"Mean? I want you to ask questions. Like I said, there's nothing really stopping me from wanting to talk about it, I'm just not 100% sure what 'it' is.
I know there is something not quite right about me. About most of us Fangs, really, though its worse for some than others as I'm sure you've noticed.
I've known that, intellectually, for a while but its really hard to remember when I'm not actively thinking about it. I faced it once when Falcon basically splashed icy water in my face but the world without the blinders was so unbelievably awful that... well... you know what happened."
Even after being publicly forgiven Ace is still really embarrassed about frenzying in front of/at Falcon.
"Luna was kinder... in a way.
After you left things got real with that pack of BSDs and we had to call in a lot of favors. I'm not sure how much of it you really want to hear about but long story short I needed to do something big for Luna. Part of that was her clearing my vision just a little. Enough that I could see the Fangs for what they were but not so much that I would lose my... chirpy optimism."
Ace says the last bit like its a joke but it really isn't. That's exactly what it was about. He was broken in just the right way to maybe have a shot at fixing things because he could glimpse the edges of the problem without it driving him straight into harano or the other direction further into insanity.
"Either way, this feels different than both.
Like... I know that we are stuck in a weird and dangerous situation. I'm confident in our ability to handle it, but I also can see that sometimes ability isn't enough and bad things happen to good people. I know that back home the world is falling apart. The cycle is broken, a lot of the Garou are corrupt or just overwhelmed. Gaia probably doesn't have much time left unless something changes drastically.
I don't just know all that. I believe it. I never really believed it before except, you know, those two times.
But I'm not screaming or depressed. I'm a little scared, which is weird, but nothing that would stop me from acting to save a friend or do something else I knew was right.
What's even weirder is that I don't want it back.
With Falcon I would have given anything just to bury myself in that certainty again, even knowing it wasn't real. Especially knowing that."
Re: 'neath Arabian moons
I know there is something not quite right about me. About most of us Fangs, really, though its worse for some than others as I'm sure you've noticed.
I've known that, intellectually, for a while but its really hard to remember when I'm not actively thinking about it. I faced it once when Falcon basically splashed icy water in my face but the world without the blinders was so unbelievably awful that... well... you know what happened."
Even after being publicly forgiven Ace is still really embarrassed about frenzying in front of/at Falcon.
"Luna was kinder... in a way.
After you left things got real with that pack of BSDs and we had to call in a lot of favors. I'm not sure how much of it you really want to hear about but long story short I needed to do something big for Luna. Part of that was her clearing my vision just a little. Enough that I could see the Fangs for what they were but not so much that I would lose my... chirpy optimism."
Ace says the last bit like its a joke but it really isn't. That's exactly what it was about. He was broken in just the right way to maybe have a shot at fixing things because he could glimpse the edges of the problem without it driving him straight into harano or the other direction further into insanity.
"Either way, this feels different than both.
Like... I know that we are stuck in a weird and dangerous situation. I'm confident in our ability to handle it, but I also can see that sometimes ability isn't enough and bad things happen to good people. I know that back home the world is falling apart. The cycle is broken, a lot of the Garou are corrupt or just overwhelmed. Gaia probably doesn't have much time left unless something changes drastically.
I don't just know all that. I believe it. I never really believed it before except, you know, those two times.
But I'm not screaming or depressed. I'm a little scared, which is weird, but nothing that would stop me from acting to save a friend or do something else I knew was right.
What's even weirder is that I don't want it back.
With Falcon I would have given anything just to bury myself in that certainty again, even knowing it wasn't real. Especially knowing that."