milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

asmodean,
kim bauer

(no subject)

[OOM: A nightmare from last night - warning: violent content]

Kim comes down from upstairs. She ran earlier and showered and changed so she's ready to eat and hopefully not think about certain things.

She's also kind of curious why so many people are running upstairs but isn't really in a party mood either.

She orders a chicken pad tai and a soda. She finds an empty booth and sits down but probably wouldn't mind some company.

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Kim isn't quite sure she understands what he means. "When you say errant individuals do you mean people who were against the rulers or people who were trying to hurt civilians?"

Asmodean paused.

"I suppose I could have been sent for both, but I do not recall ever being sent against individuals who were against the government. I do not recall such individuals existing."

"In your society there was no one who tried to change things or overthrow the ruling class?"

Asmodean gave a smile.

"Before the Shadow came, my society was a practically ideal one. Disease had been conquered, the weather and the earth had been harnessed for the good of all, hunger and poverty had been abolished. Honor and status were the driving forces of society, and to serve others generated more honor than to serve oneself."

"So the Shadow wasn't always there? It kind of sounds like a utopia."

Asmodean considered.

"We did not realize what we had until we had lost it."

"Do people in your society live a long time often?" Kim met someone who had two hearts so this wasn't such an out there question.

Asmodean paused.

"I am one of the Aes Sedai, people who control the One Power. In my age, the Aes Sedai routinely lived past eight hundred years. Ordinary people lived to between one hundred and fifty and two hundred years."

Kim nods. "It's still kind of hard for me to imagine all these other worlds existing."

Asmodean shrugged.

"I suppose. In my world, we had the Portal Stones. They allowed us to visit the Mirrors of the Wheel, it showed us what might have been. Other worlds where we met other choices. I do not know what exactly Aes Sedai did with them, because that was far outside my area of expertise."

"You mean you got to see alternate versions of the future?"

Asmodean nodded.

"That is what I was told concerning them."

"Where I'm from we never see other versions of the future and lifespans are much shorter."

Asmodean nodded.

"Our worlds are different, but perhaps one day, your world will be similar to the way mine was before the Shadow came."

"Maybe...having a perfect world isn't ideal because then things only can go wrong."

Asmodean paused.

"Perhaps, but it was not the people who ruined our world, the Shadow did."

"How...how long ago did the Shadow arrive?"

Asmodean paused. He pursed his lips slightly.

"It is complicated. We had no idea about the Dark One or the Shadow in my world, and then during an ill-fated experiment they opened a link between our universe and his prison. For a little over one hundred years society began to crumble under the Shadow's influence. Then the War of the Shadow happened. We turned our great technology into weapons of war. At the end, the Light may a desperate attempt to reseal the Dark One's Prison. The Forsaken, of which I was, were sealed in the prison. I slept in a dreamless sleep beyond time and space for three thousand years. When I awoke the entire world had changed. That was about two years ago."

"And you were part of the Shadow?" She's trying to make sense of the story.

Asmodean nodded.

"Yes, I was. I was one of the Forsaken, the highest servants of the Shadow."

Kim thinks to herself that Forsaken does not sound like a good thing to be.

"Do you...regret what you did?"

Asmodean shrugged. He was quite casual despite speaking of the deaths of millions.

"Hard to say. The deeds that I did haunt me to this day but I cannot imagine doing anything else under the circumstances."

Kim sees Ryan from across the way and needs to talk to him.

"I think there's always another answer other than violence but...I also think it's possible to try to make up for past events."

Asmodean considered.

"I would like to think so, but perhaps it has been to long for me to change."

He paused.

"I must bid you good evening. The hour is late. I thank you for the conversation."

Asmodean stood up, and gave a graceful bow to Kim. He walked away without word.

Kim nods and says goodnight.

After he leaves, Kim wonders why she's willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a stranger who has commmitted terrible crimes but not her dad and...she doesn't know.

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