[Muffet blinks in confusion, and shakes her head gently.]
No. Never superior- nor inferior. We're simply... people. All of us are people, as all humans are people, as all the strangers I've come to know here are people. And being a people made of hope and love... solves fewer problems than one might wish.
[There's something thoughtful in her expression, as though she's remembering something from a long time ago.]
Truth be told, I was always rather impressed by humans on that front. Monsters need not love wisely or well, but we must love, or else we would not live, as intertwined with our souls as we are. Humans don't need to have any love to keep body and soul together, but they can and do love anyway, simply for it's own sake.
To love... because you love. I still can't help but feel there's something admirable in that.
[Once upon a time... but what time is that? Long before Muffet's time, certainly. She'd been born long after the last of the six souls fell, and she'd certainly never expected to live to see the Barrier broken... but in a way this, too, is familiar. To live beneath Mt. Ebott in her day and age was to grow up under a weight of stone and an even greater weight of history, old debts and struggles and expectations placed on you, ones you knew about and ones you didn't, whether you'd asked for them or not. This is not a monster who ever believed that the hope of humans and monsters walked among them, freedom close at hand- this is one who was taught that if anything could be done, they would have to do it themselves.]
[She's born up under the weight before.]
[She meets Chara's eyes.]
We should have told him 'no'.
Oh we did, at the end, when it came down to the throne room and vines all around us, but that was at least eight souls too late, and less than any of them deserved.
I should have told him no, late as I was, once I grew old enough to know better. Oh, I did my work for my people, found other hopes to rely on instead of looking to the king- but I never told him. I never went to see him in his castle and said 'your majesty, you do this for us but we did not ask for it and our ancestors who did are already gone, and it is not the way'. I didn't tell him 'find a better way, or not at all'.
I didn't believe in his plan and so I didn't think of his plan at all, because I was a practical woman with a business to run and no time for fantastical-sounding royal promises that clearly wouldn't happen in my lifetime, if ever. Humans were a scary old story, not people I might meet. And that... will always be one of the great shames of my life, that I did not think to look at what was there in front of me, and speak.
[She clasps her hands in front of her, weary old guilt plain on her expression. But she still has work to do.]
But 'should' doesn't fix it. I can't say 'this shouldn't have happened, so how do we change it to what should have?' I can only say 'this shouldn't have happened, and did, so how do we go on?' How do I make sure that what happens next is... better, at least, than what came before?
[A quiet sigh.]
'Earned our freedom'... I'm not certain I can say we did earn it, in the end- someone earned it, certainly, but did we?
But earned or not, we have it, and I refuse to let it go to waste. So we go on. One way or another, deserving or not, we go on.
no subject
[Muffet blinks in confusion, and shakes her head gently.]
No. Never superior- nor inferior. We're simply... people. All of us are people, as all humans are people, as all the strangers I've come to know here are people. And being a people made of hope and love... solves fewer problems than one might wish.
[There's something thoughtful in her expression, as though she's remembering something from a long time ago.]
Truth be told, I was always rather impressed by humans on that front. Monsters need not love wisely or well, but we must love, or else we would not live, as intertwined with our souls as we are. Humans don't need to have any love to keep body and soul together, but they can and do love anyway, simply for it's own sake.
To love... because you love. I still can't help but feel there's something admirable in that.
[Once upon a time... but what time is that? Long before Muffet's time, certainly. She'd been born long after the last of the six souls fell, and she'd certainly never expected to live to see the Barrier broken... but in a way this, too, is familiar. To live beneath Mt. Ebott in her day and age was to grow up under a weight of stone and an even greater weight of history, old debts and struggles and expectations placed on you, ones you knew about and ones you didn't, whether you'd asked for them or not. This is not a monster who ever believed that the hope of humans and monsters walked among them, freedom close at hand- this is one who was taught that if anything could be done, they would have to do it themselves.]
[She's born up under the weight before.]
[She meets Chara's eyes.]
We should have told him 'no'.
Oh we did, at the end, when it came down to the throne room and vines all around us, but that was at least eight souls too late, and less than any of them deserved.
I should have told him no, late as I was, once I grew old enough to know better. Oh, I did my work for my people, found other hopes to rely on instead of looking to the king- but I never told him. I never went to see him in his castle and said 'your majesty, you do this for us but we did not ask for it and our ancestors who did are already gone, and it is not the way'. I didn't tell him 'find a better way, or not at all'.
I didn't believe in his plan and so I didn't think of his plan at all, because I was a practical woman with a business to run and no time for fantastical-sounding royal promises that clearly wouldn't happen in my lifetime, if ever. Humans were a scary old story, not people I might meet. And that... will always be one of the great shames of my life, that I did not think to look at what was there in front of me, and speak.
[She clasps her hands in front of her, weary old guilt plain on her expression. But she still has work to do.]
But 'should' doesn't fix it. I can't say 'this shouldn't have happened, so how do we change it to what should have?' I can only say 'this shouldn't have happened, and did, so how do we go on?' How do I make sure that what happens next is... better, at least, than what came before?
[A quiet sigh.]
'Earned our freedom'... I'm not certain I can say we did earn it, in the end- someone earned it, certainly, but did we?
But earned or not, we have it, and I refuse to let it go to waste. So we go on. One way or another, deserving or not, we go on.