preybeforemeals | IC Contact/Voicemail

Ah...it's been a rough week. A very rough week.

...Sounds like a job for Oma's chicken soup to me, but that's me.

It might be; I wouldn't know. Stress-eating has never really been my thing.

It's actually more like stress-cooking, on account of all the vegetable dicing that goes into it.

You wanna complain about it? "No" is a fair answer, but I figure I'll put it out there anyway.

[...]

Is there anyone that you would give anything to see again? Whether by bringing them here, or returning home to them.

Absolutely.

[Zero hesitation.]

It seems something unfortunate has happened to mine.

And yet you're sitting here talking to me and not out wrecking the guy who did it to your thing.

To each his own, I guess.

If I could be, I would. I've dedicated my life to him, to ensuring his protection and that anyone who threatens him is dealt immediate and brutal retribution. That hasn't changed.

However, I'm currently in a position where I can't do anything about it. Believe me, my mood would not be nearly this hideous if I were able to resolve any of what happened.

Despite all your rage, you're still just a guy in a cage, huh?

That does sound like complete shit. Hell, I can't even blame you for desolate wasteland bit; I'd be inconsolable, too, in your shoes.

This is really just the tipping point, I think - the proverbial straw and all that. My life has been a series of things I can't really talk to anyone about lately.

Almost all of them sound a bit nonsensical when put into words, anyway.

Try me, if you want.

...Don't say that I didn't warn you in advance, then.

I'm a member of a small group of people back home, with a very specific dynamic. The others are all very tight-knit; I'm the outlier. They hate me, actually, and they make sure that I know that they keep me around because I'm useful to them.

I don't mind. The work itself is worth it, and they have something I want. I can eventually use them because they're using me now; it's a fair tradeoff. The relevant point, though, is that they hate me - they wouldn't trust me to keep a pet rock in one piece, much less with their lives.

Now I'm here, and some of them are, too. The problem is that our leader is not. The others are close with one another, but they aren't competent, and they aren't used to surviving on their own. On the other hand, survival is something that I've proven to be very good at. I'm useful to them back home for both my strength and my mind - I can be relied on for plans and information when they don't have either, and obviously they have neither here.

So now these people that hated me so much before are looking at me as though I should know what to do - when situations crop up here (and they have, we're just rather quiet about it, not the sort to go crying to the public network) I'm the first person they're asking for guidance. Our interpersonal situation aside - and I have many thoughts about that - I also think I'm the last person that should be asked to do something like that. I'm just as lost as the rest of them, but I can't very well tell them that I don't know what to do, because I'm the most likely person to be able to come up with a viable course of action and I can't just pass the decision off to someone else.

I wouldn't say I'm scared, because that's a gross exaggeration of it and there's no reason to be truly afraid of anything here, anyway. But just the same, there's something...overwhelming, I suppose, about suddenly being responsible for the well-being of several people. They all look at me for leadership, but I have no one to turn to myself if I don't know what to do, and bluntly put I don't most of the time.

[...So what he's taking away from this is that the emperor's bastard son is a figurehead for a group of people spearheaded by a guy he is now dubbing Fearless Leader, and Fearless Leader and his cronies want to take the throne but they need someone with a blood tie so they're forced to tolerate Captain Calzone.

...

And he's afraid to be king because he's much more comfortable being a street-savvy alley rat?

Man, he can't even blame the guy, the whole thing sounds like kind of a shitshow that he'd never want to be affiliated with, emperor or not.]

So they're a bunch of idiots who don't know their heads from their asses in a crisis situation, and because they saw you being marginally competent once, that by extension makes you the guy everybody looks to when nobody else knows what to do.

Maybe you can't pass the decision off on people, but maybe you could...I don't know, delegate? Even leaders get lieutenants and shit. Maybe you'll still get stuck making the final call, but that doesn't mean you have to pull all the weight yourself too.

[...You know, one of these days you are going to have to fill him in on His Life According To You, because it sounds so much better than his actual life.]

Perhaps, monsieur. It's been working surprisingly well so far, at least; it's just been causing me stress lately.

If anything, it's a relief to just vent at someone about it, so I suppose I owe you for that.

What, no "amore"? You really must be neck-deep in despair.

You wanna go climb shit or something to work it off?

Ah...not now, sorry. Maybe some other time.

Well, here's hoping shit works out for you.

[...]

And sorry about your guy.

It'll work itself out eventually; things always do, one way or another.

Thank you for listening, though. I appreciate it.

Speaking of listening, there's always the radio. Who knows, maybe you'll hear something that reminds you of me.

And you know how to grab me if you want to vent again, so there's that too.

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