#suffkri

Most of the time you live soundly and securely in your own skin, upholding a seemingly infallible sense of pride and purpose through word and demeanor. You put on airs around everyone you meet, hiking your sagging pants up to assume the proper level of righteousness, preaching about unity through equality with an emphasis on peaceful revolution. You've convinced yourself that if you look the part they will listen; they will finally listen. But when Aranea told you one day that you were completely missing the point you dwelled on it for perigees, locking yourself up in your hive, isolating yourself from the influence of your friends, and engrossing yourself in intensive research. You've read Mindfang's journal cover-to-cover (including the private journals that have surfaced despite best efforts to bury them) specifically focusing on your post-scratch incarnation and what he did that was so different than you, and how he became so revered.  Try as you might, you cannot understand--no, you refuse to accept--his methodologies surrounding the sectarian revolt.  No matter how many times you scan the pages, no matter how many times you read his story told by countless sources you cannot wrap your pan around this troll, this reckless, idealistic troll who did everything better than you and succeeded where you did not.

He isn't anything special.  His legacy has been romanticized to the point of ludicrous, and yet everyone lauds him as some kind of godhead!  Even your friends--your own friends--sing his praises in your presence.

"I hate you."  You whisper harshly through gnashing teeth your contempt for all things Signless Sufferer and your ingrained association with him.  You may as well be strapped to the flogging jut along with him; maybe then someone would have remembered you.

But what really hurts, what digs right through skin into bone, is the reality of your own existence.  You may have been the first, you may be the original, but you are the prototype, and he is the refined version who has embraced your unrealized potential.   It was only when he--you--grew up on Alternia did he begin to tap into his abilities, your abilities, triggering recollection of his former life--of you.

If he met you, he'd probably thank you.

He remembers you.

Tears prick your pupil-less eyes as an infuriating lump lodges itself in your throat.  You're tired of 6's and 9's and high pants and your derisory attempts to emulate and surpass him.  By comparison, you're incomplete.

You're always so cold because you live in the shadow of a better you, and this sweater is the only claim to individuality you've got.

Bittersweetness does not become you, Kankri Vantas.

"ADMIT IT, YOU'RE BLACK FOR YOUR POST-SCRATCH SELF, THE SIGNLESS OR SUFFERER OR WHATEVER. YOU WOULDN'T BE THIS MAD IF IT WAS ANY ORDINARY CAPE OR BLANKET I THREW AROUND US."