Mavis is saying she's not Kuruko any more, right? But she still only really knows a lot of things their way. Their traditions. I don't think she's really going to want to drop all of it, but, I don't know, I'm trying to think of ways to make it easier for her. Translate stuff.
Yeah, but it's different when you want to. Then there's a reason. Things you want to get rid of, even if you can't let the rest go.
[He'd know.]
But you did that challenge with her, right? That time she almost killed you. So I was thinking maybe you could tell me how that whole thing worked, and we can figure out if there's ways it can translate.
We were at the castle that first time. Word had just broken about the meat being human. So, I dragged her onto a balcony and asked if she’d changed her mind about not being resurrected. When she said “no,” I told her I couldn’t accept that, so I challenged her to a duel; if I won, her life was mine, and if I lost, I wouldn’t speak to her again.
She set the terms, I picked the place. ( it wasn't something they could do close to town for obvious reasons. ) She had to find people to witness, because I didn't know anyone well enough to ask. To be honest, I was so over the whole thing at that point, I didn't really care who saw us. Just that it was settled.
I had a vague idea. She kept bringing it up every time we argued. I didn't fully grasp the implications; if I had, I probably would have agreed sooner. Saved us both a lot of trouble.
I thought she was trying to get rid of me, finally. To pretend like our whole thing meant nothing. Turns out, what she wanted was for me to prove she was worth fighting for — literally.
( killing and even dying for. )
She needed me to do it her way, so she could finally accept the truth.
I think so. When she dueled John Gaius, it was the same format. Except this time, I was the referee and witness. For ours, we agreed on the weapons beforehand — no powers.
No? She kicked his ass all over the Peaks. Bet you'd have gotten a kick out of that.
( another pause, thinking. )
I've got the impression she's overestimating her knowledge of their practices a little bit. ( they'd kicked her out when she was, what? eight or nine. )
The only other significant thing I can think of would be the cats, and I don't think even the Minstrel is going to be able to wrangle one of those.
[Complicated. More complicated than he really wants to think about, has just accepted it's important to Mavis and moved on. It helps that Gaius isn't here any more. Which hurts Mavis in turn. Complicated.]
None of them are left to fact-check her, so it doesn't matter. Whatever she thinks is how they did things is how they did things, now.
The challenge seems to be at the heart of what she considers Kuruko culture.
Ianthe's people apparently have a similar tradition. It might be worth asking her about how they do things, if you're interested. Or you could ask Mavis — she’d probably tell you.
I don’t think it’s really about the insult itself in her case; it’s more about not wanting to be seen as weak. ( which, oddly enough, wasn’t that different from how his people saw romantic interest — except his people thought personal relationships were selfish, putting individual needs before the community. )
I didn’t just make her want; I’m an outsider who helped kill her people. On some level, she'll always hate me for that.
When we first got dropped on the ground, he kind of made himself in charge. Talked the right kind of talk, acted the right kind of way, so we all listened to him. I listened to him.
But we were a bunch of criminal kids with no laws for the first time. We were assholes. I was the worst. So when they find the Chancellor's son dead, killed with my knife, it was easy math. Ark law is any crime gets you floated. No airlocks on the ground, though, so they string me up, and Bellamy's the one who kicks the box out from under me.
Only I hadn't killed Wells. This kid, Charlotte, had. Bellamy knew that, but he didn't want to kill a little girl, and he would've let me hang for it if she hadn't piped up that it was her. They cut me down, I want her head, Bellamy grabs her and runs into the woods, and me, I get a mob together and go after them.
She jumped off a cliff, in the end. She killed herself and they exiled me, left me there. The Grounders find me, torture all the information they can out of me, then make me sick and dump me back at the camp to spread it to everyone else. Bellamy wanted to kill me, but Clarke doesn't let him, and while they're sick, I kill the two guys who tied the rope they hanged me with. Tried to kill Bellamy, too. Strung him up. Kicked the stool out from under him. So he'd feel what I felt.
He got saved, same as I'd been. Definitely wanted to kill me as soon as he saw me, after that. But the thing was, the whole world was coming for us. Grounders wanted to kill us, Mount Weather wanted our blood, ALIE wanted to stick computer chips in our brains. And even with the rest of the Ark down on the ground, we were still the only ones who really gave a damn about us.
I saved his life a few times. He saved mine. I don't think there's anyone in the universe who knows me better than him.
( it’s a lot to take in, definitely more than he anticipated. he remains quiet, giving murphy the chance to speak his mind.
as murphy goes on, the pieces start to come together — the earlier guardedness and then the swift jump to assuming he'd be rejected. discarded. it was his pattern.
he exhales slowly, rubs at the bridge of his nose. ) I don't care if she's angry at me, as long as she's alive to be angry. ( this feels important to clarify, and not just because it now extends to murphy. )
But I don’t really enjoy hurting people, even if it’s necessary. And at the time, it was necessary. It wasn't just my life on the line.
We were sent to negotiate the use of some old mines in the area, not to pick a fight. ( their arrival hadn't been exactly welcome, but that was business as usual. )
While there, I noticed some suspicious activity and brought it to my team lead's attention. Our policy is to assess and evaluate any potential threats or assets. And the power was too significant to ignore. ( murphy has some idea of what mavis is capable of, but he has no idea what she actually feels like; how it's like peering into the heart of a supernova. )
Unfortunately, the situation soured pretty quickly when we tried to investigate further. We were outnumbered, and they underestimated us.
( the real kicker, of course, was that the mines turned out to be totally useless. )
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But, alright, I get what you're saying.
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[He'd know.]
But you did that challenge with her, right? That time she almost killed you. So I was thinking maybe you could tell me how that whole thing worked, and we can figure out if there's ways it can translate.
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We were at the castle that first time. Word had just broken about the meat being human. So, I dragged her onto a balcony and asked if she’d changed her mind about not being resurrected. When she said “no,” I told her I couldn’t accept that, so I challenged her to a duel; if I won, her life was mine, and if I lost, I wouldn’t speak to her again.
She set the terms, I picked the place. ( it wasn't something they could do close to town for obvious reasons. ) She had to find people to witness, because I didn't know anyone well enough to ask. To be honest, I was so over the whole thing at that point, I didn't really care who saw us. Just that it was settled.
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So you challenged her without knowing that was a Kuruko thing?
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( killing and even dying for. )
She needed me to do it her way, so she could finally accept the truth.
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You said she set the terms. Is that because you were the one who made the challenge?
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It needed to be a level playing field.
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[Except it was Gaius' fault that he wasn't, so.]
She said anything else about them to you? Any other Kuruko rituals or anything?
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( another pause, thinking. )
I've got the impression she's overestimating her knowledge of their practices a little bit. ( they'd kicked her out when she was, what? eight or nine. )
The only other significant thing I can think of would be the cats, and I don't think even the Minstrel is going to be able to wrangle one of those.
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[Complicated. More complicated than he really wants to think about, has just accepted it's important to Mavis and moved on. It helps that Gaius isn't here any more. Which hurts Mavis in turn. Complicated.]
None of them are left to fact-check her, so it doesn't matter. Whatever she thinks is how they did things is how they did things, now.
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Ianthe's people apparently have a similar tradition. It might be worth asking her about how they do things, if you're interested. Or you could ask Mavis — she’d probably tell you.
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[Why he was pissy about it.]
What it means is what's important. Some places, you can just pretend you were insulted about something and make a duel happen. Easy.
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I didn’t just make her want; I’m an outsider who helped kill her people. On some level, she'll always hate me for that.
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I ever tell you about Bellamy?
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Not really, no.
cw: child death, murder, suicide, hanging, violence
But we were a bunch of criminal kids with no laws for the first time. We were assholes. I was the worst. So when they find the Chancellor's son dead, killed with my knife, it was easy math. Ark law is any crime gets you floated. No airlocks on the ground, though, so they string me up, and Bellamy's the one who kicks the box out from under me.
Only I hadn't killed Wells. This kid, Charlotte, had. Bellamy knew that, but he didn't want to kill a little girl, and he would've let me hang for it if she hadn't piped up that it was her. They cut me down, I want her head, Bellamy grabs her and runs into the woods, and me, I get a mob together and go after them.
She jumped off a cliff, in the end. She killed herself and they exiled me, left me there. The Grounders find me, torture all the information they can out of me, then make me sick and dump me back at the camp to spread it to everyone else. Bellamy wanted to kill me, but Clarke doesn't let him, and while they're sick, I kill the two guys who tied the rope they hanged me with. Tried to kill Bellamy, too. Strung him up. Kicked the stool out from under him. So he'd feel what I felt.
He got saved, same as I'd been. Definitely wanted to kill me as soon as he saw me, after that. But the thing was, the whole world was coming for us. Grounders wanted to kill us, Mount Weather wanted our blood, ALIE wanted to stick computer chips in our brains. And even with the rest of the Ark down on the ground, we were still the only ones who really gave a damn about us.
I saved his life a few times. He saved mine. I don't think there's anyone in the universe who knows me better than him.
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as murphy goes on, the pieces start to come together — the earlier guardedness and then the swift jump to assuming he'd be rejected. discarded. it was his pattern.
he exhales slowly, rubs at the bridge of his nose. ) I don't care if she's angry at me, as long as she's alive to be angry. ( this feels important to clarify, and not just because it now extends to murphy. )
But I don’t really enjoy hurting people, even if it’s necessary. And at the time, it was necessary. It wasn't just my life on the line.
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cw: implications of violence and genocide
While there, I noticed some suspicious activity and brought it to my team lead's attention. Our policy is to assess and evaluate any potential threats or assets. And the power was too significant to ignore. ( murphy has some idea of what mavis is capable of, but he has no idea what she actually feels like; how it's like peering into the heart of a supernova. )
Unfortunately, the situation soured pretty quickly when we tried to investigate further. We were outnumbered, and they underestimated us.
( the real kicker, of course, was that the mines turned out to be totally useless. )
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