The chatter of the restaurant was soft background noise behind him as he sat at the bar. There was something in the air that almost seemed like relief despite there only being regulars in the space. No new faces had wandered into Zone Two yet but the promise of new faces arriving soon was heavy. The CORE's completion the previous week meant that work on the infrastructure could begin in earnest and it had the entire UNDERGROUND buzzing with excitement.
Though, he supposed it would be years still before he settled into referring to it as the Underground, rather than the full string of numbers and letters that had been originally assigned to it. After all, the name had changed 130 years ago shortly after the Sealing - even each Zone. The last document he could recall referencing any Zone by its original name was 100 years old and even then it had been an oddity. The populous had latched onto the new names with such vigor, he doubted many of the long living monsters remembered the regions having different names without having to think about it. Even memories of the surface were being forgotten.
Those who were able to remember the surface - the Overworld - as clearly as they could remember the previous week were becoming extremely rare to find. The majority of the populations in the Underground were not so fortunate with long life, or long memory. There wasn't a human alive who had been born before the Sealing; the shift from Overworld life to Underground life had shortened the human lifespan from that rough hundred year mark to half that, not quite sixty if they were lucky. It wouldn't stay that way for much longer, though. He personally knew two humans who were approaching sixty with a spring still in their step compared to the previous generation. Those born in the Underground didn't have the Overworld to compare it to, to weigh down on them, and he envied them that.
"Would you like another?"
He looked up to meet the gaze of the bartender - a fire elemental - who owned the pub. He offered the other a soft smile, signing in assurance, "No; thank you, though."
The fire elemental nodded and returned to cleaning glasses not far off.
His gaze drifted to his hands resting on the counter, one of which he had just spoken with. Speaking in Hands was not unheard of but very few knew how to do it. Many that spoke in Hands would use Soulspeak in tandem to bridge the language barrier, which meant most simply used Soulspeak to communicate. While he could Soulspeak, it was innately tied with speaking in Hands, as it was for his brother. For whatever reason, neither of them could isolate how to Soulspeak without speaking in Hands.
They still had a voice - a century of speaking in Hands had saved their voice - but the damage had been too great to heal completely. They were unable to speak the common tongue for an extended amount of time before they lost their voice and were forced to speak in Hands. The only language they could speak without threatening muteness was their native tongue and the only ones that knew that language were skeleton monsters; his brother was the only other skeleton monster he had seen in the last forty years.
It was not hard to recognize it could have been a whole lot worse. The damage they had sustained could have made it so that they didn't have a voice at all. That, more than anything, would have dampened a lot of what they had been able to accomplish in the past years.
"Wing Dings."
It was an inquiry, soft and careful in a way that brought his awareness back to point as it always did. He offered the bartender a warmer smile. "I'm fine, Grillby. Just lost in thought."
The fire at the top of the elemental's head crackled and he knew Grillby didn't believe him. "Would you like me to accompany you home, then?"
A chuckle rumbled from his chest. "No, no. There's no need for you to go out of your way for me. I truly was just lost in thought." If the fire elemental was able to raise an eyebrow, he was certain the other would have done so. The thought made the smile on his face grow. "If it would put you at ease, I'll take a glass of water and get your opinion on my wandering thoughts."
Grillby's surprise was prevalent even if the elemental tried to hide it. The glass of water was before him in less than a minute, the bartender stilling across the bar from him with a curious gaze.
He hid his amused smile by taking a long drink from the glass. Even as he put it down, he let the silence hang between them simply because he could. Grillby was one of the most patient people he had ever encountered and he knew the other would not push. So, he slowly gathered his thoughts in something that counted as order letting the background noise lull him back into that pensive state. "Did you ever get to see the surface?"
The fire elemental blinked, the flame at the top of the other's head fluttering, a show of thoughtfulness and increase of curiosity. He couldn't help the fond smile growing. Grillby was still very expressive despite the other learning how to always maintain a calm, collected appearance. "No. I was born a few months before the Sealing, one of the first to be born at Uva Hospital."
Uva was the name of Zone One. It meant Home. Zone Five was named Beuva - New Home. He still didn't understand why seeing as Zones Two through Four were named Snowdin, Waterfall, and Hotland respectively, all of them in the common tongue. It was probably in some book somewhere if he truly cared to know.
Or remembered to look.
"Ah. I could not for the life of me remember how old you were. Still rather young, then?" he asked, rolling the glass on its bottom rim.
"In comparison to how long I will most likely live, yes, but I am seen as an adult by those that know the longevity of my kind."
A faint sense of hesitation or apprehension accompanied the Soulspeak, the emotional transfer unconscious but far less oppressive than most others he often conversed with. He returned it with reassurance that he backed up with words and a gestured glass. "That is a good thing, and I can't help but envy you that." He offers the other a teasing smile intending to show that he thought no such thing. In fact, he was grateful that other long living races didn't treat their younger as the skeletal race did. "The skeletal race is well known for mapping their young's life much as humans do. Move the decimal point of our age one place to the left and you get the equivalent age in human years, growth and development nearly parallel until our prime, or so they present it, stuck being seen as a child until after our second century."
Old knowledge, really. The number of rants he had gone on sitting at this very bar meant that Grillby - and an unfortunate number of the other staff - were very much aware of his distaste for how the skeletal race saw their own passing centuries. With skeleton numbers dropping, he had hopes that the majority - skeleton and other races alike - would adopt how the elementals and other long lived handled their aging, recognizing the years more than the supposed equivalent age. As if his point needed acknowledgement, Grillby nodded. "You yourself are approaching the end of your third, correct?"
His smile grew at that. "Yes indeed! In 30 years I will be celebrating my 300th birthday, of which I think still flabbergasts some of my human coworkers."
"You were alive when the world was beneath the sun. For the short living, that is a time of stories, of myths and legends."
He chuckled. "Myths and legends. Stories I understand but myths and legends? Only if they are from millennia ago. It was not that long ago."
"Yet for many there is no longer living memory of the sun among their kind."
The echo of his earlier thoughts was surprising but not unexpected. Grillby was of the long living, as intelligent at 130 as he and his brother had been, if not quite in the same way. He tipped his glass towards the other. "I will give you that." He took a long pull from the glass, enjoying the cool water. Grillby refilled his glass when it settled against the bartop. He watched the other's sure hands. "If I asked you what each region's original name was, would you know what I was talking about?"
"The Zones, correct?"
He nodded. "Were you raised with them being called by their Zone number or the region name?"
Grillby fell silent but the fire on the top of his head crackled as the fire elemental brought his hand up to his chin. He watched the bartender ponder, taking another drink. "I know their Zone numbers," the other finally spoke, "but whether that is from my education or from those that raised me, I cannot recall."
A soft smile pulled across his face. "Don't fret too much over it. I was merely curious." He gestured to the other, offering, "That is basically the sum of my thoughts for the day; nothing overly extravagant or worrisome."
Grillby dipped his head in acknowledgement. For a moment silence settled between them. He watched the elemental drift away to check on the other customers before returning, a question in the other's expression. "Will you make any effort to see your brother now that the CORE is complete?"
He shrugged. "I might. I might not. There has been no need to actually see each other. We talk regularly enough over the phone."
"Do you not miss him?"
The chuckle that escaped him was low and very amused. He picked up his glass, gesturing with it as he offered cryptically, "It is hard to miss someone who is always there."
The number who knew about their shared soul was tiny and Grillby was not part of that number. It wasn't that he expected the other to share the information with anyone else; more of there was simply no point in the elemental knowing.
Despite his belief on the matter, it was taken out of his hands years later.
Snowdin became a bustling hub of activity as the years went on and by the time it had been 80 years since the CORE's completion, the outer neighborhoods were still sparsely populated. The subdivision that housed Grillby's was one of the farthest from Snowdin proper so the population growth in the area was barely noticeable: the only newest residents was a family of bunny monsters who ran the inn and shop down the street from Grillby's and even that had been ten years ago.
Grillby's was as lively as ever and routine had him sitting at the bar enjoying the warm company of the space. The bartender for the evening wasn't Grillby - the elemental was in the kitchen filling in for a call-out - but a young human male, bright with a good sense of humor. The male lived two subdivisions over, a good hour walk away just from border to border. He never bothered asking the male if the walk was longer or if the young human commuted in differently and the male never elaborated why they were working at Grillby's instead of somewhere closer to home.
Currently the male human - Carter - was laughing at something one of the patrons was talking about, one of a small cluster listening in rapt attention to the local telling the humorous tale. He hadn't really been listening to it, preoccupied with simply existing in the pleasant space as he finished off his glass. Carter was there before he could summon the young human, a fresh glass already in hand that quickly replaced the one he had emptied. He smiled at the male, offering, "Grillby has you well trained."
Carter laughed, though the sound seemed fuller than moments ago despite being quieter. "He does indeed. Makes for good tips if I can stay on top of the drinks, too," the young human bantered right back.
He gestured with his glass, his smile growing larger. "And that is the undeniable truth."
Carter beamed at him in reply as the young human dragged a quick cloth over the counter, drifting back to the cluster. The ease of the space wrapped back around him, swallowing him as he slowly nursed the second glass. The human walked over empty handed as the last of the drink slid into his mouth. He very rarely drank more than two glasses and being a predictable creature of habit, it was no surprise Grillby's staff had picked up on it.
"Can I get you anything for the road?" Carter offered as he stood.
He tugged his coat from the back of his chair, shaking his head. "I should be-"
A strange sensation shot through his form focused mostly in his skull and limbs that stole strength and equilibrium from his body. His vision quickly faded into barely discernible patches of hazy color - or was it light - amid darkness. He blindly reached out for the bar top before his legs properly gave out from under him, no longer able to tell if he was even upright or not. The cold counter pressed against his chest, a dull pain informing him he had misjudged the distance and slammed into the bar top. Confusion swam through his mind as he waited for his vision to come back and strength to return. He didn't know what else to do; he didn't even know what was happening to him.
He barely had time to register that Carter was talking to him, trying to get him to respond, before pain erupted across the left side of his face. A cry must have left his chest at the sudden agony but he hadn't heard it as he pressed his hand to his face. What little vision he still had left was swallowed by the darkness. There was an aggressive pull on their magic that he was certain he moved with but he had no way of knowing for sure.
Something snapped somewhere in the depths of their shared soul. A pain he had never experienced before overwhelmed him.
He was cut off from their magic.
Agony was the only thing he knew for what had to be an eternity. Slowly, unbearably slowly, noises started drifting in among the roaring in his skull; when he realized they were voices, it was an abrupt shift of awareness beyond the roaring in his skull and agony in his form. He was on the brink of being hyperaware of how he laid on the hard floor of Grillby's, of the sensation of foreign magic burning its way through his form in a desperate attempt to keep him together, of the inflections in the three- no, four different voices trying to talk over one another above him.
One of the voices he knew as well as he knew his own.
"Grillby," he spoke, the name coming out in a garbled mess that radiated pain from his throat. Had he been screaming? It certainly felt like it.
A warm, familiar hand pressed against the top of his skull above his right temple, the fire elemental's magical presence in the gesture telling him that the other was trying to help heal him along with the other two. He flinched from the pain both touch and magic brought but Grillby kept his hand in place. "I'm here," Grillby assured him. "The medics are trying to stabilize you before attempting to transport you to the hospital."
"M'brother." It came out just as garbled and the pain in his throat worsened. He was risking being unable to verbalize anything ever again pushing it like this but he knew that he would be unable to speak in Hands to Soulspeak. The pain at the thought alone - of moving in any way - was enough to steal what little strength he even had left.
There was a stutter in the magic coming from Grillby but the meaning behind it was lost to him. He wasn't sure if that was because his thoughts were simply too sluggish to make any sense of it or if it was because Grillby had tried stifling the emotional transfer.
As the seconds of silence from the other stretched on, ice slowly creeped out of his soul down his bones, doing nothing for the pain. The only assurance he had that his brother wasn't dead was his own coherency. Surely if his brother had died, their shared soul would have shattered taking him with.
"Grillby," he tried demanding. It sounded like a plea.
The other flinched. He couldn't see the other, couldn't see much of anything beyond the vague blurs of what could have been color or light among the darkness still obscuring his vision, but he felt it, felt the brief gust of cold against his back, the minute shift of Grillby's hand on his head, the flicker in the magic seeping into his bones.
"I…" the other started but the words stalled out. He nearly passed out from the burst of distress and uncertainty that scattered through the Soulspeak from the single word. The emotions were quickly quelled and what the elemental said next was steady and controlled. "There was an explosion at the CORE. It is assumed that Wing Decos was at the CORE at the time, potentially at the epicenter of the event." Vaguely he was aware of the thought that he should feel something at that statement, that there should be worry or concern or even fear, but all he felt was a hollow numbness. "A rescue team is currently attempting to clear out debris to find and pull out the survivors. So far they have not found any dead and the hope is the count stays that way."
If there were no losses, it would be a miracle.
"He's as stable as we're going to get him," one of the unnamed voices cut in.
The other unnamed voice responded. "Then prep him for transport. We need you two to move back."
Grillby's hand slipped from his skull as the heat from the elemental left his back. He started shivering; or maybe the shivering simply got worse, drawing his attention to it now that he didn't have a distraction. Hands he didn't know moved his body and it was all he could do to keep from crying out in pain as agony flared through his form.
His awareness failed to stay present. He knew he had been moved onto a stretcher, could vaguely recall the sensation of something flat against his back that his body moved with, and he could vaguely recall the impression of the light changing and the sound of the transport, but the details, the important bits of information, were lost to him.
It wasn't until he was in the hospital that he woke up, a lethargic thing that took far more effort than it should. Noises assaulted him from all sides, some louder than others. His vision was hazy but he could at least make out the room and vague shapes of what was in it. There was an odd dark patch in his vision that itched with a familiarity he couldn't pinpoint in his sluggish thoughts.
Bodies moved around him leaving hazy impressions of who was there that he wouldn't remember later. One of those bodies stopped at his right shoulder, their hand closing around his shoulder. "Wing Dings Gaster?"
He tried to confirm, to respond, but nothing came out of his throat. He tried to nod but he didn't even know if he managed that as his head swam. What last grip he had on consciousness slipped away and he passed out.
It was quiet when he opened his sockets again. Or, at least tried to open his sockets. His left remained closed underneath a foreign pressure against it. The vision in his right socket was much clearer. Nothing had a crisp edge but at least the fussiness was more of a soft glow around everything. A careful glance around the room informed him that he was alone in the room and that moving - at least slowly - didn't cause him pain.
The mounds of blankets he was under and the IV spoke volumes to the state of his magic. What state was his brother in?
Before he could focus on their soul, the volume of voices beyond his door grew noticeably louder. The door opened, breaking the muffled barrier that had obscured the words being spoken.
"-in a few minutes."
"Of course. Thank you."
Surprise flittered through him as he looked towards the door. The first voice he didn't recognize - probably a nurse or some other hospital worker - but the second was not Grillby's as he had expected.
King Asgore met his gaze as the large monster stepped up to the edge of his bed. The door clicked shut, bringing the room back to some semblance of silence.
Pain flared from his throat and chest as he tried to break the silence with a greeting. It sent him into a horrible coughing fit so strong his body convulsed with each cough that sent excruciating pain rolling through every bone. By the time the coughing fit had subsided, others had filled the room. Blearily he registered his upright position leaning against something firm but warm aching all over. The worst of it was in his chest and throat.
Someone was holding a glass of water in front of his face. If words were being said, he couldn't hear them. Instead, he reached a trembling hand up but he couldn't reach the glass. It seemed to be enough. The person holding it brought it to his mouth for him and he greedily swallowed down the cool liquid. It soothed the raw edges of the pain in his throat; he wished it would sooth more.
"Wing Dings?"
His name was oddly relieving to hear. Sagging more into the person supporting him, he looked towards the speaker. Grillby was standing at the side of the person supporting him. Worry was full on the fire elemental's face; even the fire at the top of his head was flickering with it. "Are you able to speak in Hands?"
"He shouldn't be speaking in any sort of manner," someone off to his right countered sharply. He hadn't even bothered to take in everyone that had surrounded his bed and he felt no inclination to do so now. "Using magic would be detrimental to him and his soul."
It had been in his favor that he hadn't looked at the one speaking for it left him with a perfect view of Grillby turning a withering glare onto the person, fire crackling dangerously as the color seemed to fade. "I am aware. Hands is not a magic based way of communicating."
He stopped listening when the person started arguing with Grillby. It wouldn't go very far; if Grillby didn't verbally rip the person a new one, then the person's colleagues would. If they knew anything about Hands. Instead, he turned his focus onto the hand resting in his lap still trembling. It would be stuttered speech and a lot of the signs would come out wrong but that was all reliant on whether or not he had any more strength to raise his hand out of his lap.
A large, fluffy white hand gingerly wrapped around his elbow and easily manipulated the joint to raise his wrist from his lap. There was something very familiar about the hand but he didn't have time to dwell on it. "That won't work well," he informed his assistor, though he wasn't sure the last bit of it was understandable.
The chest beneath his head rumbled with a chuckle. "I am a touch rusty in my understanding of Hands. Grillby, was it?" He watched the elemental look to the person supporting him. "Am I correct in assuming you are more practiced in the language than I am?"
Grillby's fire calmed, returning to its proper color. "I am fluent, Your Majesty," Grillby informed the person, speaking in Hands to showcase the fact even as Soulspeak carried the meaning.
Something nonverbal passed over his head before Grillby turned to him. He didn't give the elemental a chance to speak as he tried to articulate, "The King holding my elbow is only going to hinder me." He was annoyed when it came out as, "Elbow not help," around the garbled gestures. While Soulspeak for him and his brother was inseparable from Hands, they could speak in Hands without Soulspeak; an infuriating fact had it not been for the predicament he was currently in. Whoever had spoken earlier had not been wrong. Using magic now would be dangerous if simply speaking had caused his body to react so violently and Soulspeak was innately magical and from the soul itself. Without knowing the extent of the damage to their soul, even he was not willing to risk damaging it even more.
Grillby frowned and he suspected even that wouldn't be understandable. Before he could raise his hand to try again, Grillby looked to the King. "Your attempt to help him speak in Hands is appreciated but it will only make it more difficult. There are many more motions than simple wrist movements."
King Asgore lowered his arm back to his lap, asking, "Would it be better if it was propped on a pillow or blanket? If we can minimize the amount of effort he has to exert to speak, we should."
There was no hint of embarrassment or the like in the King's voice and he wondered if that was a front or the truth. He raised a hand only to have his entire arm shake with the effort. "Pillow," was horribly messy even after the second attempt. Fortunately Grillby understood.
"That would work."
He expected them to just tuck a pillow under either arm. Instead, the whole thing became an ordeal as the hospital staff raised a portion of the bed so that he was sitting upright propped up by the bed and a few pillows instead of slumped against the King. The change in position gave him a clear view of those assembled in the room and the only faces he recognized were Grillby and King Asgore. To his surprise, Carter was standing near the door with two others who looked familiar; they were either regulars at Grillby's or some of the fire elemental's staff he hadn't gotten acquainted with.
"Now that he's settled, let's actually talk about why we're here."
He turned his gaze to the speaker, the same doctor that had spoken up against him speaking in Hands. The speaker was a human male that was looking down his nose at him. He returned the look with a flat one of his own, not caring that the male clearly disliked him for whatever reason.
"You're fortunate you didn't suffer anything more severe, Mr. Gaster," the doctor informed him flatly. "Despite a few new cracks in your soul, the only thing of note is the magical exhaustion." Outrage was quick to fill the room without sound, pressing in on everyone present as if it were an actual substance. It confused him, leaving him wondering at what context he was missing. The doctor didn't seem to notice, dismissing him and the shift in energy as if both were nothing more than an annoying insect. "If you are able to refrain from utilizing any magic, you will be able to leave by tomorrow evening."
"Dr. Jenkins," King Asgore started but one of the other medical personnel stepped in.
The medical personnel physically placed themself between him and the now named Dr. Jenkins, their back to him. "I believe you have another soul to attend to, Dr. Jenkins," the interrupter spoke evenly, their words careful, gentle even. "I can take over in your stead."
Dr. Jenkins sniffed before stepping out, tailed by one of the other medical personnel. The new speaker looked to him after the door clicked shut. Their expression held nothing for him to read. "I am Dr. Willik, Dr. Jenkins's partner in stabilizing your form. Despite the briskness of Dr. Jenkins's words, he did succinctly summarize your current state, though your release is contingent on your magic circulating and your strength returning." Their expression tightened at the edges. "There has been some damage to your form but nothing life threatening nor hindering any of your normal functions." They tapped under their left eye and the faint memory of pain drifted across his awareness. "There is a crack on this side of your face, from socket to mouth. From what we can tell, it hasn't affected your sight nor the movement of your mouth. However, your ability to vocalize is a different matter. As with your last brush with death, speech has become an impossibility at this time, as I'm sure you've noticed." Had the soft smile not accompanied the latter words, it would have come across as a slight rather than the apologetic fact that they were presenting it as. "We're moderately optimistic that you'll recover as you had the previous time with little to no effect on your ability to speak. While we are optimistic, it is best to keep that in mind that it is just as likely that you will never be able to speak in anything beyond Hands and Soulspeak as well."
The doctor's stance straightened minutely, a more professional air falling about their shoulder. "As for an update on your other half: your brother's form is surprisingly undamaged beyond a few minor abrasions, a couple of burns, and the crack you two share. He was still unconscious when I checked in on him thirty minutes ago and we are not expecting him to wake for another few hours at least." The words stalled briefly as the doctor frowned. "From what I gathered, he is incredibly lucky to even be whole, let alone alive. The stories of what he had been pulled from did not paint a pretty picture. Once you are able to move about, you are free to see him whenever you like but my suggestion is that it waits until tomorrow. You both need as much rest as you can get."
He was not inclined to disagree.
The doctor placed a hand on the covers. "And please don't take Dr. Jenkins's attitude personally. His brother was one of the personnel who had been missing after the explosion at the CORE and he just found out his brother's condition before we stepped in. While not professional on his part, no one is handling this well."
The doctor and the other medical personnel excused themselves and exited the room. Grillby's staff followed after them. King Asgore tugged at a few of his pillows almost absentmindedly and yet he found himself settling more comfortably into the bed because of it.
"What happened?" he asked. His hands felt like lead.
Grillby frowned, clarifying, "At the CORE?"
He nodded. "And to my brother."
"Ah." King Asgore looked very uncomfortable when the question was directed to the larger monster. The King's eyes settled on him, the hesitation apparent. "Are you sure you would not prefer to hear it once you have rested some more?"
"I am sure."
The hospital was quiet in the early hours of the morning. Or, more the ward was. He could see the flickering of emergency lights playing off the side of the building through the slits in the blinds. The majority of the ward was asleep, a state of being he wished he could be in, but the edge of their shared soul was buzzing with his brother's awareness and it was making it very difficult to sleep.
It did not help that the cold had seeped into every bone despite the numerous heated blankets they had piled upon his person after they had stabilized his form. It made everything ache in a way that made sleeping difficult.
His brother's presence in their soul rapidly increased as the other opened his right socket. There was no eyelight but he knew his brother could see. He could feel it.
"36 dead." Their native tongue resonated oddly in the room, a strangely hollow sound that had nothing to do with the damage to their voice and everything to do with his own exhaustion with everything. He pulled in a breath in an attempt to gain a little more strength. "36 dead with you being the only survivor from the epicenter. Depending on who you ask, you are either extremely powerful or unfairly lucky."
His brother's gaze finally settled on him but there were no emotions for him to see. The bitter echo of regret that skittered down his spine was quickly followed by annoyance; he hated the reminder of the damage he had caused shutting down their emotions so absolutely all those years ago.
"According to the initial reports, there are no clear signs as to what had caused the explosion at the CORE. While a more thorough investigation is currently underway, many are holding out hope you will know what had gone wrong."
There was a pause as he felt his brother's attention shift. "Something failed but whether that was on our part or the machinery, I cannot recall. The majority of the specifics are lost to me." His brother's attention returned to him. "I was the only survivor?"
He frowned. They had spent nearly a century apart but he knew his brother - could always pick up the nuances of his brother's intent in speech alone - but there was nothing in that single inquiry and the soul they shared was vacant beyond his brother's presence. "At the epicenter, yes."
His brother hummed and returned the half lidded gaze to the ceiling. "Unfortunate. That will set us back."
Electricity prickled his bones as a frown pulled at his face. "Decos," he started but he had no idea what he intended to ask.
His brother looked at him anyway. "There are only so many that are knowledgeable about the CORE to the level the higher clearances require. I had done what I could to mitigate the worst of the damage but even I knew going in I would be unable to prevent all of it and it will be years before the repairs are complete." For the first time since his brother woke up, emotion pulled at his brother's face; annoyance pulled at his brother's face. "They knew the risk of following. I had informed them that I could contain the failure on my own without their assistance but it had been their choice to accompany me. A tragedy they brought upon themselves."
There was some truth in that. He had witnessed it himself a few times the lack of self preservation that portions of the population exhibited. Granted, sometimes a lack of self preservation was needed to run into a burning building to help others out but even then there was a line of safety that firefighters didn't cross. He could see his brother's logic, could understand where his brother was coming from, and yet he mentally balked at the unspoken intent behind those words. "A life lost should not be taken so lightly," he found himself countering, trying to gain some semblance of empathy from the other. "They were your colleagues."
"They are replaceable," his brother countered with no inflections. It was fact and even he knew it. "There will be another in their place within a month."
Had he been any other person - had he been having this conversation with anyone else - he might have jumped to his feet yelling in outrage at the implications, but this was his brother, the other of their shared soul, and he had known that the articulation of this attitude was long overdue. There would be no swaying his brother from the path he had chosen. He had tried, stars how he had tried, for the past century to no avail and this would be no different. Still, he found himself trying one last time. "Life is precious."
"Life is fleeting - even our own. What does it matter when it ends when life always ends? They knew what they were getting into working at the CORE and more so for those that had followed me into danger knowing that there was the chance I could not protect them as well. At least they were of use for the few short years they existed. Shouldn't that be enough?"