shouldnt Rush To
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Judgment</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: You Have Been In A Coma For Some Time</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Maybe Its Best To Take A Little While To
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Recover And Then Gather Your Thoughts</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: but.....</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: For Now I Dont See Much Reason To Doubt
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Dirks Good Intentions</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: He Gave Me This Medicine</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: And We Just Had A Pretty Good Talk
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Today</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Think It Helped Me</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Clear The Air On A Few Things</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: And Now I Feel Better I Think</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Sad And Heartbroken Yes But</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Free</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: free</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: whatre u talkin about kanaya</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: what did he say</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Hes Going To Take Good Care Of Rose</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Probably Much Better Than Id Ever Be Able
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To</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Ill Miss Her But Im At Least Thankful For
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That</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: THANKFUL??</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: kanaya...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: did</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: did dirk KIDNAP ROSE?!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: No No</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Its Not Like That At All</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: You See He</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Okay</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Yes I Know How This Must Sound</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: so like</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: where IS rose</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: is she with him</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Yes</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Theyre</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Well</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Guess They Have Formed A Strong Human
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Familial Bond Such That It Is No Longer Necessary For Rose To Have
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Me As Her Spouse</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: And Now They Will Leave This Planet
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Together And</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Do Important Things I Guess Which Do Not
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Concern Us</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: WHAT?????</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: No I Know</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: It Probably Sounds</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Um</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Well I Know How It Sounds But Please
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Believe Me That Appearances Are Misleading Here</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: the appearance that like</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: the dude just kidnapped ur fuckin WIFE and
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peaced out??</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Y-</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Yes?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Hmm</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: you see???</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: somethings wrong!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: kanaya...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: can i just ask</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: how did you come to feel this way? like, to
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be this ok with it i mean?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: ...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: did dirk convince you to be fine with this
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directly, like in a conversation?</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: or did you just make peace with it on your
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own?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Was Running Around Desperately Trying
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To Catch Them In The Act Of Their Duplicitous Behavior</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: And Then</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Sat Down And Thought About It</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: And Realized I Was Being Foolish</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: That It Was Better To Let Rose Go If That
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Is What She Really Wanted</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: THERE!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: THATS IT!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: thats what im talking about, kanaya theres no
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WAY you would just let rose go like that without someone pulling
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the strings!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: dirks been FUCKING with you!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: hes been fucking with ALL OF US!!!</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: god damn</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: rly??</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: YES!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: kanaya! THINK about it for a second!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: think about how you REALLY feel! about rose,
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about all of this!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: are you SURE youre just... FINE with rose
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leaving just like THAT?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Im...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">It’s fine, Kanaya. Why don’t we just say
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I’m invoking the mercy rule here. Jade is onto me obviously. But I
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wouldn’t have even let her wake up if there was anything you all
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could do about it by now. As the cherub resurfaces in her mind,
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I’ll be fading out of here soon anyway. I don’t see any reason to
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keep my dear friends in limbo any longer than they need to be.</p>
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<p class="dirk">So forget what I said. All that stuff about you not
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being good enough for her. It probably wasn’t true. I mean, what do
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I know? How worthy you are of another’s company is just a matter of
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the choices you make, right? I’m sure you could figure out how to
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prove your worth to her if you really tried. For now, the only
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thing that really matters is to acknowledge it’s too late for any
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of that.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Wait</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Dont...</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Im Confused</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: ???</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Why Didnt I At Least</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Demand To See My Wife Before They
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Departed While I Had Dirk On The Phone</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: omg u didnt even SEE her before she
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left??</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: No</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: At The Time It Didnt Feel Right To Ask I
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Guess</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Was So Devastated I Thought</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: That I Should Just</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I Dont Know What I Thought</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: What</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: What Was I THINKING?</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: :(</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">Kanaya stares into the distance. The best
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fucking question anybody ever asked is: why am I so fucking
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awesome? I believe I’ve recently provided more than enough material
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to supply an answer to that question. But Kanaya may have just
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asked the second-best fucking question anybody ever asked. What WAS
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she thinking? What are any of us thinking, really? Who’s doing the
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thinking, and who’s having the thoughts?</p>
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<p class="dirk">The more you study the question, the more it seems
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all concrete forms of accountability go up in smoke. Her original
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thoughts were never that important, and the significance of the
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idea that she was the one authoring them was always a bit
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overrated. My mission is to someday clear this all up for everyone.
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Remove the ambiguity, suck the mud out of the water. It’ll be a lot
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better that way, trust me.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: HAVE I LOST MY FUCKING MIND?????????</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">She’s really pissed. Yikes. Couldn’t pay
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me to be in that room right now. Not for all the agency in the
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world.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: WHAT HAS DIRK DONE TO MY WIFE?!</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: whoa</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: what u mean there</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: HE DID SOMETHING TO HER!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: HE HAS CORRUPTED HER IN SOME WAY!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I KNOW ROSE! I LOVE ROSE!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: SHE WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO
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ME!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: SHE WOULDNT DO IT TO ANYONE! NOT UNLESS
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SHE WAS UNDER DURESS IN SOME WAY!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: ITS DIRK! ITS *ALWAYS* BEEN DIRK!!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: HE IS BEHIND THIS! ILL GET HIM FOR
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THIS!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: ***I SWEAR THAT I SHALL MAKE HIM PAY
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DEARLY FOR STEALING MY BELOVED WIFE!***</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: :o</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: JADE!!!!!</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk">She uses both hands to grab Jade by the
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hospital gown and starts shaking her vigorously. But she’s unlikely
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to get answers from her that way. If anything, she’ll cause her to
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go silent a lot more quickly than she was about to anyway. She’s
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just wresting the spirit from her slumber.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: WHY DOES DIRK HAVE TO BE STOPPED?! WHAT
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DOES THAT *MEAN*?!!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: HOW DID YOU LEARN OF ALL THIS?! TELL ME
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YOUR SECRETS DAMN IT!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: um... k-kan... kanyayaya...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: argh! p-please! s-s-stop shaking
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me-e-e-e!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: IM!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Im Sorry</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: when i was asleep, i saw things...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: and was visited in my dreams by the old muse
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who once helped us</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: callies ghost double</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: and...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: there was so much</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: all these memories from different timelines
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and such</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: sad memories, visions of death and
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sacrifices... a great battle with lord english</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: it was so overwhelming and hard to make sense
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of</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Yes Yes But What About DIRK</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: im trying to get to that!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: the thing with dirk is...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: is...</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-sm type-hs-small">It’s happening. Roxy notices it right away, because she’s seen it before. And now Kanaya sees it too. A distant look in her eyes as she trails off. They get cloudy, turn gray, and then fill in completely, as if jet-black ink were flooding the vitreous bodies of her eyeballs. Jade isn’t here anymore.</span></p>
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<p class="dirk"><span class="type-hs-small type-bs">And with that, I’ll be getting my hat and coat, so to speak. No use lingering around here much longer. The cherub is already beginning to drown me out. I can feel it. But this time, I’m ready.</span></p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Jade?</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: JADE???</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: aw no</p>
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<p class="roxy">ROXY: not again with this shit</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: JADE! NO!</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: PLEASE SNAP OUT OF THIS...</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: THIS *GRIM CONDITION* OF SORTS</p>
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<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: I NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">She’s not going to tell you shit. Not for a good while anyway. It’s up to the cherub to let go of her now. And I doubt she’ll do that before I’m light-years away from this planet. She’ll keep jamming my signal, and won’t dare risk stopping until she knows I’m at a safe distance.</span></p>
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||
<p class="dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">Kind of a catch-22, right, Kanaya? The one who’s “protecting” you all from my influence is also blocking you from getting any answers. Not that you’d even know what to do with them.</span></p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">they will know what to do, when
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they are ready.</p>
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<p>Ha ha. Sure. They’ll all just hop in a spaceship and go on a
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||
wild goose chase trying to hunt me down. I know that already. It’s
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||
really not rocket science. Except for the fact that it literally
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||
is.</p><p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">Ha ha. Sure. They’ll all just hop in a spaceship and go on a wild goose chase trying to hunt me down. I know that already. It’s really not rocket science. Except for the fact that it literally is.</span></p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: kanaya pls chill</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: ive seen this before</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: theres no breakin her out of this</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: except uh</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: i guess by doing what dirk did?</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: shooting her and wakin her up and...</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: man</p>
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||
<p class="roxy">ROXY: poor jade :(</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Yes Poor Jade!</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Poor Me!!</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: Poor ROSE!!!</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: POOR EVERYONE!!!!</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: FUCK DIRK!!!!!</p>
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||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!</p>
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||
</div>
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<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">She picks up the heart monitor and throws it out the hospital window. Holy shit?</span></p>
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||
<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">she picks up the heart monitor,
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||
and throws it out the hospital window.</p>
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||
<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">Oh, yeah. I guess I don’t need to fucking do this anymore. Don’t worry, I’ll bow out. Seems like you got this from here. Go nuts, skull girl.</span></p>
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<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">the monitor smashes on the
|
||
pavement below, shattering into a thousand pieces. spectators
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||
gather around, and look up. roxy is looking out the broken window
|
||
with an apologetic demeanor, a hand to his mouth.</p>
|
||
<p class="calliope-dead">kanaya drops to the floor and begins
|
||
weeping again. she feels the sorrow anew from her wife’s departure,
|
||
with a sense of rage and pain unshrouded by the veil of the prince.
|
||
neither she nor her friends will have to worry about him anymore,
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||
so long as they remain on this planet and under my protection.</p>
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||
<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">But a bunch of them won’t remain, will they? They won’t be able to help themselves. You know that.</span></p>
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||
<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
|
||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: He Has To Be Stopped...</p>
|
||
<p class="kanaya">KANAYA: He Has To Be Stopped...</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p class="no-indent calliope-dead">huddled on the floor, she
|
||
repeats this pledge to herself. theoretically, he could be stopped
|
||
before he leaves, if they hurried. they would need to know what to
|
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do, where to go, and to have the motivation to do it, but time is
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short. i could push them to, with a certain degree of intervention,
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||
but i will not. my unwillingness to do so is what separates me from
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him. and what corporeal life needs now is someone presiding over
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them who is <em>nothing</em> like him at all.</p>
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<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">That’s a nice line. I get why you’d want to dial up the drama, making your grand reentrance and all. But the fact is, even if they wanted to, even if you brain-fried them all to become your own personal cherubic puppets and sent them on the warpath to come get me, they’d still never catch me. You still don’t get it yet.</span></p>
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<p class="dirk"><span class="type-bs type-hs-bottom">I’m
|
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already gone.</span></p>
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