Well … for now I think the single most constant theme goes something like this:
“I’m not a traitor. No matter how it looks, I’m really not a traitor.”
Other than Ms. Kim (whose devotion to the defeat and destruction of the Federation is perhaps literally unmatched) I wonder who it is you’re really trying to fool.
I’m sure you know how many systems the State lost to your new masters. I’m equally sure you don’t know how many people, because none of us knows that. The actual number is probably classified at some level or other. Losses were heavy, heavy enough to prompt a rethink of heavy ship design to keep them sustainable. And nowhere were they heavier than in the State.
You know all of this. So does the entire State. And yet you want us to believe your new allegiance is somehow compatible with your old one. It’s a hilarious thing to want, but I guess you’re game to try. Maybe that’s your only option, because you can’t look in the mirror and see that.
Maybe you never wanted it. Maybe you never meant for it to go this far. Maybe you never had any actual intention of becoming what we were all taught was the absolute worst thing any of us could ever be, the thing we should reject even at the cost of our own lives, our own families’ lives.
In a way, I can relate.
I myself am definitely and for sure the worst thing an Achur can be short of a traitor. I’m a kinslayer. I murdered my grandfather. There were reasons, and I don’t remember it-- and I always say that after I bring it up, as though it were a shield. And it’s true, I don’t. But it’s also true that I did it. It’s why I can never go home again.
If I were a braver person, or more dedicated to some ideal of justice, maybe I would go home anyway, submit myself to those I wronged, and let what was going to happen, happen. But I’m not quite so brave or just as to do such a thing. And so I remain, in exile and disgrace.
That’s to my shame. But I have a path to follow still and I’m not ready to end it for sins I don’t remember committing.
To look on truth, unflinching: that is the way of my family, of my sect, of the old monk I murdered. I can’t change my past, but I don’t wish my life to be only the stain on the world’s tapestry my predecessor left.
You’re a traitor, Remilia Malitia. Your ancestors weep. They turn their backs.
But your story isn’t over yet, either.
What else might you become?