#1: Crux
(( Ramblings relating to @ketsuchikotetsu, @sola-ffxiv, and very briefly even a @fatelhas ! )) It was like a splinter she couldn't get out of her thumb – pricking herself on it again, and again.
“You won't ever be anything other than a robin.”
She'd told the Wolf she'd listen, now – and had meant it. Not listening...that was what had caused her spin out. Sparked more humiliation than she still knew how to cope with. It had...set her adrift, once more.
And yet, how much was too much to be asked to swallow, here? She certainly hadn't felt like a little bird in that rust-trap of Zekh's – yes, she'd certainly felt above them all...but a tiny little songbird? No, she'd been the only one with even a single functional thought in her brain, apparently. One of them – most certainly the feeblest of them – made the rest of them chase each other, wound one another...stoking tensions rooted in the re-opening of old wounds. Frey, was their name – they'd come by her apartment some days later, and been...shockingly receptive to input.
The exchange had been...some strange mirror of her own discussions with her Wolf – a bit of role reversal, to make her eat her own words. She – of all people – had been told to take things less seriously and have fun with things more often? It hadn't been...what, three weeks since she'd had that exact assessment of Ketsuchi...and most certainly not for the first time. 'Slow down,' she'd tell him. He'd take it out of context, make it seem like she was telling him to go off the deep end; hedonist she might crave to be, but there loomed no worse fate than that of one that was...unsatisfying? Boring? Confining? She'd been trapped for long enough. The point was to make her own rules, ultimately. To stand above the rest...to at least cast a shadow long enough that no one would even think of crossing her...and then enjoy it.
“No matter how strong, big...whatever you get, you will always be a robin. Because even when you have everything you wanted, should you get there, you will still be a tiny Miqo'te who feels the need to stand taller than she is.”
Frey, little mouse that they might be, had likewise made a point about Jak wanting...what was it, to be noticed? Seen?
...So be it - what was there to deny? She expected respect. Fear, perhaps. Acknowledgment - infamy. And no, she wasn't quite there yet – hadn't earned it. The Wolf's own biting words about how she was...'just an artist', in a small clan in the East? Incisive, but truthful – the snap of his jaws hurt more, somehow, when he was gentler about it. Perhaps it was simply that she had more time to recognize what exactly hurt...and why, when it wasn't malms-a-minute fury.
“Small as they are, they use what they can to scrape by, building things like nests from things - birds, or people - take for granted. No matter how strong, big...whatever you get, you will always be a robin.”
And yet, as the words bit anew, she saw something in them that she'd missed, initially – she'd been too focused on the insult in it...after all, she was a Jackal; and Jackals are master scavengers and manipulators - and clever predators when pushed to be. But she'd been...ignoring why it all bothered her so much, ultimately. Yes, in part, it felt like being told she was nothing but prey – but he knew that...knew it would irritate her endlessly. Jak had to keep that in mind – it could all very well be to see how she'd handle such insistence about as much.
But it was also...that she'd, once upon a time, been told she was a beast – and in playing that role, had in fact...fractured? Breaking beneath the skilled hands of a torturous, manipulative captor was nothing to be ashamed of, however. She'd won, in the end, because she had embraced their line of thought...because she'd adapted, and learned that perhaps beasts weren't terrible things to be. What did morals matter, when all those around you had none? Why be anything but a Beast, if that's what it took to survive...to thrive?
So...why not be a 'robin', this time? Why not own it? Why fear becoming the thing - why not take it, and make it what she wanted? Yes, she would take from others the things and people they took for granted, and build her 'nest' - she would take the leftovers, and the forgotten, and build a congregation of the devoted – what was it the starry-eyed Bookeep said? That gods never give their worshipers anything in return? So why not take on that role, herself? The idiot smuggler had seen fit to dub her 'goddess', but never appreciated what he was given...but those in need, those who are hungry and desperate...or simply angry at a system that's rigged against them by virtue of their species, or gender? The sheep were always looking for a 'shepherd'...but what of the very beast known to prey upon them, offering them 'acceptance' and 'protection,' when the rest of the herd left them to be devoured?
Opportunity was hers to seize...to gamble upon – and it just so happened that she knew exactly how to hit the ground running.
