Scene #8336: Are You There, God? It's Me, Petra A

Owner	Pose
Father Berislav	The Imperial City is alive at night, just as it is in the day. Lanterns cast the colorful glazed roofs and lacquered wooden columns in a gentle glow, while moonlight streams onto landscaped gardens, market stalls and, most abundantly, people. Merchants close up shop, children are ushered inside, and all around, there is flight to either 'home,' or the city's drinking establishments. Father Berislav awaits Petra in the aptly named Imperial Watchtower, at the top story. Seted at a wicker table which has seen better days, he wears his cassock, but also the gownlike white chasuble over it, and over that, a vibrant red stole, with a gold cross embroidered at either end. He must have conducted service recently--that'd be the only time he typically wears the gownlike garment or the colorful stoles. A kettle burbles atop a hotplate, while a sachet of tea rests close at hand. "Hello, Petra," he says, with quiet calm and a slight, warm smile. He gestures towards an empty seat across from him, a chair that must have come from the same craftsman as the peeling table. There's not much furnishing in this chamber, aside from beds and one or two other examples of aging accomodations like this poor table. "What's on your mind?"
Petra Soroka	Petra is distinctly out of place in the Imperial City, and especially in the mailroom of the Imperial Watchtower. Her hostile demeanor, ragged clothes, and general state of uncleanliness all make her an unusual and unpleasant sight, not that the latter is rare. The Kana is parked a long distance away, and it takes some time before Petra slouches her way into the back door of the Watchtower and up the stairs. Petra's first step into the top floor room is hesitant, and she winces at the sound of floorboards creaking underneath her. The moment before the noise alerts Berislav to her presence, Petra considers just turning around, and not confronting the unpleasant conversation that she's, for some reason, opted into. When he greets her, she tenses up, and lingers at the edge of the room. Petra leans back, propping herself up on a waist-high wicker basket, and crosses her arms while she eyes Berislav. She's not wearing her one denim skirt today, instead opting for her blue-grey overalls, on top of which is her jacket, the repair patch sewn onto its shoulder already looking loose. Her boots are shredded, tape barely holding them together, and as she enters the room, she pulls off her scarf, revealing the red and purple hand prints around her neck. Inside her jacket pockets are two weights, with knife blades sticking out of holes punctured through. "Yeah. Hey. I..." Petra glances at the tea, then to the floor, breaking eye contact. "I guess it's a moral question? Or. Not really that. But a... character question, I guess." Petra doesn't elaborate until prompted, because she's obnoxious like that.
Father Berislav	"A character question," Berislav repeats. His eyes linger, for a moment, on the spot at her neck. The teapot whistles. "Well," he says, placing a tea bag into a porcelain cup and pouring from the kettle. "I do talk to a lot of people," he admits. A brief aside, "Would you like some, too?" he asks, nodding towards a matching, empty cup. "It's nothing special. Not even local, really. But you're welcome to have some, if you'd like." The box is nearby. A store-brand, more modern than this place. Whether she wants tea or not, he continues, hands folded and resting atop the aging table as his tea steeps. "What kind of character question?" He knows better by now than to bring up the injuries right away, even if they were the first thing he noticed alongside her haggard state. Later, then. God willing.
Petra Soroka	Petra catches Berislav's brief attention to her neck. Of course she does, she was expecting it. When he doesn't comment on it, Petra lowers her chin fractionally and stares at him intensely, though it's unclear whether she's challenging him to ask because she wants him to, or because she doesn't want him to. She reflexively shakes her head at the offer of tea, though by the limited movement that 'shaking' entails, it obviously hurts her to do so. "I don't need any tea. I've got...." She coughs and reaches into one of the many pockets on her overalls, pulling out the top of her water bottle to demonstrate its existence. "Yeah. Um." Petra hesitates, rocking on her heels while leaning on the basket, its edge bending to move with her. Then she blurts out, all at once, "You're a murderer." Petra swallows, then coughs. "I'm not going to ask if it's okay to murder, or whatever. That's, that's not important. But... is it, different. To be a murderer. Does that... mean something, about you?" She fidgets, her hand flexing open and closed, then she squeezes that small knifeblade tip between her index finger and thumb, dangerously hard. "I-I had my hands so close to her-- to it. A-and, you know, I like-- I felt her-- its blood, and s-slime, splatter across me, and on my hands, and my shirt, and everything. And I know it survived. And that it's not really a person. But I feel like, that should feel... worse. That sensation."
Father Berislav	"Yes," says Berislav, unbothered by the brusque accusation. He sips his tea. "I am." He waits for her to continue, He tilts his head inquisitively at the question which follows, silver brows raised not in judgment but in something like scholarly scrutiny. "You 'know' that, do you?" he poses, setting the cup down and leaning forward in his seat. The question speaks for itself in a way he intends. In a way that she probably resents--that in a multiverse of possibilities, an endless sea of shapes and ways to be, 'person' contains multitudes. It contains more than language could hope to describe. In the silence following his question, his silver eyes weigh down on her, not to judge, but to demand this unspoken statement be considered, before he continues. "...in any case, it means nothing in and of itself, apart from the fact that you are emotionally capable of taking a life, and have done so. I am a murderer. A soldier is a murderer. So is a pirate at sea, so are most heads of state." He shrugs, impassively. His hand then swipes over the table. One of his revolvers heavily thuds on the table. "It's a simple enough thing to do, with or without this," he says, nodding to the cumbersome weapon. In the lanternlight of the Watchtower, on that peeling table, it looks like nothing so much as the crushing, sterile weight of joyless modernity. Beautiful and cold and terrifying. "In an emotional sense, it's merely a matter of resolve." "What does say something about you is the circumstances surrounding the act and the motive thereof. If I'm going to burn with the serial killers and child murderers, let it be because I did it to rid the world of evil and misery. What about you?"
Petra Soroka	Petra matches Berislav's stare, her steady eyes boring into his. Her jaw is set with tension, and she stiffens up, as if trying to will the response 'yes' into existence. She does know that. She knows what a person is, and through her force of effort, that definition will be communicated and agreed upon by everyone around her. No such thing happens. She doesn't say anything in response to the question, eyes eventually dropping to look at the tea again. Her throat itches, but after refusing once, Petra feels like she can't accept the offer of tea anymore. "I haven't. I haven't done that. Taken a life." Petra steps away from the basket, standing fully upright, then teeters slightly. "It survived. And if I was, was emotionally capable, that still means something. But I-I, didn't." Petra takes an unsteady step forwards, putting her hands on the back of the empty chair and leaning forwards. She's ostensibly examining the gun, but looking between her eyes and her hands, the former is locked on a point in the middle distance, not focusing on the revolver. Her hands fidget with the wicker of the chair, fingers prying up woven strands of their own volition. Then she blinks, and leans back just enough to slide her hand into her bomber jacket pocket. She pulls out one of her revolvers, the bayonet blade on the bottom heavy and glinting in the lanternlight, and very clearly different from what she had before. She's careful to keep the logo angled away from him. "I've fought people with this. And I haven't killed anyone with it. Even though it's, not really meant for anything but that. I-I--" She cuts off, then seems to lose her train of thought. Her hand wavers in the air, then sinks down and returns the gun to her pocket, lips twisting into a frown. She crosses her arms to consider the last question, still looking down at the gun on the table. "There's--there's the problem. I don't really.... I don't think of the world that way. Weighing the cost of good and evil. Thinking about, hell, or, or, anything like that. I... just wanted to get rid of it, because it made me mad. And that's, that'd be awful for a person, but it just didn't feel that bad to do. Even though it's selfish, and... evil."
Father Berislav	Berislav reaches for his tea again, takes a chaste sip, and gently sets it down on the table once more, eyes focused on hers even as she stares at his gun and produces her own. Even as she admits what she feels the problem is, his face remains held in that gentle, passive expression. "I see," he says. "Are you sure that it didn't feel bad?" He asks softly. "People who are bothered that they don't feel worse are..." He pauses, fingers drumming softly on the table. "It's a distinct emotional phenomenon from feeling no remorse at all. I think it did affect you to hurt her, even if you don't see the world in the same way I do." "Even if what you did was selfish and evil, even if it didn't feel bad in the moment, you feel a kind of remorse now. Yes," he says, leaning back in his chair and removing his reading glasses, hanging them on the collar of his chasuble. "I saw the challenge in your eyes, a moment ago. To give credit where it's due, the performance was convincing, but it was only that." "If she really was an 'it,' as you use the word, if you were that angry, why did you stop?"
Petra Soroka	Petra squeezes her arms around her chest, and the air that's forced out of her throat by the compression sounds like a wet record scratch. "You don't get to decide what I..." Petra trails off and pouts, then forcibly uncurls her arms to loosen them, shoving her hands in her pockets. "I think, maybe, you're not understanding. I don't, really, feel bad about doing it. I just don't like the," Petra struggles for a moment, wavering, "The narrative implication. The idea that killing is easy for me. That I enjoy the catharsis of applying my power. Like she said once." Petra shifts her weight between her feet, mostly invisibly, but the creaking of wooden boards gives her discomfort away. She tilts her chin up slightly to look at Berislav, squinting. "Also... 'even if'? Is that agreement? And you call it a performance, too. What's with you, selecting what to believe about me like that? Are you just looking for the worst interpretation of the things I do?" She steps away from the table again, and turns around to start pacing through the room. Before she gets more than a step away, she starts coughing, and has to grab on to the chair to hold herself upright. The coughing fit continues, sounding more and more painful, like a rattle, until eventually quieting down. Petra swallows and straightens up, still facing away but not continuing to walk around. "I didn't stop. I gutted her, I beheaded her mech--its mech, the machine, and then it tried to cause a reactor meltdown in the middle of the city. Finishing it wasn't a priority. If it was just us two...." Petra isn't actually sure what point she wants to communicate. Is she insisting that she could have, and would have killed her?
Father Berislav	>Are you just looking for the worst interpretation of the things I do? "...I am going to tell you something which I hope, sincerely, you will take to heart, given this talk of 'narrative implication' and 'selective belief--'" The priest stops in his tracks when Petra's coughing fit starts up. "You're hurt," he says. "And not just from that fight. That bruise on your neck wouldn't be the color it is, so soon after." Rising from his chair, his lips pull into a tight, concerned frown. "Will you let me treat it?" he asks softly. If he's allowed to, he'll apply a nanopatch that looks, based on the packaging, as if it will provide relief and act as a warm compress. Either way, he doesn't make a show of it, and he moves on to providing his advice, hands folded before him as he stands beside the table. "...when it comes to other people, the nature of our existence in this world means that 'selective belief' is all you will ever get from them. Do you understand?" "There are as many Petra Sorokas as there are people who know her, because each one of them has a Petra in their mind that they interact with, when they speak to you. Many of them are different, in however small or large a degree as dictated by the vagaries of perception and experience. But," he says, lifting an index, "Your ability to shape those other Petras is unilateral in its limitations. Even if you had some sort of ability to directly reach into their minds, you couldn't possibly do it to all of them, at once, all of the time. Yes--maybe if you were alone, you could have killed her without hesitation, for lack of an audience to interpret it. But, tellingly, every person I have ever spoke to, who has had a similar concern, was also the person most concerned with the 'narrative.' Think about that, if you will, before you assert how easy it would have been for you to kill her." He lets the point rest, then sighs, tucking a lock of silver hair behind his ear. "To answer your question, my... interpretation of your actions is colored by the actions you took, and the thoughts and beliefs you expressed, leading up to this point. 'If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.'" He drags his index across the opposite wrist, at the spot where it becomes his hand. "Do you know that verse? If you don't like the idea of a Petra Soroka for whom killing is an easy, cathartic act, then simply exercise what power you do have wisely, and don't do it. It is infinitely easier and less painful than doing it and trying to control reactions after the fact." He turns, finishes his tea, and pours a second cup. For her, in the other cup. He doesn't indicate it, aside from its placement on her side of the table.
Petra Soroka	Petra rubs her hand on her throat self-consciously. "Don't bother. You'll be wasting your efforts. It's not hurt, it's just broken." Petra murmurs, then makes a single scratchy staccato laugh, the sound of pull-starting an old rusty lawnmower. "There's no point in putting on a band-aid fix. It'll be ruined again later." As Berislav moves to stand a little closer to her, Petra shuffles equally away, uncomfortable with the posture difference of being adjacent to him. His assertion that Petra can't reach directly into their minds is met with a frown, and Petra opens her mouth to respond, eyebrows furrowed in irritation, hesitates, then continues anyways, interrupting him. He has to be doing it on purpose, right? "Stop that. All of that about reaching into people's minds, and talking telepathically, and everything you keep saying to make fun of me like that. Just stop it. I don't know why you're doing it." Petra presses her lips together, and glances at the door. The toe of her boot twists into the floor, and at some point, the tape detached, the makeshift repair falling apart. Her eyes flick back to Berislav and lock on to him, an intense glint flashing behind them. "The narrative is there, whether anyone talks about it or not. People only exist in conversations between other people. When Brick wrote that report, and people read it, I became "Petra A, the crazy murderer", rather than just "Petra". I don't want to have my name stolen from me by some empty thing with my face. I'd rather kill it than let that happen." Petra pulls the second chair out, away from the table. It's close enough that she could still reach the table if she leaned over, but far enough away that there's still the plausible deniability of "not sitting at the table". She slowly lowers herself into it, wincing, and then bites her knuckle in thought at the implied cognitive task. "I... think I do know that one, actually? That's the one about, how looking indecently at a woman, or being tempted to touch her, makes you the sinful one, not her, right? So you should carve out the part of you that wants to touch her." Petra looks briefly satisfied at remembering that. "And... if it was true that just 'not doing it' was guaranteed to write the story as if you never wanted to in the first place, then people wouldn't be calling me a murderer. Or... yeah." Petra glances at the tea, and her eyes linger on it for a moment, before falling to the ground. She doesn't make a motion to claim it, at least not yet.
Father Berislav	Told not to bother, Berislav's expression indicates that he'd expected something like the answer Petra gave. What he hadn't expected is the accusation that he was making fun of her--his resigned frown is overtaken by one of owlish confusion, blinking questioningly at her. "I'm sorry," he says, "I don't know what you mean. Of course... it doesn't matter. I don't need to know what you mean to stop describing things in that way." He endures her intense stare, waving his hand over-top the teapot and the hotplate both. They disappear, sinking into a burning orange tear in space. It looks as if the room were the bark of some great tree, and the orange field the bare wood beneath, revealed by a strike of lightning or a boar's tusk. Just as soon as it came, it's gone. Smoothing over his chasuble, the priest sits down again, scooting his chair closer to the table. "It isn't guaranteed, no," he admits, setting his empty cup aside. "But it is better to live close to how you'd like than not bothering at all. Tell me--who are you?" His eyes bear down on her, challenging eye contact. "I don't want to hear who you're not. Tell me who you are, that who you're not should matter so much."
Petra Soroka	Petra doesn't look entirely convinced by Berislav's apology, but she closes her eyes briefly and huffs air out of her nose in acknowledgement. She shifts in her chair, moving to criss-cross her legs on top of the seat, then hesitates and lets them down, crossing her ankles over each other instead. Her hands splay out on her thighs, then they spasm and she laces them together in her lap instead. Petra matches Berislav's eye contact automatically. The brewing hostility behind her expression is reminiscent of a delinquent in the principal's office, ready to angrily argue her case even though she knows it's futile. After Berislav elaborates, she purses her lips and her interwoven fingers tighten. "I-- that's, a vague question, you know." Petra's glare wavers, and her demeanor subtly shifts from challenging Berislav's authority, to being trapped by it. "Is, is 'who I want to be' close enough? I don't...." Petra laughs again, awkwardly, then breaks eye contact. "I'll probably just say some, uh, unkind things. And you've probably heard it all before."
Father Berislav	"'Who you want to be' is close enough, yes," says the priest with a possibly unexpected smile. "I've heard a lot of things before, Petra. But in this moment, none of that matters. If having unkind things said to me bothered me, then I would be a very different man from the one sitting here. No..." he shakes his head. "What matters to me now is the Petra Soroka you'd like to be. What's she like?"
Petra Soroka	Petra blinks in surprise. "Oh, no, I didn't mean...." Berislav immediately assuming that Petra was going to unleash a tirade of insults against him, rather than herself, in response to his question, feels bitterly uncomfortable, for multiple reasons. The obvious, that her reputation is bad enough that Berislav expected her to insult him over a benign question. And the more volatile, the disappointment that bubbled up inside her when her automatic self-denigration wasn't recognized. Petra's default thinking expression is a pout, and lost in thought as she introspects on all those stirred feelings, she looks like she's considering Berislav's question with gravity. She slowly folds her legs up onto the chair, and untangles her fingers so that she can slouch and bite on her knuckle. After some time, she blinks and her eyes refocus, shifting up from the spot on the ground they were intently examining, to look at Berislav's face again. "Ah. Um. The Petra I'd like to be...." Even though she'd brought the topic up, she hadn't been prepared to answer it. "Mmm. 'Good', I guess, is the easiest answer. And I mean that with more, uh, intent, than you probably think. I don't want to be good, exactly, I want to want to be good. The Petra I want to be, wants to do good like you all do. To, to make sinners repent, or to fight for justice, or to change the world, or be a hero. I don't...." Petra trails off, her explanation seemingly over. As an afterthought, looking to the side withher head tilted forwards, she adds, "Confidentiality stands, right? I forgot to-- you know. Make sure."
Father Berislav	The explanation is heard with the same soft smile as before. Berislav nods along, once or twice. "Confidentiality stands," the priest reassures, once she's finished. "In fact, it might please you to know I don't discuss anything we talk about in private, whether it's in person or over the phone. I felt it would be appropriate, and I didn't want to violate the trust you placed in me. But, this is beside the point." "Thank you for answering my question," he says. "It was a good answer. I think that Petra is within your grasp, really and truly." His eyes glance briefly towards one of the walls, as a particularly boisterous shout from carousers outside rises faintly up to the tower. He chuckles at it--that faintly heard celebration of the human need to dick around--before giving Petra his full attention again. "Do you know why?" He pauses. "Because wanting to be good is... not a skill, exactly, but something that grows alongside a particular skill. And any skill grows through continued practice. To be a better guitarist, you play. It hurts, at first, feeling the strings pressing into your fingers. And at first, the music you can make, compared to someone who's practiced a lot, or to someone who has a 'natural talent,' will seem crude and childlike. But that isn't the point of making music, just as the point of painting isn't to make masterpieces every time your brush meets canvas." His look at Petra isn't the same weighty sense of challenge it was before. This is more like he's proud of her, somehow. "Whether you know it or not, you've been practicing that skill. At the moment, you're still at the part where the tools are unfamiliar, and using them hurts your hands. But it won't be this way forever. I believe in you, and I think that, in time, yes--you will 'want to want to be good.' Sooner than you realize, even if it seems far away right now."
Petra Soroka	The magic words are echoed, and Petra relaxes a little. Confidentiality stands. She's not sure when she started to believe it. Petra exhales and presses her hands down onto one knee, in a casual half-imitation of a butterfly stretch. The strain in her hip muscles startles her, and she immediately leans into it more firmly, intensifying the ache. Ever since moving back into the Kana, Petra's let her morning stretch routine lapse... or, even before then, since starting as an Elite, she's been inconsistent with it at best. She eases up, and runs a hand through her hair. That's lapsed too. It's grown longer than it should be. Maybe she could cut it with her gunblade. That idea is funny enough to her that she automatically mirrors Berislav's laugh with a giggle of her own. Petra rubs her knuckles against her mouth to scrub away her small smile, though the remaining pout doesn't hold as much animosity as her scowl did. "That's... partly true, yeah. Practicing it to develop it. But mimicry, sort of, only goes so far. You can pretend to follow the steps the master artist makes, but that's not really learning if you have a fundamentally lacking base for that skill. You have to unlearn what you picked up. You have to break the bone and reset it properly." Petra wrinkles up her forehead and squints, trying to encapsulate the metaphor in her head. Her hand slips into the pocket of her jacket, and when she pulls out a pack of cigarettes, she hesitates, not looking directly at Berislav. She slides one out and lights it, and twists in her chair to be facing partly away from the table, her foot propped up on the seat. "I guess. I mean. That's the plan, the better one, at least. But right now, I'm...." Petra rubs her thumb on the grip of the revolver sticking out of the pocket angled towards Berislav. If he squints at it in the lamplight, he could make out the Eggman Empire logo on the base.
Father Berislav	Berislav squints to make it out. Ah. Unexpected. And disappointing. But it can wait. "You're what?" he asks, evenly, hands resting on the table. There isn't any condemnation or didactic inquisition in his tone. He waits for her answer, then nods. "I've made my feelings clear on this subject of being... somehow fundamentally broken. The seed is not the tree, if you recall. But, if what you want is a broken bone set properly, then you need to let that person, whoever they may be, do it--and resist the urge to peel off the cast and scratch at it, no matter how much it itches. The fundamental base you're talking about, whether you go down that road or a different one, is this:" "Are you able to trust in the lessons another person has learned from their lived experience? Are you able to trust in those people, when they speak from the authority of that experience?"
Petra Soroka	"I'm... getting further away, I guess. It's hard to think of it as others being 'naturally talented', when it's, basically everyone but me. Everyone here, at least. The average is determined by everyone else, so you can't all be better than average. I must be worse." Petra drums her fingers on her leg while she talks, clearly letting the words come unfiltered out of her mouth as she comes up with them. She coughs, and reaches to the table to grab her cup of tea. Then her breath hitches and her eyes narrow. Smoke swirls in a thin, lazy cloud in front of her mouth, hanging without an exhale to blow it away. Why did I say that all so easily? I've been, slipping. I got too relaxed, and started saying things I shouldn't. He's not a therapist, he's a murderer. Petra stiffens up, and lowers the teacup back down. Her posture shifts, her increasingly abnormal and fruity sitting positions dissolves into a slouch, her arm draped over her upraised knee. Petra twists her face towards Berislav, strands of loose hair dislodging themselves to swing in front of her eyes. "You want me to say yes. Obviously. But no, I don't agree. Because being able to listen to that advice, and incorporate it into myself, means that there's some kind of shared experience. But there isn't. My reasons for doing things are different from people like hers, and that's something only I can deal with." Petra sighs and leans back, sagging in her chair. She got caught up in this for too long, enjoying the brief window of time where Berislav didn't know. She starts talking with belligerent finality, her voice sandpapery. "I attacked Lilian. A couple weeks ago. Attacked her properly, not like, on the radio, or whatever. The kind of thing that'll probably get me killed sooner or later. That's where I got these." Petra tilts her head, indicating the bruises, though her arms dangle lifelessly. "That's the road I'm on. Stabbing her, and worse. A lot worse. Do you still think 'that Petra' is within my grasp? That I'm making progress?" Petra touches a fingerpad to the tip of a bayonet, then clenches her fist. "That's really why I can't stand the other one, right? Why I can't let her exist. A good Petra might be reachable for a Petra, and it's, probably not me."
Father Berislav	>Being able to listen to that advice, and incorporate it into myself, means that there's some kind of shared experience. But there isn't. The priest shakes his head, eyes closed. In the flowing white garment atop his cassock, he seems to deflate or wither, the red stole seeming as if it weighs him down, for just a moment. Is it disappointment, or something else? >I attacked Lilian. A couple weeks ago. "So that's what Ishirou was upset about," he says, solemnly. "I see." >Do you still think 'that Petra' is within my grasp? That I'm making progress? "Yes, Petra, I do. And I will continue to think that, until or unless you give yourself over fully to that man's evil. But to withhold my support and care, for anything less than your unconditional fealty to sin, would violate the promise I made to you." He stands from the chair, circles around the table, and reaches for her hand, gently guiding it away from the bayonette. "Why do you run from it? Even he has people he allows himself to get close to. Even gardeners of sin feel warmth, on occasion, warped as it is by money and power and armories of invisible swords. You want to want to be good, but you are terrified of care. Of any kind." He releases her hand, then. "Is that what 'belonging' means to you? Because if it is, no one should 'belong' to that."
Petra Soroka	"And I will continue to think that, until or unless you give yourself over fully to that man's evil." "When you...totally, completely let go of wanting to be 'that' Petra." "But to withhold my support and care, for anything less than your unconditional fealty to sin," "...That's when you'll stop 'deserving it'." "Would violate the promise I made to you." "Until then...I won't give up on you." Petra makes a low moan in her chest, building into a frustrated whine. She rips her hand out of Berislav's grip, and the violent momentum carries her hand automatically to start reaching into the pocket with her revolver. She freezes, and drops her hand, squeezing her thigh to prevent it from wandering. "You don't get it. Unconditional care isn't a thing. It's just empty words promising something that humans aren't actually capable of. Everything between people is conditional." Petra abruptly stands up from her chair, and circles around to lean forward on the back of it, hands gripping the top as she glares at Berislav. "You can take that promise away at any time. It's not earned, or deserved. Even if you don't want to, eventually you'll figure out that it's just too much work and your time would be better spent on anyone else." "And that's another thing, actually. Calling it "that man's" evil. Doctor Eggman's. It's not. It's mine." Petra emphasizes those words with her entire body, kicking a boot into the ground. "Everyone keeps deflecting the responsibility off of me, or saying that I'm a minion of his, anything other than admitting that I did it. I don't belong to him. Or anyone." Petra snorts, and her lips twist derisively. "Maybe I should just start doing evil shit on my own. Maybe the problem's that the only thing I've done so far has been part of his. That's why everyone keeps making excuses for me." Petra pushes herself off of the back of the chair with a flourish, the wicker creaking. She hesitates, her face flashes with a conflicted expression, and shoves her hands in her pockets, deflating slightly. Bitterly sarcastic, Petra scuffs the floor with her disintegrating boots as she walks towards the door. "Well. Thanks for the advice, now I know what to do."