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[rathercommon]

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

Comments

[rathercommon]

Pointless?

[ Her voice is incredulous. ]

Why would your life be pointless?

[elegiaque]

I don't know if you've noticed, ( dryly, ) but every part of my future features a rifter rather prominently.

[rathercommon]

Oh, right. The marriage thing.

[ Here she sounds a touch dismissive. Kitty's views on human relationships are not exactly...indulgent or positive. ]

Thranduil is lovely, but he's hardly necessary to give your life purpose.

[elegiaque]

He is in all of my plans.

[rathercommon]

Well, and the city of London was in all of my plans, but - one adapts in accordance with life's unexpected turns.

[elegiaque]

Yes, obviously. I'd have a completely different life if he weren't in it, that's what I mean. My plans would be different.

[rathercommon]

But not the things you care about. Not your ideals.

[elegiaque]

...why not?

( a genuine question. )

Of course I'd care about different things.

[rathercommon]

[ Incredulously - ]

Just because you didn't have a person in your life any longer? The world would still be the same even if he died. There'd still be all the same injustices.

[elegiaque]

Yes, and that's terrible.

( in much the same tone as kitty spoke of the marriage thing, and just as unintentionally revealing; she isn't mirroring it on purpose. )

It would be a different life. I wouldn't lead it the same way. I don't know what it would look like.

[rathercommon]

It's not as though you lack imagination.

[elegiaque]

What I care about is people. My people, the people who I love. And I will always do what's best for them. We live in the world, so we should save it. And whatever they need me to do, or to be—

( gwenaëlle doesn't have ideals, she has a heart as wide and as treacherous as the ocean. )

I'll be that.

[rathercommon]

But - people are...Not to be too blunt, but people are generally awfully disappointing.

[elegiaque]

Yes, that's why I don't care about very many of them.

[rathercommon]

And you can't ever help people. Not really.

[elegiaque]

Of course I can. And I intend to.

( ...alongside her husband, because he wants to. )

[rathercommon]

How?

[ A shrug. ]

People never do what you are want em to.

[elegiaque]

That will depend a great deal on how the end of the war leaves us positioned, and what Thranduil thinks best. It's really more his area than mine.

[rathercommon]

[ A quick half-laugh, and she shakes her head. ]

Will how the end of the war leaves us positioned - will that wipe out people's free will?

[elegiaque]

If Corypheus wins.

( she says it like something she believes might happen, because it is. something she's thought about in seriousness. )

[rathercommon]

I'm talking about if we win.

[elegiaque]

Then no, obviously not.

[rathercommon]

So, in that case, you can't get people to do what you want. Regardless of how Thranduil is placed.

[elegiaque]

( there's a very long pause, and then, bewildered: )

You've completely lost me.

[rathercommon]

I said that people never do what you want them to - that you can never actually really help someone, because they'll just do what they will. You said that depends on where you and Thranduil end up, but I say that it doesn't. That at the end of the day, people will just do what they want.