voice test; canon is snow white and the huntsman.

[forjoy]

[It takes a while for her to speak, but when she does it manages to be both monotone and raw--]

Let me go.

I won't be taken anywhere I don't want to go ever again. You know I'll fight.

Comments

[theyunderestimateme]

Attaway! You tell 'em.

[forjoy]

--I did. I'm trying.

[Shaking her head.]

She won't listen.

[She doesn't look like she's taking it as a cue to give up.]

[secondguessing]

[ Somebody looks worried. ]

I'm not . . . sure that will work. Fighting, I mean.

[forjoy]

What else can I do?

[secondguessing]

Reason? [ It sounds weak even to him. ]

[forjoy]

What else can I do that would work.

I would. If I could. I've tried; she won't listen.

[secondguessing]

Perhaps it won't be so bad, wherever you go.

[forjoy]

[After a moment, slightly abruptly:]

It's kind of you to try to help. But where I go doesn't matter. She can send me to paradise and I would still fight. I won't live according to another's whims. I can't.

[That last is particularly earnest.]

[secondguessing]

Ah. I see.

Freedom is important, yes.

[rhinemaid]

That's what she wants.

[forjoy]

Yes.

[She relaxes, oddly relieved.]

Do you know what it is to live without it?

[forjoy]

--why?

[rhinemaid]

Because as long as you're doing something, she gets her way. It doesn't matter what you're doing. If fighting is the sort of thing you do, then it's probably what she's counting on.

[forjoy]

...Then it's a trap. If I do nothing she still wins.

[rhinemaid]

If she loses interest in you, she'll leave you alone. That's about it.

[forjoy]

Then my whole life is subject to the rise and fall of her interest. As if I were a toy.

How can you accept it?

[rhinemaid]

I get what I want, too. And since I don't really have a choice in the matter, I might as well enjoy that.

[forjoy]

I can't enjoy a lack of choice.

...what is it that you get?

[rhinemaid]

Funnily enough, choices.

[forjoy]

[She blinks and glances away to give a huff of laughter, like she's not sure what else to do, murmuring:]

Sounds like a riddle.

[rhinemaid]

Just the way these things play out.

[forjoy]

So you're happy. Where you are.

[rhinemaid]

[ a pause. ]

Happiness isn't my measure of success for anything.

[forjoy]

What is?

[rhinemaid]

A way forward.

[ 'hope', essentially, but Ilde would never say that. ]