The Girls of Virtue

[09-2] If I'm to Experience the Pain of Living

"Yep, sounds good to me. Go ahead."

Negativity makes a disgusted face, but just as quickly goes back to glaring. "Fine, you asked for it. So... that Inconsistency, huh? Isn't she just a bitch? I keep having to deal with her and I hate it. She can't make up her mind about anything, and it's annoying. I mean, how much worse can she get? She was even copying Judgement a while ago. She's so stupid. It's like she doesn't even realize how bad she's making herself look.

Beginning stares as Negativity rolls her eyes. It's exactly what she was expecting, but still so jarring. Setting her jaw, Beginning decides to deal with this her way, whether Negativity likes it or not.

"Well... I mean, she's not that bad. It's kind of sad that she's so unhappy with herself, but I wouldn't call her annoying. I think she's just struggling a lot." Beginning forces herself to sound positive. She's determined to counter this. She can find something good to say for sure.

Negativity gives her an absolutely disbelieving face, though, and Beginning is left forced to keep up her smile. She keeps her shoulders back, her head held high, and tries to focus on the dirt beneath her bare feet. She's okay. This will be okay. She can keep herself together somehow.

"You know she just rips us all off, right?" Negativity deadpans. "All she does is take our features and bits of our personalities. She had red skin up until a while ago, and everyone knew just who she was trying to look like. All she does is make herself look like a fool. Even though it's all messy and bloody and gross to change herself, she just keeps doing it."

"But doesn't she have a reason for that? I mean, people don't just do things so extreme because they want to."

Offering Inconsistency the benefit of the doubt feels weird on many levels, but Beginning somehow thinks she's doing the right thing. She's having a conversation that isn't involving any kind of threat... which is something. She's participating in a way that isn't just worsening gossip.

"Pfft, you've gotta be kidding me. She's doing it because there's nothing to her. That's it. All she knows how to do is copy us so she can feel like she's got some substance to her. There's nothing in there beyond all of the pieces she's taken and tried to make her own." Negativity's tone drips mocking bitterness, thorns dropping from her lips with every word. The line of them reaches her waist now, and she finally bothers to tear them away.

There's... there's no real answer to that. Beginning can see it too, but she doesn't want to say anything cruel. Even if Inconsistency isn't here to hear it, she doesn't want to be like them. Instead, she tries a different path.

"What about you? Is there some reason why you see everything so badly?" Beginning says it simply, the word falling out of her mouth before she can really think about it. It's a question that's been hovering in her mind for a while now, and spitting it out somehow feels right.

"Me? I just hate everyone. All of them, all of us are awful, y'know? This world of ours is dark and cold, no one thinks of anything but beating each other up and getting ahead, and we're all watched over by a god who wouldn't care if we died," Negativity, for once, ends her sentence with a nearly hysterical laugh. "What's there to be happy about? Everything here is shit. I'm not stupid enough to pretend like there's any good in this worthless world. Don't you ever regret trying to be nice? It doesn't get you anywhere."

The grin on Negativity's face is pure resentment. Her words are no longer dull complaints, but what they've been replaced with might be worse.

The sheer passion of her hatred makes Beginning's throat tight. She felt like that for a while too. She thought she hated the world around her. And yet, pushing past those feelings has made everything change.