thepurpleone | Cyberformed [] Inbox

I didn't do enough!

[It comes out sharper than he expects, testing the closet door's hinges as it gives a little more. He can't stop the tears, frustrated and angry and hurting.]

I couldn't decide what to do, I... I hesitated and even then, I still didn't act when I should have. You and Esmeryl got hurt, you-

[He clamps his mouth shut, not wanting to say it, not knowing just how close to the truth it was.]

We got what we wanted but at what cost?? I was told to do something, I could've saved them! I- I could have...

[Anila doesn't quite startle at the outburst, but there is a moment of surprise. The looks settles into something... different, careful but a knowing flickers in her eyes before softening.]

Donnie, the concern is great -- [and that whole scenario about what could only be describe as a temporary death is probably an issue for another time] -- have you considered that you did do something? No matter how scared you were, you still tried to do the ritual on your own, you fought along side the rest of us.

[She shifts like she might reach out, but ends up reaching up and fiddling with the beads on the left side of her head instead.]

You aren't alone in this. [A beat as she presses her lips together then turns her attention to him, making sure he had her full attention for what she was about to say.] Isn't it like you said to Shockwave back in that chamber? If you could have done more, would it have been enough? Say your right. Say you messed it all up and you should be blame for how the ritual went down, everything that happened to me, to Esme... Could you have done better? Probably. That's what you want to hear, right? That you're right? That you aren't good enough? But what about the rest of us? Do you blame us too? You would be right too. I didn't argue well enough, I wasn't strong enough, even with the blessing of the totems, it wasn't enough. Same goes for Annie and Esme, they hardly tried, didn't they? You can regret your mistakes, don't sweep them away with the wind, it's good to address our flaws and work past them, but when does it stop Donnie. When do you stop blaming yourself for things out of your control?

Cause this isn't just about Shockwave, is it? Or the ritual. It's about everything. All the things you try to fix and can't control. It's about your brothers and the Gauntlets and far too much responsibility being put on someone so young. Or anyone at all, for that matter. You should be able to help, Donatello, you should be able to protect those you care about, but not at the cost of making that all who you are. When do you help yourself?

[There is nothing harsh in her voice, it's calm, deep, concerned, but it is pressing. Pushing at that door she is now starting to see cracking open.]

I didn't! I-I didn't even try to do the ritual. I only saw what the other options were. What they would take from me...

[He doesn't get another word in as Anila pushes further. Does he blame any of them? Should he? Putting the blame on someone else hadn't crossed his mind and hardly seems fair. All he can take responsibility for is himself, his own actions. What he's willing to risk.

When do you stop blaming yourself for things out of your control?

The words punch him in the gut, and his reflex is to argue, even if he has none. Still Anila pushes, not holding back. Each added thing is like a physical blow, a weight thrown on his back, or perhaps more a reminder of what he's been shouldering all this time. He sinks to the floor with a sob, Anila and the world around him impossibly blurry.]

...I just want to know when that enough is good enough...

[But it seems like the bar is always raised, that more will be demanded from him. It's like he'd asked, back at the Blood Well, back when he started to waver on what was right and what was wrong. When would he ever gain more than he gave?]

[There it was, the break she had been pushing for. Still, she can't help but feel guilty for putting him in such a state.]

Hey, it's okay.

[She shifts from her seat and settles on the floor next to him. She wants to hug him, but she remembers that he's not huge on touch and settled for a gentle on his shoulder, just enough to remind him that she's there.]

I wish I had the answer. It's hard not to help people. I made a promise, before I... came back. I would protect the small. I saw so many lives, all those souls--

[She cuts herself again. Stay focused.]

I think... you need to start small. Start with yourself. No matter what, Donatello Hamato, you are good enough. You make mistakes, but you try and you care and that's always the best place to start.

But I think you might be blaming yourself too much for the things that aren't your fault. Take the ritual. You say you didn't try, but you were hardly given the chance before Shockwave took over.

[Ugh, she had started this whole conversation, but she wasn't a therapist. She hardly had her own problems figured out. But he didn't want to leave Donnie with nothing.]

Look, the point is, if you always want to aim higher, you have to recognize where you are in the moment, secure your footing before you climb or something, so if you do fall, you are able to catch yourself.

[She makes a face.]

I'm sorry, my master was always much better at all this. I'm not sure I'm even making any sense with any of it.

[He doesn't even try to pull away as her hand rests on his shoulder, wiping a sleeve ineffectually across his eyes, but that just makes more things wet. For a brief moment he tenses as Anila's words sink in- that she'd 'come back'. Shockwave hadn't been holding back against her nor Esmeryl. And yet he hadn't done anything against Donnie for all the turtle's own attempts to stop him. Was it because he'd said he wasn't Shockwave's enemy? Pity? But Anila could have... Or did she actually die?]

.....

[He drags in another shaky breath, scrubbing at his eyes again as he listens. His emotions are all one hopelessly tangled mass, not that he's great at identifying any of them. He just knows they're familiar, and not at all enjoyable. They're the heavy things that weigh him down and threaten to drown him, the spiky ones that tear him up from the inside out.]

So Shockwave was basically right...

["You have to have power to fight the battles that count, if you do nothing but give it away piece by piece then there will be nothing left when you need it most; and if that is the case then you have to take back power where you can."

He'd argued against it because there hardly seemed to be instances when they had a choice to choose the battles they were engaged in. But what use was giving it your all if the outcome didn't change?

...maybe...maybe he really did need to learn to take where he could.]

[When he doesn't show any aversion to her touch, she keeps her hand there, running gentle circles into his neck and shoulder and over his shell. She gives him time let's him work through it at his own pace without rushing him and-- oh well. Okay. Not the lesson she was going for here but maybe she can still work with this. What were Jedi if not adaptive?]

Maybe he was.

[She makes a face. She doesn't like saying it. She doesn't like that he said it.]

Sometimes the one who have the truth are the ones we least want to say it.

But.

[She emphasizes this word very heavily. Are you listening to her Donatello?]

That doesn't mean he was right about everything and that doesn't mean he was right in the way that he thinks he should be.

[Does that even make sense? She wished Master Khoan was here. He would know a lot better what to say. Donnie's emotions were all over the place and it was hard to focus them into one, productive goal. She didn't want to stop the pain, that would take a lot more time, but if she could get him to focus, to ground, if they could get just one positive change, mindset, lesson, whatever out of this interaction. But she felt like she was backsliding.

Would she fail him too? Would she loose the closest thing she had to a friend on this ship?

What would Master Khoan say?]

Even our enemies have lessons to teach us.

[She flinches a little. Is that what Shockwave was? An Enemy? He was at the time and Anila certainly didn't consider him a friend or even an acquaintance by any means, but she was well aware that it was far more complicated for Donnie, who had seen the Cybertronian as a mentor figure, even a friend. In a way she thinks he still did, or at least that was part of the mess of emotions that were all tangled inside him at the moment. Slag this was hard and complicated and frankly, a little dumb. Why wouldn't the universe give this poor kid a break?]

Point is, it's more important how you take that lesson then how he meant it. I feel like you might be missing the point here Donnie. Shockwave wanted power. He wanted to get the information he needed by any means necessary. Those souls were just a tool to him.

We have to pick and choose our battles. Power isn't just about having the upper hand or being stronger, it's about knowing what is worth giving yourself too. You give yourself to so much, and I'm sure it's all worthy causes, but sometimes... Maybe... It could be things that other people could do too. You're just one person, Donnie, you aren't meant to carry the whole universe on your shoulders. Even if it feels like you should.

[She actually isn't sure what part of Shockwave's many little counterpoints he latched onto, as much as she would have loved to be more specific. She gives a sigh.]

And the hard truth is sometimes you'll fail. And that really sucks. That sucks a lot. Sometimes you fail where you wanted to fail the least and people get hurt. But there is balance in all things. Failure is rarely the end, especially if there is hope. You have to keep trying but balance. If you take everything on, then you'll never make it forward. Like I said, find your footing, ground yourself.

[It's somewhat surprising to hear Anila admit such, enough so that Donnie lifts his head, glancing out of the corner of his eye at her. The face she makes is a telling one, and if he weren't feeling so knotted up he might have laughed.

But there really isn't anything funny about it.

He's listening though. Even though he doesn't say anything else immediately, but then maybe that's good, because he's not trying to argue. But then he's tired of trying to make his point come across, exhausted from constantly pouring his heart out into words, only to have them ignored, brushed off as though they didn't matter. It doesn't particularly apply to Anila, and he supposes maybe he shouldn't have had such high hopes to convince Shockwave, knowing who he is. He'd taken the smallest comfort in knowing that at least this time, he and Anemone were fighting on the same side.]

...I know. And to him, it just seemed the most logical thing to do. It was...an opportunity. And to him, there wasn't any personal loss, only gain.

But what if we're not given a choice? Like when we went to Iskwiyac. We weren't there to find another relic of a Prime, but since we just happened to be there, we got drawn into things. That's where I almost lost Anemone! In a way, I think I still lost her, and I don't know that I can ever really get her back..!

[He looks at his hands, clenching them into tight fists, the flicker of anger stoked into something that swirls more prominently amidst the other mix of emotions, not that it hadn't always been there.]

I was given power that I never asked for, and all it does is keep taking, the more I have to use it. It would have taken more if I went through with the ritual, she wanted me to stop Shockwave from killing all those people, knowing it would have cost me.

[He takes in a shaky breath, letting his hands drop into his lap.]

But I would've tried anyway. Maybe she knew that. Greater outcomes and all that, I don't know. It's hard hoping when you know you're just being used.

[Anila is silent for a bit. It's one thing to speak in hypotheticals and vague platitudes, but getting specific like this? That's a little trickier.

That flicker of anger had her frowning. She had been drilled of the danger of anger. It wasn't the same for someone who wasn't atuned to the Force like she and other Jedi were. But it could still be dangerous all the same.

But he has all the right to be angry. Even if she didn't know all the details, even if she didn't understand, not completely. How could she when their lives were so different?]

Your life is hard and the choices you keep getting given suck. It's not fair. Especially when it doesn't really seem to be a choice at all. You shouldn't have to do things at the sake of so many others just because you were in the right place at the right time.

[Nothing was ever fair, but that wasn't the point here. He didn't need to hear that. He likely already knew. What he needed was to be seen. To be acknowledged. Anila didn't have the answers. But she had herself and she would be here as long as he needed.

Shifting so that she was sitting a little more comfortably next to him-- close but not too close-- she pulls a knee up to her chest and finally pulls her hand from his back to fiddle with the beads at the side of her head.

There is a lot to be said, but if she's being honest, she isn't sure how to counter a lot of his points.

So instead, she asks a question.]

If you could get rid of the gauntlets, would you?

[The silence is telling, heavy to the point of suffocating.

Anila only echoes his own words and thoughts, and yet Donnie knows it's only a fragment of the many instances where it seemed like things were just so far beyond them, their victories only scraping by, and even then, sometimes it felt like they hadn't won at all. The challenges had only gotten harder, and sometimes the only win seems to be having everyone make it out alive.

He says nothing with the question asked, lowering his head into his arms. A hypothetical question, not a realistic one. Not when his arms were gone.]

...no.

[His response when it finally comes is quiet, barely a whisper.]

[It's strange. Anila wasn't expecting him to say no, but somehow it doesn't surprise her, now that he's said it. She hardly hears it, but it seems to echo in the large room. It hurts, she hurts for him.

How can she help?

Is this really her problem to help with? She's given all this talk about balance and not taking on more than you can handle and whatever else. But if she was going to preach about sharing the load, she had to make herself available.

This was a burden she was willing to bear. She was going to help.

And not just because of her promise to Gossamer.]

Can I see them?

[He knows he'd come upon them purely by accident. It could have easily been Anemone, or Leo... After the things he's had to go through, he doesn't think he would have wished the burden on either of them.

He also knows that, whether it be curse, burden or boon, it wouldn't change how he'd make use of it. It's always been his nature to try to find a solution, to make things work, to fix things and help others. ...even if he never got the acknowledgement in return.

Peering at her just over his arm, Donnie slowly extracts a hand, pulling his sleeve up a little as he holds it out to her. His fingers are back to the usual turtle stubs rather than the clawed tips he'd taken to wearing for the longest. The claws he'd styled after Shockwave's.]

[She looks down at the exposed arm and reached out with long slender fingers. Her face is serious as she pauses a moment, giving him a chance to stop her, to pull away, but fore finally laying her hand across his wrist. She takes a breath and lets it out slowly as she traces along the strange stone, closing her eyes as she focuses.

It may look intentional, but Anila doesn't know what in the universe she's doing. She's just hoping she can do... something. She reaches out to the Force, trying to connect it with the Gauntlet, trying to... get a reading? Play spot the difference? Communicate with the power there? She doesn't know. But if anything can give her insight, anything that could help her help him...]

[Donnie isn't sure what Anila means to do, but he doesn't pull away, weird as it might be. Perhaps in a way he's also curious, to see if she might be able to find out...something.

What exactly, he has no idea, but he lifts his head a little as he watches her begin to concentrate.]

[Anila frowns and moves her fingers as if feeling for a pulse. In a way, she kind of is. She can feel a power there. The presence. But she can't connect with it. Not the way that Donnie apparently can.

Her brows furrow in frustration and she finally gives up and pulls away.]

I'm sorry.

[She sounds utterly disappointed and maybe a little frustrated.]

I was hoping I would find something to help but it's not really anything more than what you've already told me.

[He tilts his head as she frowns, but when she finally opens her eyes again, he can't help but be a tiny bit disappointed too, even though he wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. But that's not fair to Anila, who at the very least had intended to be of some assistance.

Donnie shakes his head, pulling his arm back as he lets the sleeve fall back over his wrist.]

There's nothing to apologize for. She's not very forthcoming most of the time.

[He looks at his hand again, flexing his fingers. All the earlier emotions have dampened again, condensed into a ball, too exhausted to make any one or the other more obvious.]

...every time I use them, and it's something beyond the power already available, it takes a little more of my body. They started out up to my elbows, but they didn't actually take my arms until I saved Anemone. Only recently did I lose the rest of them.

[There's... a sadness there. An ache for that loss, but it's a faint thing, nearly lost by a layer of apathy.]

[Anila frowns, but this time in sympathy with the turtle. She wanted to ask if there was a way to reverse it, but she already knew the answer and she wasn't so cruel as to make him speak it.

And how far would they go? What happened when they went too far? Would they keep going until they consumed him whole?

There was a surge of anger and her own hands curl in her lap. She's glad, for a moment, that he doesn't have the same kind of empathy that she does.

It's just not fair.

And now his emotions are dulling again. Donnie was good at that, she found, pushing everything in to a condensed little ball he can ignore and smothering it in apathy. It's probably not healthy but... she gets it. It's so hard to feel so much all the time. You need a break sometimes. At least she got him to open up a little bit, for a while. Hopefully that relieved a little bit of the pressure.

She doesn't really know what to say. What did you say? 'Sorry you lost your arms to some strange alien god tool, hope it doesn't happen again.' But it would happen again. It just kept happening, that was what was what was so frustrating.

The empathy was draining. It was never this bad before, in her own universe. Was it the alternate space? Or was it her? She often had trouble with meditation but it might come in good aid here.]

Dumb sacrifices.

[When she finally speaks, it's on a huff and probably the most immature she's sounded this whole conversation. She doesn't want to tell him he shouldn't have done it, that's not for her to say and he would have, regardless. But she can lament. She can be frustrated on his behalf.]

Is there like... a goal? Solus, right? Gave you options for the Ritual, didn't she? Is there something she wants from you?

[Maybe if there was some sort of... end goal, they could have something to work towards, prep for, anything.]

[It's unfortunately been an easier solution to getting emotionally overwhelmed. It's exhausting to deal with otherwise, and Donnie's found no lasting relief from it that it's just become habit to push it back into a closet. All he does is worry people anyway, and maybe they're just as tired of it as he is.

He sighs, letting his head sink back into his arms again. He's not even empathetic and he's still just as drained. Trying to solve problems is draining. Trying to do the right thing is tiring. And even when you do do the right thing, you end up exhausted. Maybe one day he can feel satisfied. But maybe one day he'll just be, as Princer put it, a magical cyborg.]

I don't know.

[It's his least favorite answer, but it's the only one he has. But he can agree with Anila's sentiment there. Dumb indeed. But sacrifice was a part of everything anyone did, just not to the extremes as they'd only recently dealt with.]

She didn't say. She only said that there was going to be treachery, and to take the book and perform the ritual, or else all those lives would be lost to power and greed if I didn't.

...but that's what ended up happening.

[Well at least Solus seemed to know a little bit of what she was talking about.

Anila pulls her other leg up, wraps her arms around her knees and rests her chin on them.

The thick feeling of being swallowed by blood, the weight and pain of all those souls. And she was useless, just like she is now, she--

Anila loosens her fingers from where they are digging into her arms. She isnt certain what triggered the surge of memory and emotion but now isn't the time. She has to keep herself under control.]

Yeah...

[Her voice is a bit distant.]

Doesn't feel great. Even if we got what we went there for. I-- for what it's worth, as much as I wished we had stopped it, I'm glad you didn't have to make whatever sacrifice Solus was asking if you. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to stop him sooner, to make sure you were never in that position in the first place."

If we managed to convince Shockwave, we might've instead had to face Akala. ...and I don't know how much better we would've fared against her.

[She'd been frightening enough even when she wasn't actively against them. It still worries him what all she might do, now that she's freed.]

...I could have put her back to sleep.

[Anila frowned. He was right of course, but it doesn't feel like it was a better or worse option either way. Just like everything else. An option where they would have had to pay some sort of price. Would the battle have been worse? Would more have died than just herself and a couple thousand souls?]

At least then the betrayal would have been expected. It wouldn't have even counted. At least it wouldn't have been one of our own

[She turns to look at Donnie, curiously.]

Back to sleep? Like with the Ritual?

[Donnie nods.]

A third option.

There was the Ritual of Forgiveness, which would free all the prisoners. The Ritual of Power, which killed them all to obtain power. ...and then the Ritual of Purity, which would put Akala back to sleep. The two thousand prisoners would be spared, but the sacrifices would potentially die.

[He counts each one off on his fingers.]

[She hadn't asked what the options were that he had been given and now, hearing them, her contempt towards Shockwave grew.

There were other options, other ways, just like she has been trying to find, and he took the one that cost the most for everyone but himself.]

Forgiveness would have still freed her then.

But you don't know what it would have cost.

It seems like Shockwave hardly paid anything. What is a few thousand souls when you don't care about a single one?

...there was a cost. But I don't know what would have been supplemented for it if it was even something Shockwave would have considered.

[Donnie knows only that it would have cost him if he had done so, his eyes drifting to his hands again.]

And he wouldn't have gained anything. Power's what he believes we need, and I don't know if I can say he's completely wrong in that. Not with everything we've been having to deal with. ...but it still doesn't justify what was done.

[She huffs, it's not directed towards him, but everything in general. Dramatic and a little bit immature.]

Absolutely not. Power rarely leads to anything good, even if it helps in the moment.

I... I understand why he didn't. But that doesn't mean I agree.

He didn't even give us a chance. Not really

[Her voice dropped a little quieter. She was supposed to be the adult here and here she was pouting.]

Have you talked to Annie at all? Or Esme?

[It's kind of funny. Refreshing, even. Unfortunately Donnie doesn't feel much like laughing. The subject isn't really one to laugh about anyway.

He shakes his head at the question. Back to his usual habits, retreating from the world, hoping to work things out. It's been working less and less these days, becoming more tempting to just hide in his room.]

...no.

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