Scene #9693: Dead Girlfriend Party

Owner	Pose
Regulus	Regulus made a promise to Cosimo that she would, essentially, drink herself silly to honor his passing and then faded away while comforting Sonetto which certainly left an impression on her. This is now also a promise to Schneider because the only reason she hadn't made such a promise to Schneider is because she didn't know she'd also be swept away by the Storm. She was worried it'd be easier the second time around, but in some ways it's even worse. And because there's a whole schedule for ensuring enough people are staying in the Foundation, the days that she can go out and get drunk are limited. And today... is one of those days! She thought it'd be most appropriate to go to the trouble of getting drunk in Chicago. Not her Chicago, but one of many modern Chicagos in the early 21st century. She figures that's about the best that she can do. Regulus has come to Milton Lee Olive Park alone in the evening, late enough that the park is mostly empty, with a 12-pack case of Heileman's Old Style Beer. She heard it was popular in the area. She invited Petra to come along, overtly telling her that she was following Cosimo's last request but also, like, she had a day to talk to deal with this, really, because she couldn't really deal wiht it when she was trapped in her room at the Foundation. And she's sad. She doesn't want to be alone. And Petra's someone she feels she can be sad with about this. Regulus is presently sitting by the water as one might expect of a pirate. It's a flat area with an easily vaultable fence that prevents people from too easily slipping into the water. There's a number of hexagonal benches near the water, one of which Regulus has sat herself at. There's no APPLe to be seen, and Regulus is wearing some warm leggings to go along with her skirt due to the hour, but she's left her sunglasses back in the Suitcase along with her hat, though her iconic blue polka dotted scarf remainsa. She is already in the process of downing one of the beers since she figured there's no harm in getting started early. She's got one of her guitars in a case on her back, by the shape of it looking like an acoustic. At this point, she's already bawled her eyes out a lot, but who knows? She might have tears in her yet.
Petra Soroka	> who's cosimo Petra wasn't there for the Storm of 1929. In fact, she didn't even know it happened until Lilian got out of quarantine and called her first thing, relaying the whole bleak story from her perspective. To Regulus, Cosimo was a surprisingly gentle-hearted and loyal mobster, dedicated to Schneider for the fact that she was Schneider and treated him well, who spent his last moments comforting both Regulus and Sonetto. To Lilian, that was a human who died, among billions. But Schneider, she did hear about. More than she'd heard in their handful of passing interactions during the not-quite-year that she was around the Concord, she heard what Schneider was like when she was alive around Lilian, and she heard the miserable specificity of exactly what it was that killed her. And that, really, is what has Petra feeling so nauseated by the whole thing. Because this is Regulus, and because she's coming straight here off of her college campus, Petra arrives with her guitar case slung over her back too. A hoodie-- tastelessly relevant, proclaiming 'I AM FERVENTLY AGAINST SUICIDE'-- and shorts is the lazy outfit she had on for school, and what she's got for this impromptu wake too. In her hand is a plastic bag with more alcohol, which she won't actually need at all because Regulus has brought more than enough. Droopily, Petra waves to her once she turns off the sidewalk and tromps through the cut-short grass. She's far from teary, not even particularly 'sad' looking, but there's a sort of resigned weariness to her movements that overlaps with a near relative of 'comfortable'. "Yo. How's the world been since it ended?" Petra flops on the bench, propping one foot up on it, and fiddling with a beer tab she doesn't open.
Regulus	That is about what Regulus knows about him. He's a gentle-hearted and loyal mobster. That's what she tells Petra when asked, more or less, 'He was a mob guy working for Schneider. He was loyal to Schneider and kind to us.' And she doesn't know much more than that. Maybe she doesn't even need to know more than that. Complexities often get in the way of what is obvious and known to the heart. She's exhausted too. Of performing. And this is the one place where she doesn't feel like she has to. She believes her fellow friends in the Watch are good people, sweet people, but she's confident beyond reason that they need her to be the person who cheers them up right now, certainly not the person who needs a shoulder to cry on. Flamel is already thinking of his next mission and what it takes to get there. She almost envies how easy he makes it seem when he isn't shattering to pieces. "I heard it's 1912 now. We just missed the Titanic going down." Regulus quips tiredly and takes a long drink from the can she's nursing. "Planning on having the era's worst hangover tomorrow." She turns to look and can't help but wonder. "--Are you cold?" She asks, noting the shorts. But rather than dwelling on national american tragedies, she turns back to look out over the water, a quiet longing for the open seas in her eyes, or maybe just a longing for a time where it felt like she knew how everything was going to go and she didn't have to worry about how her actions affected other people all that much because nobody expected anything out of her in the first place beyond what she gave the world. "Since we're all barricaded up it's hard to know what'll happen next, but Vertin has a proposal they made sure they got to someone in the Foundation and--hopefully?--they're in the process of gathering support for it. If we can hold on until that passes we win, if we hold on until it fails, well, we did our best I guess." She isn't exactly content with just 'holding on', there's been so much time-biding, but she knows that's how it goes sometimes. Bureaucracy is slower than Regulus's fiftieth attempt at Petra's obstacle course. "We're hoping ..." She trails off. "Well, maybe it'll make things better going forwward. But today I got a promise to keep." She manages something of a smile. "Thanks for coming."
Petra Soroka	"Damn. I would've actually loved to see that." Petra pops the tab on her beer and takes a sip, grimacing a little. "I always figured I could turn the ship fast enough and saved everyone. We'll have to wait until 1911 rolls around, I guess." Petra's not exactly as dewily affected by the tragedy as Regulus, nor is she as invested in the state of the rebellion. The world, both the Storm and the Foundation, serves a purpose mostly in how it affects Lilian, and as far as she's heard, both have been nuisances to her, and Regulus's uprising has been more of the same. She's just distant enough to be observing it as an outsider, while still being employed(?) at the same campus, so all the information Regulus shares about it feels a little like gawking. "So it's a rebellion to protest the right to... get legal measures passed, totally separately? Alright." There's a bit of a sticky feeling to the politics of the Foundation, though, in a way that's interesting to her in an academic sense. Quite literally academic-- she wasn't joking about her lawyers advising her to not take sides overtly, but the opaque bureauracy and complex antagonist of the Foundation is practically begging for journalistic insight. Petra folds her thighs over each other, digging in her shorts pockets for a blank pack of research cigarettes. "Better going forward how? I mean, Schneider's still dead. Are you legislating the Storm out of existence? Is the next step to sue the clouds and file for asset reclamation for her soul? Or maybe you'll get a plaque put up instead?" Petra sighs, and a droplet of Silver floats in front of her and twists in half. The torn metal scrapes against itself, spitting out a spark that ignites a cigarette, balanced between two fingers in the hand that holds the can. She takes a drag and exhales. 5r "Well, you know, yeah. I don't blame you. But, like, why me?"
Regulus	''I always figured I could turn the ship fast enough and saved everyone.'' "That iceberg would've been all 'What?? Impossible!'' Regulus jokes. The question of whether this would actually mean anything is a good one. Maybe they're just coping that reaching for these rights would stop future Schneiders from happening. They certainly can't sue the Storm out of existence or the clouds for that matter. "Right now, people got two options to dodge The Storm. If we get some independence, we can be a third option. Reach people like Schneider earlier." It strikes her that Vertin's efforts are ultimately no doubt seen as successful by Foundation standards. They learned more of the Manus than they did before, they kept a powerful ally from their hands, but she'd rather eat glass than start talking like that so she just adds, "The first time, they were pretty far away since they were outside of the Suitcase and I was watching from inside. It was confusing so." ''But, like, why me?'' "Why I asked you to come out here? Well, it's not a good idea to get plastered alone and I don't feel like I gotta be 'on' for you. And I like you." She takes another drink. "You were so right about Flamel too, he is already back on his bullshit." She hasn't forgotten either that the reason Forget Me Not was able to turn so many people into bombs was because Flamel convinced them it was the only way to get close. She doesn't complain about the smoking, instead marvleing at the trick before stubbornly looking back out at the water. "And he told me why you were pissed at him, his big lie." She crushes the can against the bench. "Was it easy for you, becoming the Kamen Rider of Lilian at the start? Were you able to just intuit everything you had to do for the job?"
Petra Soroka	"Oh my god. When you get Radio APPLe up and running, it's gonna be a sick propaganda station." Petra finally shrugs off her guitar case and plops it on the bench to her side, splitting one of the hexagonal corners. Far from being judgemental, this is the topic that's excited her the most so far. "You know, we straight up have classes on radio propaganda at CMU. The Concord broadcast company in that San Francisco is literally affiliated with the multiversal radio. I'm not gonna fuck around with that kind of political subterfuge until your whole rebellion's settled one way or another, but that sounds so exciting, actually. And honestly, I think the arcanist interviews in UTTU are what Lilian likes most?" "You were so right about Flamel too, he is already back on his bullshit." Petra nods solemnly, hand bobbing up and down with the motion. The curl of smoke off her cigarette makes wiggly patterns as it rises up above her head, and then is quickly brushed away by the breeze. "Isn't he fucking always. And aren't I always fucking right. I bet he's gonna act all torn up about this-- I already got his ass, he was soooo 'gutted' or whatever-- and before you know it, he's gonna be causing you a whole new set of problems. Who do you think's next on his list? Vertin, maybe?" Regulus's next comment slows her down enough to drain the rest of her can. "You could mean so many different things by that. He's not exactly a one-fuckup-guy. But if he's gossiping, it's probably Cinder he's gossiping about." Petra shrugs. She flicks the cigarette, only halfway ashed through, out over the water, and the droplet of Silver zips through the air to cut it in half. Two ripples, cleanly separated, appear on the surface below. "Literally nothing's ever easy. I had to basically kill myself to get there at all. 'Cause I was a horrible, evil little shit, and my one redeeming quality was knowing it, and all I've been doing for the past, like, four years, is causing disaster after disaster and trying my best to make up for them eventually." Petra tilts her head in Regulus's direction, looking at her out of the corner of her eyes. "If you're asking 'cause you want advice, then you're way too good of a person for my method. I was the worst person ever-- second worst-- to Lilian, I just eventually saw how bad it was for her and decided to change that. I feel like it took, like, years, until I was enough of a benefit in her life to outweigh how bad I am."
Regulus	"They literally just call it that? Not like Effects of the Radio Informational Awareness?" Regulus has never been to college because in order to go to college she would have had to go to school in the first place and the only school Regulus had gone to was the school of hard knocks and also the school of juvenile detention centers. "I'm really hype for it too, actually, not even because of agitprop, just like--I miss doing my radio show. But I'll make sure to have you own, you're like a perfect interview target for radio. You got a sense of humor and you're interested enough in what you're interested in that it gets other people interested, that's the best kind of person to have on talk radio if you wanna push through the fog because personality and passion is so important. And you're not afraid to push back against the interviewer a little without, like, immediately running off like politicians do. So much of what they relied on, least in my day, was just repeating the same stuff over and over again to try and bully ''thought'' itself into going along with what they were saying, but even if it works at first after a while it's just not satisfying, there's always that lizard truth in everybody's brains waiting for someone to say the shit that nobody else wants to say." Despite promising Cosimo to drink herself silly, the topic is one endearing enough to Regulus that she can't help but get energized about it. "Yeah, UTTU's got so much style and they can condense a lot of detail about a person in just a few lines. It's real impressive, hope they recognize me as a fan of their work." But she thinks further, remembering something Lilian said and she uses her Minion Empathy Skill to add, "I uh, really didn't mean to start things off when Lilian was about to visit Vertin. I've just got the worst luck." And maybe is just sort of inherently on a different sense of timing from other people, but in a metaphorical way not a literal sense like some people. ''Vertin, maybe?'' Regulus ... honestly is worried about that. It's dangerous, in a way, to have your philosophies and hopes all bound up in one person because something can always happen to one person, even without Flamel, but in this case it's practically unavoidable. And she loves Vertin so much, the very idea tears her heart into pieces. And she's made a vow. She's made a vow that she wouldn't let these kids raised to be martyrs--become martyrs. And if Flamel tries to make Vertin into one, if he really starts talking like they have to sacrifice her even for something as big as stopping the Storm for good-- "If he starts talking like that I'm really gonna punch him in the throat." Regulus says tonelessly. She opens up her next can. "He didn't give a name, but if that's the first person you think of? Probably, yeah." She sets the can she's working on aside and pulls her own guitar case off. Ever since Flamel was playing his sad guitar song she's been feeling uneasy about playing this guitar while she was sad. It felt uneasy before but now after learning about his Big Lie, it almost feels like the guitar is poisoned. It's her devotion to the craft that she pulls the case close to her chest and gives it a hug. "He said he was gonna try to get the Foundation to give him something, kinda impressed he even thought they'd give him the time of day. But I guess that's the benefit of organizational backing." ''Petra does something really fucking cool with her cigarette.'' "You're also apparently the most stylish person to go out drinking with holy shit." Regulus remarks.
Regulus	''You're way too good of a person for my method.'' Regulus thinks of what Lilian said about heart and steel. The worst part is, she doesn't even know if she wants to prove she can be steel or if she just wants to prove that heart is enough. She can only interpret the metaphor through her own lens. But what she wants is to win. To claw something back from the powers of the world and prove that the world doesn't have to just get slowly worse at best and quickly worse the rest of the time. Wouldn't it be great if the world got to be better? And it could be felt? Even something as small as one Suitcase's worth of that feels like a miracle that can set off many more just by being one. "You've come a long way, huh?" Regulus says. "I guess I'll just have to find my own way. But it feels to me like she really trusts you. Like she rags on you sometimes, but that's kind of a sign of trust too, innit?"
Petra Soroka	"But I'll make sure to have you own, you're like a perfect interview target for radio." "Dog, I'll literally be your co-creator. We talked about this. I'm so down with the interview concept." Petra nods several times, and her second nearly-full beer sloshes over a little with the motion. "Still a good idea to have me on for an interview, though. I'm the type of interviewee that forces people to get to know the interviewer too." Petra takes another mouthful of beer and then blurts out, "I should be on TV more often. I'm literally so pretty and so handsome and so charming. I've got universal appeal. The Concord should be putting my modeling pictures in-- in-- what are they called? The things that fold three times? Briefcase... the paper-- brochure! Brochures." "I uh, really didn't mean to start things off when Lilian was about to visit Vertin." "When Lilian what?" Petra tilts her head, confused because Regulus's phrasing is different than Lilian's was. "Oh. Okay. I can't absolve you of that. Only Lilian can." "He didn't give a name, but if that's the first person you think of?" "Only so many girlfriends I've had that he's killed." Petra is tonelessly unhappy, as one would expect from someone reminiscing about the death of their girlfriend, but in the next breath, she bursts out into tipsy giggles. Holding her beer with an overhand claw so it doesn't spill from her shaking, she snickers mostly to herself, "Otherwise I get to them first." "He said he was gonna try to get the Foundation to give him something, kinda impressed he even thought they'd give him the time of day." "He's a maaaaan." Petra drawls at Regulus, shaking the can in front of her face. "They'll get on their knees and bark for him if he says it authoratatively enough." "You're also apparently the most stylish person to go out drinking with holy shit." "Aren't I, fuckin', just?" The emotional context behind splitting the cigarette might be sickeningly weighty, but the inebriated pendulum of Petra's emotions is currently swinging towards high. She smirks and pulls out another cigarette from the completely featureless white carton besides the words TOBACCO LABORATORY RESEARCH. "You've come a long way, huh?" "Despite my efforts." She pauses, confused, then clarifies poorly, "Because of my efforts to spite my efforts. Er... because of Lilian." Second beer finished, she holds out her hand and drops the can, where it gets caught by the Silver before it hits the ground. Like a timelapse of sandblasting, the metal is rapidly eaten away at, corrosive holes appearing and expanding as the aluminum is chewed away by the Silver. Regulus can see tiny little metal droplets rolling off of it, like it's being converted into more of the same. "My opinion is, if you want something enough, you'll make it happen or you'll die. I wanted Lilian to trust me, and I wanted to be useful to her. I want the world to be better for the people I love. I want those girls like Schneider, like Cinder, who are fucking, cosmically marked for death, I think the cosmic order should be defied. What do you want?"
Regulus	"Yeah, yeah, I didn't forget!" Regulus says, raising an arm up and pointing at Petra. "And you know why you're that kind of interviewee? Cause you're also a good ''interviewer''." She keeps pointing for emphasis, then forgets where exactly she was going with the pointing and has another drink in case that helps her remember. "Universal appeal!" She cheers instead, throwing both arms up into the air and nearly dropping her guitar on the floor. Petra comes to the answer for what she's looking for before Regulus does. "Yeah, brochures!" She agrees. That must be it. ''Only so many girlfriends I've had that he's killed.'' Oh god was there more than one. Just how many girlfriends did Flamel kill? Shoudl she ask him? He'd probably tell her. Maybe he's like some sort of psychic banshee, he appears when a girlfriend is about to die. Schneider said he was good, was she lying? It doesn't feel like he's wholly indifferent exactly, it just feels like a fact that this is what happens. A fact in the same way that a rock being present is a fact. This line of thinking makes Regulus unhappy and she isn't exactly up for pushing about Petra's other girlfriends that she's 'got to' either, mostly because she's thinking of Lilian's complaints about talking about backstory and her own disinclination to dwell on backstory anyway. Lilian's put words to something she's intuitively felt. Time must move forward and if you dwell too much on the past you lose sight of how to move forward. But she doesn't want to be the sort of person who can just be back to normal in a week either. "He should tell them to adopt the Team Timekeeper proposal then." She grumbles before deciding. "Actually maybe not, if it went like that I'd puke." She blinks at the research cigarettes blankly. "Are those --- free or something? Are they, I don't know, comparable to the branded cigs?" She has another sip as she stares. ''Despite my efforts to spite my efforts because of my--'' Regulus is confused by the answer. She's too many drinks in to parse things so cleanly but ultimately settles 'Because of Lilian' is a good enough answer. She stares as Petra evaporates a can and sloooowly reaches over to her finished can and offers it like a sacrificial offering to see that shit again.
Regulus	''I want those girls like Schneider, like Cinder, who are fucking, cosmically marked for death, I think the cosmic order should be defied.'' What does she want? Team Timekeeper is--well it's an ideal, a home, something to fight for but it's not for its own sake that she is fighting for it. It's because having that home and that ideal recognized and ratified is an avenue to get what she wants. "I want ..." Regulus is halting at first, partly due to inebriation, and partly because while her desires aren't too different from Petra's, she has to put them in her own words. "I want Vertin to be free." Regulus says. "To think and feel however she wants without the Foundation treating her as a precious tool they are too scared may by embraced by others that they'll scar her as many times as they need to in order to have her by their side. I want Sonetto's faith and loyalty to be appreciated not because it makes her a better asset but because she's wonderful and sweet and having her faith and loyalty makes you feel like you can do anything." She crushes her second can, as if for emphasis. "And I want Matilda to be respected, not because of her name but because she's clever and passionate. And--" She wants Mesmer to something. She doesn't know what because she has no idea what to do. She feels anathemic to Mesmer in such a way that she's not sure she cna do anything at all. So she leaves it at that. "I want a ''home''. And a future. And--yeah, I want Lilian's respect, duh, she makes it feel like she means it when she gives it, not like she's just getting you to shutup." She exhales. "I don't want to believe that the cosmic order wants these girls to die. I've always believed that love and music and play are the things that make the universe turn, that it's just something we're trained out of by people who have forgotten all that, that it's those systems they create that kill. That the universe is actually kind and beautiful and trying so hard." She shakes her head, reaching for a third beer tentatively. "But yeah, cosmic order, human order, ''physics'', the capital T Truth of all--if that's what's killing those girls, then I guess I want cosmic chaos, human anarchy, magic, and lies so convincing it'll run around Truth three times before it gets it's shoes on, lies believed in so hard that it'll be a new truth." She smiles weakly. "I hope I can get my own little place in giving them shelter from the cosmos."
Petra Soroka	"Are those --- free or something?" Petra snorts, then coughs when the smoke comes up the wrong way. She waves the cigarette around dismissively, draping herself over her propped-up knee on the bench. "Free? What? Are you even listening to yourself?" That doesn't answer the question at all. Petra takes another drag, then sounds oddly affectionate about her own cigarette when knocking the ash off. "I don't really care about that kind of thing. Lilian's able to tell the, like, brand difference, but I honestly couldn't care less. These suckers are from a lab that got shut down in the early 90s trying to make astronaut cigarettes. Y'know, because of the oxygen and everything." "I want Vertin to be free." "Dedicating yourself to a woman's step one." Petra nods approvingly without a hint of irony. She catches Regulus's empty can one-handed, then drops it into the Silver, which opens up into a ball that swallows it. The metamaterial rolls around until it smoothes into a perfect sphere, then compacts shut like aluminum foil, annihilating the can all at once. Knowing what Regulus's attention was directed at, Petra uncoils the solid sphere of Silver and rolls it around her fingers like a trained snake. "I'm so fucking cool, actually. Did you know I used to be a loser? Like a huge fucking loser?" "I want a ''home''. And a future." "Don't you?" Petra muses, easing herself back to lay across the bench beside her guitar case. She props her head up on her arms, watching Regulus with a red-faced but intense expression. "Is the home you have your home 'first'?" "From everything I know about the Timekeeper and the Suitcase, the whole political project's centered around you. People like you. You can want everything for everyone else 'too', but that's your home because you have nowhere else to fall back on, isn't it. Your dream's to belong in the place that you have." She takes a long drag of her cigarette, blowing smoke straight up into the sky. Unlike Regulus, she's under no obligation to actually get drunk-drunk, and this isn't a place to do that anyways, so Petra doesn't want to drink any more than she already has. "I wouldn't really know much about that. I still sleep somewhere different every night. What do you do to keep everyone there from getting sick of you eventually, or do you just know they'll leave before you do?" "I don't want to believe that the cosmic order wants these girls to die." Petra snorts. "Right. It's humanity's fault." Not being from the same world, she could be carelessly using humanity to mean 'people', or she could know exactly what she's saying and how it sounds. "It's not like it just happens." Watching the smoke above her get slowly whittled away by the lakeside air, Petra adds, not really talking to Regulus at all, "Fifty-fifty odds she would've lived longer in the Outskirts."
Regulus	"Astronaut cigarettes..." Regulus whispers. Astronauts are still cool to Regulus, they were like hot and new and promised a greater future than they could have delivered on but maybe in some places that kind of astronautry led to something like Sapient Heuristics so even though she hasn't found a world with universal peace, astronautry is still pretty damn cool in her book. That potential and possibility is still real in her heart. "I wonder if they got much use." ''Petra continues to be fucking cool with eradicate beer cans.'' Regulus is in awe. She kind of wants to just start chucking cans at Petra just to see how she's going to demolish each one but unfortunately there's only so many cans that she can feed Petra while most of them are still full of fluids. It feels rude to her to try to feed the Petracycling machine something that has fluid in it like it might make it all sticky? Or drippy? ''Did you know I used to be a loser? Like a huge fucking loser?'' "No? You seemed either really cool or like a little scary pretty much the entire time I've known you." Regulus says. It makes her think of Lilian's own stories about struggling as a new Elite. "Sometimes it's actually a little frustrating like I'm expected to--I don't know, have an opinion of people based on--like I've only known the cool version, I didn't get to meet the loser except in so far everybody is a loser some of the time." Maybe she just wishes the past was a little easier to set aside in favor of the present self. Maybe she's just fretting over that right now because she's unhappy and increasingly drunk. ''Dedicating yourself to a woman's step one.'' That gets Regulus to smile, it's not like she intentionally went out of her way to do that, it's just the sort of thing you do when someone saves you and irrevocably changes your life. For a time, she had nobody else. ''Don't you?'' At first Regulus isn't sure if Petra is pressing whether or not she wants a home, whether or not she wants a future, or whether or not she already has those things. But as Petra goes on, she numbly nods. "Yeah, you're right. I want to belong there. And--" She hesitates and then adds, "I don't know, maybe you know a little more than you know? I mean, maybe to me a 'home' is different than a place you reliably live in. To me, a 'home' is a place that's waiting for you to return to. People aren't made to stay in their home forever, and even as ridiculous as the Suitcase is with it's wilderness, I do still want to be outside of the Suitcase plenty. Maybe you've got wanderlust, but you've got places that are waiting for you. When you want it. That's 'home' to me." She thinks of Sonetto awkwardly reaching out to her and smiles sadly. It's unfair. She really wanted to meet her friends. Maybe it can still happen some day. Vertin said she told her, but in truth she doesn't exactly know if they're on the same page right now. But she trusts Sonetto's voice. If anything good came out of what she managed to do in those wretched twenty four hours, it'd be that--wouldn't it? They managed to find an understanding. What does she do to keep everyone there from getting sick of her eventually? The truth is, Regulus doesn't know. She hasn't managed to do that yet. Schneider gave her a clue but it doesn't feel like she's really managed to follow that advice yet. Maybe the rebellion will make it possible. "I don't know." She admits, because she has no better answer. "But that 'political project' is the closest I've felt to thinking it wasn't inevitable."
Regulus	''Right. It's humanity's fault.'' Regulus doesn't argue. Regulus's opinion of humanity might be the lowest it's ever been, but she's known too many kind humans to give up on humans. In both senses of the word. She remembers the children playing with La Source until the ball no longer had feet to catch it. Humanity gets a bad rap because it's the best camoflauge for the cruel to hide in. "Yeah," She thinks of Schneider having tried to stay in the Manus's good graces instead of seeking other options. "Fifty-fifty." She'll pace it out but she'll gradually pass out like a corpse in the Suitcase.