[Voice]

[dissonates]

[Silence.

There's too much of it. It burns into his mind, the echo of emptiness in the corner of it, that ache he can't seem to brush aside no matter how he tries to distract himself. He's tried going outside, he's tried burying himself in that braille stuff Xion gave him, he's tried striking up conversations with his housemates (even the animals), but he runs out of things to say far too quickly and in the back of his mind it's always there. The silence, the echo. The fact that something is missing.

Dead.

And then he's had enough.

The journal's camera is partially obscured when the feed flickers on, and what it does show is his face - eyes, a flash of red hair, his bangs down - just enough to make it seem like he's not quite himself. His voice, too, is softened; it's not as open and friendly as Luke would have been when greeting the village, but it lacks the usual anger or pent-up frustrations of the socially-awkward soldier. If anything it sounds... hushed, weary, tinged with a bit of desperation. He needs this. Whether or not he wants to do it is irrelevant.

It hurts. The silence hurts, more than last time when Luke had been sent home, and he honestly hadn't thought it would.]

Tell me about your day. Tell me a story. Talk about anything. Today I'm listening.

[He might not care. He might not be nice about it. He might not even remember it later. But he'll listen.

He just needs to hear something, so he can forget about the nothing in his head for a while.]

((Asch is blind, so all tags must be voice/action or he cannot respond to them!))

Comments

[inheavenslight]

That is very, very odd. I...can not imagine that.

[dissonates]

Traditions differ from world to world. Anyway, it's not as if women aren't allowed to fight. It's just that many decide not to for whatever reason.

[inheavenslight]

That is still odd, surely there must be something to fight for.

[dissonates]

People fight in different ways. It doesn't have to be with a weapon.

[inheavenslight]

Fists or weapons, I don't know of any other way.

[dissonates]

Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "The pen is mightier than the sword"?

[inheavenslight]

How will a pen defend one's life from someone trying to break into their house? [Honestly curious, because he never heard that phrase.]

[dissonates]

You're thinking about it on too small a scale. Thieves and criminals can be stopped by the support of a good ruler, who with a word or a written proclamation can create jobs for desperate men, or a support system for the people who need it. Prevent the crime, and self-defense becomes unnecessary.

[inheavenslight]

And what about people from the outside? Wars.

[dissonates]

Wars can be prevented with truces. The word of a ruler is what decides whether a war will be fought or negotiated.

[inheavenslight]

And what if negotiations would only be something that would try and destroy a basis for the land?

[dissonates]

[Not... sure he gets that one.]

What do you mean?

[inheavenslight]

When previous countries tried to negotiate with Sancia, for example, they wanted to remove power from the Church for their own government to be put into place.

Negotiations did not work with that.

[dissonates]

Negotiations require a fair compromise. If one side is trying to control another, of course it isn't going to work.

Look, I'm not saying that war is always preventable, or that weapons are unnecessary. I wield a sword myself, and there's plenty of times I've had to use it. But there are alternatives.

[inheavenslight]

Then I hope for a day when we don't have to worry about anything but the pen.

[dissonates]

Any responsible person in a position of power should hope for the same result.

[inheavenslight]

Many aren't responsible.

[dissonates]

And many incite the rage and rebellion of their people. Citizens have a way of finding balance sooner or later.

[inheavenslight]

Luckily, except for a few, balance has been found in Sancia.

[dissonates]

Is that where you're from?

[inheavenslight]

Correct, I live right in the middle of it.

[dissonates]

You're fortunate to have that balance, then. The countries of my world are constantly failing at it.

[inheavenslight]

How so?

[dissonates]

Most of the time it's because neither country seems particularly interested in keeping the peace any longer than it takes to recover from the last war.

[inheavenslight]

That makes no sense to do.