#and the answer is always either a kind of gentle abnegation

[lesamis]

What are your thoughts on everything everywhere all at once please?

i really enjoyed it! we're going through a bit of Happy Nihilist moment in cultural time, i think, and this movie is such a lovely expression of that while also being like. so new, and genre-bending, and surprising. i love that at the core of all its maximalism there was really a delight in the mundane, and the way in which a (very forceful) broadening of your horizon can remind you that littleness and routine and familiarity deserve your love, too. i loved everything about jobu tupaki, her style, her dialogue, her villanelle-dialled-up-to-200 vibes. honestly, i think "colourful comedy that makes you cry" just might be my favourite genre of the year :')

[greenwaterskeeter]

i finally have a coherent personal narrative, and here it is. It’s quite long, but i think of some interest, and might be encouraging!

-Mentions of suicidal ideation, emotional and financial abuse, emotional incest, fatphobia, misogyny, capitalism. Whatever the qpr equivalent of romance is. Ends happily-

I felt for a long time that i should have died when i was 20. Not in the sense that i deserved to, but in the sense that by then i’d accomplished as much as i ever would and was therefore obsolete– taking up resources unnecessarily.

When i was 13, i felt forced to choose between my parents. My bus driver/karate teacher, a kind person who i very much admired, advised me to flip a coin and then, if i didn’t like the result, pick the other. I chose my mother and (privately) pledged absolute loyalty to her (I was obsessed with LOTR at the time and felt that it was the purpose of my life to be a Sam for somebody).

While she was single and struggling to keep the farm and raise my brother (a toddler then), that devotion was used and rewarded. There were times i thought with satisfaction that i might as well be her husband, as well as a parent to my beloved brother. I was proud. I felt righteous. The joy of supporting and protecting her was real. The intermittent anguish of being a minor who could legally only do so much to help was also real. (I believed in laws then).

When I was 17, she remarried (a perfectly nice, wealthy man, as devoted as me and much more powerful) and i went to college. I slowly imploded across all four years, though I didn’t realize that until nearly the end. I think now it was because nothing i could offer her was needed anymore. Every time she treated me like a child instead of the valued partner i had been, i was crushed. Emasculated. i began to feel positively Tortured without understanding why. It sounds like a villain’s origin story, doesn’t it?

When it started affecting my performance, i could only think the trouble was that i was pining for a married professor, as you do. I had fallen in love with him, and made myself his best student (and then his TA, and then began to feel gross about it, quit, and started avoiding where i knew he’d be, all without telling anyone). Once my decline became known and answers were demanded, this was all i could offer in explanation.

I didn’t blame anyone consciously then, but i think now i felt betrayed by how my friends and family reacted. They all thought i must have seduced him (or vice versa if they were generous) to be so torn up. It was too foolish to become suicidal over a crush. They didn’t believe me, or accused me of grandiosity, when i said the professor didn’t even know how i felt. I have always struggled to keep in touch with people, and once my oldest friends gave me the Adultery is Bad talk, it was hard to keep trying.

Everyone did their best and we were all very young. I didn’t understand any more than they did. But still, i can acknowledge now what it would have meant to have just one person who believed in me regardless of understanding. On a deeply hidden level, i felt that my mother, at least, owed me that, after years of faithful service.

But horribly, once it became clear my suicidality was almost entirely passive, she turned on me. She was very frightened. I guess she had also been thanking her lucky stars all that time that i wasn’t turning out like my dad, but here i revealed myself at last to be a freeloader, just like him. I was supposed to go to medical school. I had been the pride of the extended family, the eldest and purest of my generation, a marvel of the local intelligentsia, and i wound up dragging myself back home inept, directionless, cringing, the same as so many unfortunate young cousins and neighbors who’d used to have me pointed out to them as an example. Who would my brothers look up to now?

I endured living at home for a few years. My mom couldn’t keep up the punishment constantly, so although there was no telling when she would start in on me again, or whether she might finally go through with evicting me, there were beautiful things too.

I worked for her husband’s business for no pay, which i understand now was abusive, but i have always enjoyed working with my hands, and when they left me to it, it felt like the old days, like i had a use, even if it was now peripheral. My brothers weren’t sure what to do with me, but we still had fun when we could. The animals comforted me, and it’s special to be able to give affection and gentleness to a creature who depends on you. The woods and mists and early mornings and silent moonlights were still beautiful, and gradually i could appreciate them again. When i was with people, i felt my disgrace abjectly. But on the farm there were many chores to be done alone.

The more i recovered, the more trapped i felt. I even, very alarmingly, spent about two hours one afternoon silently consumed with resentful feelings towards my mother (this hadn’t happened since i was 10). I began to be afraid of losing control and doing something desperate (I totaled two different trucks during this time, on roads i knew well, for no apparent reason). I had given up my spot at a medical school i would not get into twice, and the obvious escape was to reapply elsewhere. I attempted this, and sabotaged it, multiple times.

I got a job at a nursing home, which was hard on my back but full of wonderful people, and was forced to quit when it made me late to my shift at my stepfather’s business too many times. By this i understood that a local job was not getting me out of there. I asked for money to get an EMT certification and was refused. I applied to many online jobs, none of which i had enough time to make money from. I called up one or two branches of the military, and was rejected for being too fat, thank God. I applied to medical school again, and managed to not sabotage it enough that i was accepted into a master’s program instead. It was across the state, five hundred miles away.

And still it might have come to nothing, as i had no conscious plans, actually, of staying away once i was done with this master’s program. The expected thing would be to go on to medical school, but i was only anticipating the first day of being free and couldn’t imagine anything more than a week in the future. I looked at the amount of debt i was taking on for this, knowing in my heart that i would not get a job that could pay it back, and was only relieved that they hadn’t caught onto me and i could still get loans.

There are a lot of things in my story that aren’t what they say is healthy or proper. I shouldn’t have romanticized my own parentification, i should not have had feelings for a 50 year old man, i should have kept trying with my friends, who have good hearts and only made one mistake before i ghosted them, i should have kept telling the truth, i shouldn’t have taken moral injury from things that weren’t my fault, i should have been properly angry with my mother at some point, i should not be grateful that my tendency is to harm myself rather than others.

One person alone should not have been able to save me.

In the second month of my year away, i was in a study group with my roommates and some of their acquaintances, and i laughingly shared some anecdote or other that i thought was harmless. I don’t remember whether anyone else laughed, but one person said: “That sounds kind of fucked up.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “Eh, well.”

Nothing more was made of it, and we went on studying. Later, this same person saw me sitting in the cafeteria alone and came to sit with me. We met to study again, just us two, and they showed me a video about white tears and watched me closely for my reaction. We compared ideals and found them the same. We came up with a project to collectivize flashcard-making for our class and had to meet frequently to carry it out. “We’re colleagues,” my new friend said, firmly, when people asked if we were together. We discovered ethical problems with the program and protested them, formally and informally. We were accused of being too insular. We talked about our families, and they said things like: “That’s not okay, you realize that, right” and “I think if more people loved the way you do, I’d have a reason to smile in the morning.” It became normal for my eyes to be sore from crying.

Neither of us got into medical school that year. We got an apartment together after graduation, and worked together too until i was fired (I was new to challenging authority and not very subtle in my distaste for our bosses). My friend’s parents wanted them to quit too, to come home while they reapplied, but they said: “Not without Autumn.” So after some negotiating, we went to live with their folks for a while…

We’ve been together for 5 years now. At first I did the same as I’d always done, but my partner made it clear they don’t want self-abnegation from me. I started trying to have boundaries, paradoxically, to make them happy. I’ve dipped into therapy as money allows. I’ve been reading and thinking and writing. Above all, I’ve been loved.

And all this time, I’ve still been deeply ashamed. I’ve spent the last ten years in some degree of emotional pain 24/7. But somehow, two weeks ago, another thing happened that shouldn’t, and i suddenly knew that i was a human being like any other.

I still feel that I should have died when I was 20, but now it’s in the sense that people say, “You shouldn’t have survived that! What a miracle!” Still existing feels like a bonus. I might live a long time from now and i might not. Either way, I’m incredibly lucky to turn my face to the world and know that i am a creature in it, like other creatures. I am well. It’s good that I’m alive.

[theculturedmarxist]

This book will concern itself least of all with those unrelated psychological researches which are now so often  substituted for social and historical analysis. Foremost in our field of vision will stand the great, moving forces of history,  which are super-personal in character. Monarchy is one of them. But all these forces operate through people. And monarchy is by  its very principle bound up with the personal. This in itself justifies an interest in the personality of that monarch whom the  process of social development brought face to face with a revolution. Moreover, we hope to show in what follows, partially at  least, just where in a personality the strictly personal ends – often much sooner than we think – and how frequently  the “distinguishing traits” of a person are merely individual scratches made by a higher law of development.

Nicholas II inherited from his ancestors not only a giant empire, but also a revolution. And they did not bequeath him one  quality which would have made him capable of governing an empire or even a province or a county. To that historic flood which was  rolling its billows each one closer to the gates of his palace, the last Romanov opposed only a dumb indifference. It seemed as  though between his consciousness and his epoch there stood some transparent but absolutely impenetrable medium.

People surrounding the tzar often recalled after the revolution that in the most tragic moments of his reigns – at the  time of the surrender of Port Arthur and the sinking of the fleet at Tsushima, and ten years later at the time of the retreat of  the Russian troops from Galicia, and then two years later during the days preceding his abdication when all those around him were  depressed, alarmed, shaken – Nicholas alone preserved his tranquillity. He would inquire as usual how many versts he had  covered in his journeys about Russia, would recall episodes of hunting expeditions in the past, anecdotes of official meetings,  would interest himself generally in the little rubbish of the day’s doings, while thunders roared over him and lightnings  flashed. “What is this?” asked one of his attendant generals, “a gigantic, almost unbelievable self-restraint,  the product of breeding, of a belief in the divine predetermination of events? Or is it inadequate consciousness?” The  answer is more than half included in the question. The so-called “breeding” of the tzar, his ability to control  himself in the most extraordinary circumstances, cannot be explained by a mere external training; its essence was an inner  indifference, a poverty of spiritual forces, a weakness of the impulses of the will. That mask of indifference which was called  breeding in certain circles, was a natural part of Nicholas at birth.

The tzar’s diary is the best of all testimony. From day to day and from year to year drags along upon its pages the  depressing record of spiritual emptiness. “Walked long and killed two crows. Drank tea by daylight.” Promenades on  foot, rides in a boat. And then again crows, and again tea. All on the borderline of physiology. Recollections of church  ceremonies are jotted down in the same tone as a drinking party.

In the days preceding the opening of the State Duma, when the whole country was shaking with convulsions, Nicholas wrote:  “April 14. Took a walk in a thin shirt and took up paddling again. Had tea in a balcony. Stana dined and took a ride with  us. Read.” Not a word as to the subject of his reading. Some sentimental English romance? Or a report from the Police  Department? “April 15: Accepted Witte’s resignation. Marie and Dmitri to dinner. Drove them home to the  palace.”

On the day of the decision to dissolve the Duma, when the court as well as the liberal circles were going through a paroxysm  of fright, the tzar wrote in his diary: “July 7. Friday. Very busy morning. Half hour late to breakfast with the officers  ... A storm came up and it was very muggy. We walked together. Received Goremykin. Signed a decree dissolving the Duma! Dined  with Olga and Petia. Read all evening.” An exclamation point after the coming dissolution of the Duma is the highest  expression of his emotions. The deputies of the dispersed Duma summoned the people to refuse to pay taxes. A series of military  uprisings followed: in Sveaborg, Kronstadt, on ships, in army units. The revolutionary terror against high officials was renewed  on an unheard-of scale. The tzar writes: “July 9. Sunday. It has happened! The Duma was closed today. At breakfast after  Mass long faces were noticeable among many ... The weather was fine. On our walk we met Uncle Misha who came over yesterday from  Gatchina. Was quietly busy until dinner and all evening. Went padding in a canoe.” It was in a canoe he went paddling  – that is told. But with what he was busy all evening is not indicated. So it was always.

And further in those same fatal days: “July 14. Got dressed and rode a bicycle to the bathing beach and bathed enjoyably  in the sea.” “July 15. Bathed twice. It was very hot. Only us two at dinner. A storm passed over.” “July  19. Bathed in the morning. Received at the farm. Uncle Vladimir and Chagin lunched with us.” An insurrection and explosions  of dynamite are barely touched upon with a single phrase, “Pretty doings!” – astonishing in its imperturbable  indifference, which never rose to conscious cynicism.

“At 9:30 in the morning we rode out to the Caspian regiment ... walked for a long time. The weather was wonderful.  Bathed in the sea. After tea received Lvov and Guchkov.” Not a word of the fact that this unexpected reception of the two  liberals was brought about by the attempt of Stolypin to include opposition leaders in his ministry. Prince Lvov, the future head  of the Provisional Government, said of that reception at the time: “I expected to see the sovereign stricken with grief,  but instead of that there came out to meet me a jolly sprightly fellow in a raspberry-coloured shirt.” The tzar’s  outlook was not broader than that of a minor police official – with this difference, that the latter would have a better  knowledge of reality and be less burdened with superstitions. The sole paper which Nicholas read for years, and from which he  derived his ideas, was a weekly published on state revenue by Prince Meshchersky, a vile, bribed journalist of the reactionary  bureaucratic clique, despised even in his own circle. The tzar kept his outlook unchanged through two wars and two revolutions.  Between his consciousness and events stood always that impenetrable medium – indifference. Nicholas was called, not without  foundation, a fatalist. It is only necessary to add that his fatalism was the exact opposite of an active belief in his  “star.” Nicholas indeed considered himself unlucky. His fatalism was only a form of passive self-defence against  historic evolution, and went hand in hand with an arbitrariness, trivial in psychological motivation, but monstrous in its  consequences.

“I wish it and therefore it must be —,” writes Count Witte. “That motto appeared in all the activities  of this weak ruler, who only through weakness did all the things which characterised his reign – a wholesale shedding of  more or less innocent blood, for the most part without aim.”

Nicholas is sometimes compared with his half-crazy great-great-grandfather Paul, who was strangled by a camarilla acting in  agreement with his own son, Alexander “the Blessed.” These two Romanovs were actually alike in their distrust of  everybody due to a distrust of themselves, their touchiness as of omnipotent nobodies, their feeling of abnegation, their  consciousness, as you might say, of being crowned pariahs. But Paul was incomparably more colourful; there was an element of  fancy in his rantings, however irresponsible. In his descendant everything was dim; there was not one sharp trait.

Nicholas was not only unstable, but treacherous. Flatterers called him a charmer, bewitcher, because of his gentle way with  the courtiers. But the tzar reserved his special caresses for just those officials whom he had decided to dismiss. Charmed beyond  measure at a reception, the minister would go home and find a letter requesting his resignation. That was a kind of revenge on  the tzar’s part for his own nonentity.

Nicholas recoiled in hostility before everything gifted and significant. He felt at ease only among completely mediocre and  brainless people, saintly fakers, holy men, to whom he did not have to look up. He had his amour propre, indeed it was  rather keen. But it was not active, not possessed of a grain of initiative, enviously defensive. He selected his ministers on a  principle of continual deterioration. Men of brain and character he summoned only in extreme situations when there was no other  way out, just as we call in a surgeon to save our lives. It was so with Witte, and afterwards with Stolypin. The tzar treated  both with ill-concealed hostility. As soon as the crisis had passed, he hastened to part with these counsellors who were too tall  for him. This selection operated so systematically that the president of the last Duma, Rodzianko, on the 7th of January 1917, with the revolution already knocking at the doors, ventured to say to the tzar: “Your  Majesty, there is not one reliable or honest man left around you; all the best men have been removed or have retired. There  remain only those of ill repute.”

All the efforts of the liberal bourgeoisie to find a common language with the court came to nothing. The tireless and noisy  Rodzianko tried to shake up the tzar with his reports, but in vain. The latter gave no answer either to argument or to impudence,  but quietly made ready to dissolve the Duma. Grand Duke Dmitri, a former favourite of the tzar, and future accomplice in the  murder of Rasputin, complained to his colleague, Prince Yussupov, that the tzar at headquarters was becoming every day more  indifferent to everything around him. In Dmitri’s opinion the tzar was being fed some kind of dope which had a benumbing  action upon his spiritual faculties. “Rumours went round,” writes the liberal historian Miliukov, “that this  condition of mental and moral apathy was sustained in the tzar by an increased use of alcohol.” This was all fancy or  exaggeration. The tzar had no need of narcotics: the fatal “dope” was in his blood. Its symptoms merely seemed  especially striking on the background of those great events of war and domestic crisis which led up to the revolution. Rasputin,  who was a psychologist, said briefly of the tzar that he “lacked insides.”

This dim, equable and “well-bred” man was cruel – not with the active cruelty of Ivan the Terrible or of  Peter, in the pursuit of historic aims – What had Nicholas the Second in common with them? – but with the cowardly  cruelty of the late born, frightened at his own doom. At the very dawn of his reign Nicholas praised the Phanagoritsy regiment as  “fine fellows” for shooting down workers. He always “read with satisfaction” how they flogged with whips  the bob-haired girl-students, or cracked the heads of defenceless people during Jewish pogroms. This crowned black sheep  gravitated with all his soul to the very dregs of society, the Black Hundred hooligans. He not only paid them generously from the  state treasury, but loved to chat with them about their exploits, and would pardon them when they accidentally got mixed up in  the murder of an opposition deputy. Witte, who stood at the head of the government during the putting down of the first  revolution, has written in his memoirs: “When news of the useless cruel antics of the chiefs of those detachments reached  the sovereign, they met with his approval, or in any case his defence.” In answer to the demand of the governor-general of  the Baltic States that he stop a certain lieutenant-captain, Richter, who was “executing on his own authority and without  trial non-resistant persons,” the tzar wrote on the report: “Ah, what a fine fellow!” Such encouragements are  innumerable. This “charmer,” without will, without aim, without imagination, was more awful than all the tyrants of  ancient and modern history.

The tzar was mightily under the influence of the tzarina, an influence which increased with the years and the difficulties.  Together they constituted a kind of unit – and that combination shows already to what an extent the personal, under  pressure of circumstances, is supplemented by the group. But first we must speak of the tzarina herself.

Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador at Petrograd during the war, a refined psychologist for French academicians  and janitresses, offers a meticulously licked portrait of the last tzarina: “Moral restlessness, a chronic sadness,  infinite longing, intermittent ups and downs of strength, anguishing thoughts of the invisible other world, superstitions –  are not all these traits, so clearly apparent in the personality of the empress, the characteristic traits of the Russian  people?” Strange as it may seem, there is in this saccharine lie just a grain of truth. The Russian satirist Saltykov, with  some justification, called the ministers and governors from among the Baltic barons “Germans with a Russian soul.” It  is indubitable that aliens, in no way connected with the people, developed the most pure culture of the “genuine  Russian” administrator.

But why did the people repay with such open hatred a tzarina who, in the words of Paléologue, had so completely  assimilated their soul? The answer is simple. In order to justify her new situation, this German woman adopted with a kind of  cold fury all the traditions and nuances of Russian mediaevalism, the most meagre and crude of all mediaevalisms, in that very  period when the people were making mighty efforts to free themselves from it. This Hessian princess was literally possessed by  the demon of autocracy. Having risen from her rural corner to the heights of Byzantine despotism, she would not for anything take  a step down. In the orthodox religion she found a mysticism and a magic adapted to her new lot. She believed the more inflexibly  in her vocation, the more naked became the foulness of the old régime. With a strong character and a gift for dry and hard  exaltations, the tzarina supplemented the weak-willed tzar, ruling over him.

On March 17, 1916, a year before the revolution, when the tortured country was already writhing in the grip of defeat and  ruin, the tzarina wrote to her husband at military headquarters: “You must not give indulgences, a responsible ministry,  etc. ... or anything that they want. This must be your war and your peace, and the honour yours and our  fatherland’s, and not by any means the Duma’s. They have not the right to say a single word in these matters.”  This was at any rate a thoroughgoing programme. And it was in just this way that she always had the whip hand over the  continually vacillating tzar.

After Nicholas’ departure to the army in the capacity of fictitious commander-in-chief, the tzarina began openly to take  charge of internal affairs. The ministers came to her with reports as to a regent. She entered into a conspiracy with a small  camarilla against the Duma, against the ministers, against the staff-generals, against the whole world – to some extent  indeed against the tzar. On December 6, 1916, the tzarina wrote to the tzar: “... Once you have said that you want to keep  Protopopov, how does he (Premier Trepov) go against you? Bring down your first on the table. Don’t yield. Be the boss. Obey  your firm little wife and our Friend. Believe in us.” Again three days late: “You know you are right. Carry your head  high. Command Trepov to work with him ... Strike your fist on the table.” Those phrases sound as though they were made up,  but they are taken from authentic letters. Besides, you cannot make up things like that.

On December 13 the tzarina suggested to the tzar: “Anything but this responsible ministry about which everybody has gone  crazy. Everything is getting quiet and better, but people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole  years, the same thing: ’Russia loves to feel the whip.’ That is their nature!” This orthodox Hessian,  with a Windsor upbringing and a Byzantine crown on her head, not only “incarnates” the Russian soul, but also  organically despises it. Their nature demands the whip – writes the Russian tzarina to the Russian tzar about the  Russian people, just two months and a half before the monarchy tips over into the abyss.

In contrast to her force of character, the intellectual force of the tzarina is not higher, but rather lower than her  husband’s. Even more than he, she craves the society of simpletons. The close and long-lasting friendship of the tzar and  tzarina with their lady-in-waiting Vyrubova gives a measure of the spiritual stature of this autocratic pair. Vyrubova has  described herself as a fool, and this is not modesty. Witte, to whom one cannot deny an accurate eye, characterised her as  “a most commonplace, stupid, Petersburg young lady, homely as a bubble in the biscuit dough.” In the society of this  person, with whom elderly officials, ambassadors and financiers obsequiously flirted, and who had just enough brains not to  forget about her own pockets, the tzar and tzarina would pass many hours, consulting her about affairs, corresponding with her  and about her. She was more influential than the State Duma, and even than the ministry.

But Vyrubova herself was only an instrument of “The Friend,” whose authority superseded all three. “... This  is my private opinion,” writes the tzarina to the tzar, “I will find out what our Friend thinks.” The  opinion of the “Friend” is not private, it decides. “... I am firm,” insists the tzarina a few weeks  later, “but listen to me, i.e. this means our Friend, and trust in everything ... I suffer for you as for a gentle  soft-hearted child – who needs guidance, but listens to bad counsellors, while a man sent by God is telling him what he  should do.”

The Friend sent by God was Gregory Rasputin.

“... The prayers and the help of our Friend – then all will be well.”

“If we did not have Him, all would have been over long ago. I am absolutely convinced of that.”

Throughout the whole reign of Nicholas and Alexandra soothsayers and hysterics were imported for the court not only from all  over Russia, but from other countries. Special official purveyors arose, who would gather around the momentary oracle, forming a  powerful Upper Chamber attached to the monarch. There was no lack of bigoted old women with the title of countess, nor of  functionaries weary of doing nothing, nor of financiers who had entire ministries in their hire. With a jealous eye on the  unchartered competition of mesmerists and sorcerers, the high priesthood of the Orthodox Church would hasten to pry their way  into the holy of holies of the intrigue. Witte called this ruling circle, against which he himself twice stubbed his toe,  “the leprous court camarilla.”

The more isolated the dynasty became, and the more unsheltered the autocrat felt, the more he needed some help from the other  world. Certain savages, in order to bring good weather, wave in the air a shingle on a string. The tzar and tzarina used shingles  for the greatest variety of purposes. In the tzar’s train there was a whole chapel full of large and small images, and all  sorts of fetiches, which were brought to bear, first against the Japanese, then against the German artillery.

The level of the court circle really had not changed much from generation to generation. Under Alexander II, called the  “Liberator,” the grand dukes had sincerely believed in house spirits and witches. Under Alexander III it was no  better, only quieter. The “leprous camarilla” had existed always, changed only its personnel and its method. Nicholas  II did not create, but inherited from his ancestors, this court atmosphere of savage mediaevalism. But the country during these  same decades had been changing, its problems growing more complex, its culture rising to a higher level. The court circle was  thus left far behind.

Although the monarchy did under compulsion make concessions to the new forces, nevertheless inwardly it completely failed to  become modernised. On the contrary it withdrew into itself. Its spirit of mediaevalism thickened under the pressure of hostility  and fear, until it acquired the character of a disgusting nightmare overhanging the country.

Towards November 1905 – that is, at the most critical moment of the first revolution – the tzar writes in his  diary: “We got acquainted with a man of God, Gregory, from the Tobolsk province.” That was Rasputin – a  Siberian peasant with a bald scar on his head, the result of a beating for horse-stealing. Put forward at an appropriate moment,  this “Man of God” soon found official helpers – or rather they found him – and thus was formed a new  ruling class which got a firm hold of the tzarina, and through her of the tzar.

From the winter of 1913-14 it was openly said in Petersburg society that all high appointments, posts and contracts depended  upon the Rasputin clique. The “Elder” himself gradually turned into a state institution. He was carefully guarded,  and no less carefully sought after by the competing ministers. Spies of the Police Department kept a diary of his life by hours,  and did not fail to report how on a visit to his home village of Pokrovsky he got into a drunken and bloody fight with his own  father on the street. On the same day that this happened – September 9, 1915 – Rasputin sent two friendly telegrams,  one to Tzarskoe Selo, to the tzarina, the other to headquarters to the tzar. In epic language the police spies registered from  day to day the revels of the Friend. “He returned today 5 o’clock in the morning completely drunk.” “On  the night of the 25-26th the actress V. spent the night with Rasputin.” “He arrived with  Princess D. (the wife of a gentleman of the bedchamber of the Tzar’s court) at the Hotel Astoria.”...And right beside  this: “Came home from Tzarskoe Selo about 11 o’clock in the evening.” “Rasputin came home with Princess  Sh- very drunk and together they went out immediately.” In the morning or evening of the following day a trip to Tzarskoe  Selo. To a sympathetic question from the spy as to why the Elder was thoughtful, the answer came: “Can’t decide  whether to convoke the Duma or not.” And then again: “He came home at 5 in the morning pretty drunk.” Thus for  months and years the melody was played on three keys: “Pretty drunk,” “Very drunk,” and “Completely  drunk.” These communications of state importance were brought together and countersigned by the general of gendarmes,  Gorbachev.

The bloom of Raputin’s influence lasted six years, the last years of the monarchy. “His life in Petrograd,”  says Prince Yussupov, who participated to some extent in that life, and afterward killed Rasputin, “became a continual  revel, the durnken debauch of a galley slave who had come into an unexpected fortune.” “I had at my  disposition,” wrote the president of the Duma, Rodzianko, “a whole mass of letters from mothers whose daughters had  been dishonoured by this insolent rake.” Nevertheless the Petrograd metropolitan, Pitirim, owed his position to Rasputin,  as also the almost illiterate Archbishop Varnava. The Procuror of the Holy Synod, Sabler, was long sustained by Rasputin; and  Premier Kokovtsev was removed at his wish, having refused to receive the “Elder.” Rasputin appointed Stürmer  President of the Council of Ministers, Protopopov Minister of the Interior, the new Procuror of the Synod, Raev, and many others.  The ambassador of the French republic, Paléologue, sought an interview with Rasputin, embraced him and cried,  “Voilà, un véritable illuminé!” hoping in this way to win the heart of the tzarina to the  cause of France. The Jew Simanovich, financial agent of the “Elder,” himself under the eye of the Secret Police as a  nightclub gambler and usurer – introduced into the Ministry of Justice through Rasputin the completely dishonest creature  Dobrovolsky.

“Keep by you the little list,” writes the tzarina to the tzar, in regard to new appointments. “Our friend  has asked that you talk all this over with Protopopov.” Two days later: “Our friend says that Stürmer may remain  a few days longer as President of the Council of Ministers.” And again: “Protopopov venerates our friend and will be  blessed.”

On one of those days when the police spies were counting up the number of bottles and women, the tzarina grieved in a letter  to the tzar: “They accuse Rasputin of kissing women, etc. Read the apostles; they kissed everybody as a form of  greeting.” This reference to the apostles would hardly convince the police spies. In another letter the tzarina goes still  farther. “During vespers I thought so much about our friend,” she writes, “how the Scribes and Pharisees are  persecuting Christ pretending that they are so perfect ... yes, in truth no man is a prophet in his own country.”

The comparison of Rasputin and Christ was customary in that circle, and by no means accidental. The alarm of the royal couple  before the menacing forces of history was too sharp to be satisfied with an impersonal God and the futile shadow of a Biblical  Christ. They needed a second coming of “the Son of Man.” In Rasputin the rejected and agonising monarchy found a  Christ in its own image.

“If there had been no Rasputin,” said Senator Tagantsev, a man of the old régime, “it would have been  necessary to invent one.” There is a good deal more in these words than their author imagined. If by the word  hooliganism we understand the extreme expression of those anti-social parasite elements at the bottom of society, we may  define Rasputinism as a crowned hooliganism at its very top.

[lunaschild2016]

Worth Fighting For: Chapter 84 - Disclosure

Rated: M

Summary: He was ruthless, cunning, and completely committed to protecting his city; but her arrival to Dauntless called everything he ever thought he believed into question. She was haunted by a past she vowed to make amends for and resolved to sacrifice her very life it meant she could protect her family, faction and city. Duty and following orders were no longer enough and they both found more than they ever hoped for. They both found something worth fighting for. Eric/OC AU M (Language, Sexual Content, Romance, Fluff, Angst, Tragedy)

@kenzieam  @pathybo  @jaihardy @every-jai @ericdauntless @beautifulramblingbrains @bookgirlthings @jojuarez26 @oddsnendsfanfics @offroadinjandals @singingpeople @iammarylastar @irasancti @captstefanbrandt @clublulu333 @fuckthatfeeling @tigpooh67 @ex-bookjunky  @jughead-wuz-here wuz-here @badassbaker @beanzjellly @beltz2016 @meganbee15 @affabletimelady @scorpio2009 @gylisaa @geekybeyondallreason @violetsonthelam @kyloswarstars @emmysrandomthoughts @kgurew @beltzboys2015-blog @slytherin-princess-25273 @whatwouldbuffydo666 @jaiboomer11 @holamor @wealwayskeepfighting @original46  @blakefc @xtheserpentx @artisthedgehog  

**I promise I have put the read more option in but it has been glitching. If I have forgotten someone or you want to be removed please message me!**

Chapter 84 - Disclosure

Kat

“How long have you girls been here?” Dad asked once he was sitting at the table with us and has his own tea to warm himself from the cold.

“Not too long. It was just about dinner time at Dauntless when we left.” Tris supplied with a small smile.

He nodded and sipped from his tea then swallowed with a grateful sigh. “This weather seems to actually be getting colder rather than warming up.”

“How has that made things for you and the others?” I ask, genuinely worried and mentally make a note to check in with Evelyn and that group.

“It’s been quiet. Too quiet to be honest,” His brow is furrowed deeply with worry. “Which was a major part of what that meeting was about that held me up.” He paused and weariness seemed to start weighing him down by the way his shoulders started to sag. “There’s a proposal for Dauntless to be allowed to do more in-depth sweeps and not just limited to the factionless sectors. I honestly believe would be best for everyone. But there’s a bunch of in-fighting and procrastination going on from other council members. The way it seems to be going right now, the weather will be warm before we see any kind of progress made at all.”

Tris and I share knowing looks and twin scowls.

“I hear those same complaints when the leaders come back from council meetings,” I say with a frown. Raze and Eric have both been pretty vocal, but then again they always are. Especially with those they consider friends or are comfortable enough to open up like that.

Eric has been complaining about the last few meetings pretty often, saying that there have been serious bullshit stall tactics coming from all the other factions whenever proposals are made to make very needed changes.

Erudite is using the ousting of Marcus as a platform to have a complete change in leadership of the government, favoring them of course.

Candor has some of their leaders that want it to go to them, saying that it only makes sense, as they are the ones in charge of the judicial system.

Others have been split between panning for Erudite or keeping it how it’s always been; while Amity hasn’t given any input in any regard to the proposals.

Eric said that as far as he can tell, Abnegation mostly wants to do what it takes to get the city back on track, but that doesn’t include giving up control of the government. I don’t know where my dad falls on that issue, but I want to find out.

Tris must have been thinking along the same lines and asked the question for me.

“What’s Abnegation wanting to do about all the changes now that Marcus is gone?”

Dad quirked an eyebrow and swallowed his tea before answering.

“I don’t see that it would be necessary for Abnegation to hand complete control of the government over, and definitely never to Erudite. The other council members are taking on a wait and see approach so that we can all get a better idea of what kind of damage has really been done. A lot of that is dependent on various inventories and inspections that are still pending. However, I have always felt that what the city really needs is all of the factions having at least one representative that acts much in the same respect as Marcus did before by himself. He was the final say in all matters regarding the government and that was just too much power for one person to hold, never mind one faction. If we had to make a change of any kind I would lobby for that. I guess a ruling body of five people, one from each faction that would have the final vote on anything put forth by the council. The problem with that will be establishing how that person from the faction is chosen and then how the final say is proclaimed. It would be a lot of work just to get it put in place but I think if we really want to move forward, that would be the way to go.”

“And it would be heavily supported if we could ever get it put up for a vote.” My mom agreed firmly as she made her way back to the table to deposit the first two bowls containing steaming rice in one and stew in the other. A cutting board with the thick sliced brown bread followed soon after.

“We can only hope.” Was the only addition to that conversation my father made before talk stopped.

Grace was said as we joined hands, and the food was passed around for plates to be filled. My mom has always been a ringmaster of sorts in navigating conversation at the dinner table. She was always mindful to keep conversation to topics that could be considered lighthearted and that we could join in on. She always jokingly said it was better for our digestion that way.

That’s what she did now and allowed me and my sister to share some of the lighthearted things with our dad that we shared with her earlier. He surprises us with his humor at some of our stories and even interjects a few things of his own.

“I know being prideful is selfish, but I can’t express enough how proud I am of the two of you,” Dad says after dinner has been finished and we are sitting around the table companionably.

The mood shifts slightly at this new line of conversation, and I know I’m blushing at the smiles from both of our parents as they look at us. Still, as wrong and shameful as my former faction and upbringing might have made me feel about it before, I’m proud too and I have no problem sharing that sentiment with our parents.

“I’m proud of us as well,” I say while looking at my sister and smiling. “We worked really hard. From the start, there was just so much going against us that I wasn’t sure what would happen and if we could both make it. I don’t know if you know, but there were supposed to be cuts this year and I was completely unsure of what was going to happen.” I focus back on my sister and admit something to her. “I know I might have seemed overconfident and brash at times, but inside I was scared out of my mind and so worried,” I admit with a shrug while looking at the table and rubbing my fingers against the wood idly.

“I’m sure it didn’t help that you had so much weighing on your shoulders, Kat.” My mom says as she places her hand over mine, then looks at Tris and repeats the gesture after reaching out to her too. “Both of you went into this with more than just the normal worries you should have had and I can admit that this was something we worried about as well.”

“It didn’t help that for our own reasons we couldn’t confide in each other,” Tris admits quietly while looking at her cup of tea. I nod with a small sigh that she hears and looks up to catch my eye then gives me a small smile. “But we worked through it and I think we now have a stronger bond because of it.”

I bite my lower lip and nod as I tear up.

“Well, I’m glad you both have each other at least.” My dad says after he clears his throat. Clearly trying to refrain from getting too emotional.

Now that I know about him being from Erudite. Now that I’ve met and grown close to Eric, who is much the same. And now that even my mother has confirmed this all for me, I can clearly see his demeanor for what it is and I have true regret for every time I mentally might have lost patience or felt anger at him for it.

Despite this, I know we need to get to why we’re here tonight. Time isn’t on our side when I don’t know how long the guys night will hold Eric back from trying to check on me in some way. Not to mention Peter being a wild card currently. He wasn’t with the guys but he also wasn’t going to be with the girls either, so who knows if he will discover I’m not there and if he will go to Zach with that knowledge.

“We also have our family,” I state softly and share a look with Tris, who gives me a nod. That gives me the confidence to continue. “We found family there that have really helped us through this, been there for us.”

Mom and Dad look at each other and dad sighs before he nods. “I’m guessing you two are here to ask about Hana and Raze?”

My sister and I nod at the same time in answer but I also do so vocally. “Why didn’t we ever know before now? Was it because of Marcus?”

It was my mom who answered us after covering my dad’s hand on the table and giving it a gentle squeeze. “No. There were a few reasons, but it was mainly because of something that happened years before then. It was actually how your dad and I met. You’re both aware now that I was Dauntless and he was Erudite. While we were in the same year and shared classes together, we never really interacted with each other.”

She paused, and in a rare show of affection or support, my dad entwined his fingers with hers with the hands that were already together on the table.

“Things with the factionless have always been tense but before we transferred and when we were still dependents ourselves, they were very unstable. For a while, there wasn’t a week that went by that there wasn’t a report about factionless attacking or causing some kind of trouble.”

I can see the strain their faces as she starts to tell us these things and I can’t help the shudder I have imagining them myself. I realize that like mom, Tris and I can see it from the Abnegation and Dauntless points of view, and it is not a pretty picture she’s painting already.

“But, it wasn’t just things with the factionless that were unstable. The fighting and hostility between the factions started to spiral out of control and the factions communicating or just blaming each other, as well as with factionless. Erudite started their vying for control for the first time in the cities history. It wasn’t just more say in the government that they wanted like in years past, they wanted all the control. I can admit, with good reason from their point of view. It came as a response to the fact that the most violent or aggressive of the attacks seemed to all focus on them. In truth, they did, but they also hit Abnegation and Dauntless just as hard. With faction relationships so deteriorated, no one could agree on how to handle things. Dauntless was stretched thin just trying to keep up as it was and then the tensions started to really rise and took to the streets with faction members getting into altercations right on the streets. Amity’s visiting Candor or Erudite was just as much a target as an Abnegation in Erudite.”

She stopped speaking when I held up a hand, almost as if raising it to be able to ask a question but really I was just trying to process what she said and raised it unconsciously. But since she looked to be waiting, I asked the question anyway.

“How is that even possible? Why would an Amity be anywhere near Candor or Abnegation in Erudite of all places?”

She nodded in understand and went on to explain.

“We weren’t always so cut off from the other factions as we are now. When your father and I were much younger, the credo of faction before blood wasn’t enforced so strictly. Family members were able to have contact between other factions and there were monthly visiting days instead of just every three months like now. I can remember things slowly changing as I got closer to choosing and people became warier of venturing into the other faction sectors as tensions started to rise. It wasn’t until things reached a boiling point that all of that it changed to what we have now.”

“A group of older faction members, consisting of members from all factions, started to meet. Most, but not all, had some kind of family relationship between them and that was really how it started. Friends and family coming together in those trying times, sharing their burdens. But it started to slowly grow beyond that, adding more people as the troubles started to escalate. They began to meet in secret to discuss the things going on in the city in more specific terms and to try and come up with something that could end the spiral the city was in. Their meetings, while not technically illegal, definitely were walking the line. Some people would and did consider them treasonous especially considering those meetings started to lead to plans. Because in those meetings it moved beyond musings and venting and it was determined that if there was going to be peace again in the city radical changes would need to be made.”

Once again my mom pauses and reaches to take a drink of tea, her hand shaking slightly but for me, a thousand questions are begging to be let out even though I know her story isn’t done yet.

“How do you know all of this?” I blurt out the first of those questions, not even bothering to hesitate like I would have before going to Dauntless. I do stop at that single question before I bite my lip so the others don’t slip out in rapid fire.

My dad gives me a strained smile. “I think you two might have an idea of how we know.”

“Someone you knew was part of the group?” Tris blurts out her own question.

“Yes.” My dad replies sadly, taking over after a short shake of her head from my mom. “We both knew someone involved with the group.”

“What happened?” Tris prompts our parents softly.

“Word got back to others that the group was making plans, though we weren’t told the details on what the plans were exactly from those we knew. I’m sure now it was to protect us from being accused of being involved if they were found out. When the group was discovered, it was publicly proclaimed those involved had tried to attack and take over the government. The result was that the people, the leaders of these groups, were arrested and tried for treason. They were found guilty but there was a great debate and civil unrest when execution was the suggested punishment for them. I think even then not everyone could believe the people said to be involved were guilty of anything but there wasn’t anything that could be done at this point to keep them from being punished completely. So, a compromise was reached instead. They were banished from the city. Sent outside the walls with a single backpack of provisions and belongings with the instructions that if they tried to re-enter, they would be shot on sight.”

“Afterwards, many changes were made to the government and the laws we have to follow now. Communication between family members of different factions was all but cut off completely with the belief that was mostly to blame for what happened. Visiting days were changed to what they are now. The interaction between factions had already been fairly limited but it was even more limited afterward to cut off any more collaborations. Investigations continued to find any other people that might have been involved and when someone was found, their punishment was the same. Banishment. By the end of it, over two hundred people were sent away from the city. Our borders and fences already existed before this happened, set up at the foundation of the city, but they were reinforced and guards posted to keep watch.”

“As if all of that wasn’t bad enough,” my mom finally spoke up again in a tone with hard anger. “Erudite came forward with evidence, that the people responsible for everything were more dangerous than they had first believed. The term divergent made its first real appearance during this time frame. They used data to whip up a frenzy of fear and used that to get permission to begin deeper investigations. They got permission to begin searching for and testing divergents.”

“What does that even mean?” I shout in frustration and slap my hands on the table, mainly to keep them from shaking in fear. “What is divergent really other than just being resistant to serums? Which, by the way, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and doesn’t make someone invincible. It doesn't mean they don’t have any effect at all on a person other than maybe dulling the damn things slightly. So what the hell kind of danger is that really when in the end we are just as susceptible? ”

Tris reached for my hand to grab it and give it a comforting squeeze while our parents looked between us. My sister, they had known about, but me they hadn’t.

“You too?” My dad asks softly. I sigh and nod in answer. “You didn’t have an inconclusive test though. Anyone with an inconclusive or interrupted test usually is, but there have been cases where it was just a fluke or mistake made on the part of the tester. That was how we knew your sister might be divergent.”

“I don’t know what happened exactly.” I start to answer with an exasperated huff. “The person that did my test said that it kept going too fast between the different factions, but in the end, Dauntless was the most common one and the one it seemed to go to first. So towards the end of the testing, she had to do something to the terminal that made it break, forcing me out of the very last scenario, and she told me it registered my result as Dauntless just before that. Even then she didn’t say I was divergent for sure, just that she had a suspicion I could be. It wasn’t until, well, it wasn’t until I was hit with a few darts by some factionless during our capture the flag exercise and then how fast I recovered from the effects of the serum, that it was really confirmed.”

They were speechless for a moment before my mom took a breath and nodded then shared a look with my dad. A conversation of some kind being shared between them.

“To understand how I know about divergence and what I am going to tell you, I need to tell you about my life before coming to this faction.” My dad began to speak slowly and is it pained him to be talking about this at all. “Before I transferred to Abnegation and before the incident we told you about, I was part of a group of gifted children in Erudite. The parents of these children usually recognized their intelligence and willingly handed them over to the faction leaders to raise and educate how they saw fit. I never really knew my parents, although I knew their names and on formal occasions, they would pay visits or I would attend functions with them as I got older. Emotionally, I had no connection to them and they had no connection to me either. Emotionally, I had very few connections to anyone in Erudite. There were a few of the other children that I was fond of and there were a few adults that I looked up to, even loved. One of them was my biological uncle. He was one of the people in charge of the gifted children programs. Because of our relation, he was forbidden from overseeing my specific group, but he made it a point to see and interact with me as much as he could without it looking suspicious. I wasn’t supposed to know who he was to me. When I was younger, I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with our relationship so didn’t understand the secrecy. It wasn’t until I grew older that I realized, with his help in seeing it, that the children were being groomed to put aside all emotions that would hinder their growth mentally and the ability to look at problems objectively without the nuisance of emotions getting in the way. Our lives revolved around intellectual pursuits, even in the very early years, rather than any real socialization or recreation. Sometimes it was made into games and competitions to engage our younger minds. Things that would keep us interested but also inspired fierce competitiveness between the children too. As we got older, we were allowed slightly more freedom in the subjects we learned and the projects we engaged in. They allowed us to pair up, guided by them of course, to become more social. These pairs would become arranged couples in later years, but at the time we weren’t told that is what was being set up.”

“Before the shake-up to the government and the alleged attempted coup, there were rumblings about abnormalities, or potential abnormalities, in the people of the city. The term divergence hadn’t made an appearance yet and wouldn’t until a few years after the failed government take over. The beginnings of it though came about from a thesis on genetics and their mutations from one very brilliant young girl and her partner.”

“In it, they pulled from data dating back to pre-war times when the subject of genetics was still in its infancy. They paid particular attention to old data regarding how different peoples genes mutated, that then manifested into various traits outside of the norm for people of their time. The mutations were various and could result in anything from a different eye, hair or skin color; to higher metabolism or tolerance for pain. The list of how they could all present in a person are too various and not all of them were benign because some of them were indicators of diseases or potential diseases.”

“It was this last thing, the potential to be able to detect diseases early on, that had originally drawn the attention of at least one of the pair. The boy felt that if they could pick up where things were left off by the scientists centuries ago, they might better be able to understand, cure or prevent those diseases we still have in the present day. But the girl saw something else, another potential, that would replace the entire tone of the project. It was quickly picked up instead by their guardians, teachers and many of the faction. Other projects were set aside and this became a high priority and high security. Research could only go so far using old data and it wasn’t long before new data was needed, but the problem was getting it. The methods that would be needed were questionable at best, completely unethical and totally inhumane, at worst. So it stayed a secret project, only spoken about in certain circles of the most obsessed and fanatical.”

“For years it stayed that way until those in charge saw an opportunity presented to them. An opportunity to use the events that lead to those people being banished from our city as the ammunition to point out an even bigger threat and provide the means to stop it. Divergence became the enemy because the real one, the corruption that was and still remains rampant, was being ignored.”

My dad stopped speaking finally. His tone had gone weary at the end until it looked like I was seeing someone with the weight of centuries on his shoulders across the table from me.

My mom tightened her grip on his hand and faced us. “It was Erudite that put in the parameters for what should be normal or not in our behavior. It was Erudite and those led by that faction who put out the mandates that all citizens needed to fit into certain molds, all in the name of keeping the peace when really it is a way to trap and control people. It was the founders that broke our society up into the different factions but it wasn’t until recently that the idea a person should only act a certain way, the way their faction dictates, came about. Divergence, by the words own definition, is being different or developing in different directions. All the faction dictates, the rules about family interaction, the changes, and upgrades to the aptitude tests; all of this has been to highlight anyone that might be even the slightest difference.”

“But why? Going by what you are saying, I can guess that my divergence has to be something to do with my ability to resist serums, but how does that make me dangerous?” I spew out in frustration and horror at what I have been told.

“It makes you different, Kat,” Tris said sadly and with knowing. “It makes us both different and to them that makes us dangerous. Either because they don’t understand what we are or are not capable of, or because they do and they want it, but can’t have it.”

I close my eyes and breathe in and out slowly. Trying to regain my calm. When I open my eyes again I look at my dad again.

“You were the boy weren’t you?” It comes out as a question but there is a bit of an accusation to it as well. I can hear my sister gasp a little at my tone, or the question, I don’t know which.

“Yes. I was the boy in the story and I have lived with the guilt from that among many other things for all of my life. It was also my uncle that was among those banished. Something that was in large part because of me and the role that was being asked of me to further what I started with a school child’s project. He tried to help keep me out of the plans that were made to make me and my partner the leads in what was to eventually happen. I was horrified when I realized what had been unleashed and went to him. Despite all of that, it wasn’t until he was arrested and sent away that I realized my disgust for Erudite and all it stood for. It wasn’t until meeting others outside of my faction that I realized how indoctrinated I was. It wasn’t until meeting your mother that I found the strength to break away and try to atone for my sins.”

For years I knew there was something lurking behind my father’s eyes but I had never been able to determine what it was. Then after the incident, he could never quite look me in the eye again or so I thought.

Maybe, it was really a mixture of both of us not being able to look each other in the eye?

Maybe the reason for that was because when we did, we saw ourselves and the guilt we carry within reflected back at us and we became too afraid to see that again so avoided any possibilities of it happening.

I see it now though, as our eyes are locked over the table, and I’m not afraid anymore.

I take a breath and nod slowly at my parents, in acceptance but also in thought. “I think there is more to this that you have to tell us and we need to know. No more secrets.” I say firmly and look between the rest of my family. “This family has been burdened with guilt that isn’t all of our own making but it’s time to move past that. Events in the past seem to be designed to break us but we haven’t and we won’t.” I look at Tris to see her nodding along with me.

“Kat’s right. We can’t continue to keep each other in the dark and if we want to be able to make things right like I know my sister has vowed to do,” She smiles at me briefly before continuing, “We need to know everything.”

“That’s a fair demand,” My mom says and puts her hand over my dad’s when he looks like he wants to object. “They aren’t children anymore, love.” She looks at him while speaking. “And you know I say this with no blame to you, but recent events have shown that despite our best intentions, we have failed in protecting them.”

His shoulders start to slide forward in defeat and his head hangs forward in shame, breaking me apart at the seams as tears come forward finally and I bolt up and over to him, throwing my arms around his shoulders. He tenses for a second before he shudders and reaches out to wrap an arm around first me than the other around Tris as she joined us.

I couldn’t have spoken words if I wanted to through my crying but the three of us listened as mom spoke them for us, her hand moving between us in soothing gestures. Murmuring words of comfort and strength until some time later we were able to pull apart and resume our seats.

During this, mom disappeared only to return with a small black box that looked similar the lockboxes Eric has in hidden compartments of the apartment closet. His are larger and meant for storing bigger items and he uses them to house weapons of all kinds. He called it a fire safe because it is supposed to be tough enough to withstand the heat of fires and strong enough to take beatings. I only know about them because he showed me where all his weapon caches are hidden.

You know, just in case. As if the ones he leaves laying out in the open aren’t enough.

Besides the smaller version of a fire safe, my mom also carries out an item that has me laughing in disbelief. She sets all her items down and holds up a bottle then indicates our cups of tea.

“I thought we could all use a little fortification.” She says with a smirk.

I look over at Tris even while I hold my mug of tea up for her to pour a bit of the whiskey she produced from somewhere and see my sister staring at our mom with her mouth hanging open.

When I have my combination of tea and whiskey I lean over and use my fingers to lift her mouth back into place, causing her to snap it closed and look at me with a glare. It doesn’t last long because she is soon looking at my mom while blushing and holding her own mug up for a dash or two of the amber liquid.

I take a careful sip and shudder at the strong taste that can’t be changed by the delicious tea. It does the trick of warming me inside and I relax a little bit at a time. My mom is a smart lady, I decide giddily while I watch my dad drink his own mixture and see the tension start to ease from him as well.

He sighs, the sound still a bit wearily before he looks at the two of us, ready to begin again. “No more secrets between us but what we tell you next has to stay secret from anyone not in the family. Agreed?”

I hesitated, flinching even and feeling a slight bit of panic not knowing if I was going to be able to agree to something like that when it meant keeping something from Eric.

“Kat,” Someone calling my name seems to come from far away at first, until I feel a firm hand on my shoulder, putting gentle pressure on it and look up to see my father looking at me with kind eyes. “Kat, I did say to keep it within the family.” He repeats but this time he puts emphasis on that last word. “But you have to be certain that when discussing anything with them, there will be no chance it can be heard.”

My breathing starts to normalize and I nod in response. “Agreed.”

When I look at the table, I see the small firebox is open and on the table, there is now some kind of electronic device that is blinking a green light and a small bundle of paper sits beside it.

“Now that we’ve made sure that we can’t be heard and you both understand, your mom is going to continue,” Dad says to us while he gestures to the device that is steadily blinking its green light.

“The first thing you need to know, that you are already partially aware of, is that our city has cameras in most public places. What you might not be aware of is that they are in more than just public places and even more importantly it isn’t just video feed that devices are capable of picking up. There are some that are capable of picking up audio feeds from great distances and other devices that are made specifically to filter all the sounds to be coherent. This device acts as a bubble, protecting against that. While we know by the blinking green light there aren’t any listening devices inside this home, there are some on the cameras around this sector. This will prevent them from picking up our talk from here on in. While we don’t know for certain that Erudite is still employing the use of those devices, they are what helped to apprehend those people we were telling you about before.”

I let out a shaky breath and nodded while taking another sip of tea, larger this time.

“The next thing you need to know is that everything you have been told about the world outside our city, how it is mostly a wasteland and that we are the only people who survived the wars and diseases and other various disasters, is a lie. There are other cities out there, other people, and those borders and fences that were set up around our city were as much to protect them from us as it was to protect us from them.”

Tris doesn’t even make a comment that now I am the one with my jaw hanging open in disbelief. Maybe because she’s right there with me.