explosivecombat | NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

It's more that the world doesn't stop for the dead, and I don't regret anything that I've done.

Taken out of context, I'd almost be inclined to agree with you.

Is this really the sort of conversation you were hoping for?

Not particularly.

You did choose to pursue this line of questioning, however, despite the fact that I offered topic changes several times and you acknowledged them yourself.

And now you've answered your own question from earlier — as to what you've done now.

I never come to any conclusions about how my life would be different because I have no idea what my life was like before the fire.

I'm not following, but so be it.

You took after your parents, didn't you? They influenced you.

I suspect we're on different wavelengths, but I'll see where it goes.

I suppose they did, yes.

I don't have any indication what mine were like. They might've been rich, poor, happy, spiteful...I don't know. I don't know anything about them, so any guess I might make about what life would've been like with them is just as likely as any other guess. It's a blank slate. So I can only imagine that I could've been anything.

You're also speaking to someone who fully acknowledges the fact that those who were the strongest influences on his life would hate everything he did with the life they influenced. I also grew up somewhere that specialized in producing war, coal, and...well, cows.

So my options were limited, and since I dislike getting dirty and can't stand livestock, there isn't much of a question what I would have ended up doing with myself, living situation notwithstanding; I would have gone into the military eventually - that's more or less a given, especially considering the point I made earlier about how it would be the surest way to guarantee stability. Perhaps I still would have been a State Alchemist; perhaps I would have gone through basic and become a regular soldier, though it's more likely that I would have been shoved into some desk job because I'm a terrible shot. Either way, my life has had very few options, all things considered, and as such trying to consider things from the beginning like that has never been a problem for me.

However, since it's spoiled and cruel to assume that everyone has had the same life choices as I've been presented with, consider the insensitivity apologized for, at the very least.

It's things like this that make me wish you could experience my world. It's so much bigger than yours, for one thing, and the possibilities are so much more vast.

But my old teacher the psychopath once told me that I'm a thief at heart, and that's what makes me wonder if my own options weren't limited in some way by that, even so. Maybe no matter what my nurture might have been, it's just my nature to be what I am.

And are you dissatisfied with what you are?

I haven't been yet.

The only times I've ever entertained notions otherwise were when it ended up hurting someone else. And even then, I regretted the harm, but not the choice.

Would you want to remember those girls you grew up with more vividly, if you had the choice?

I don't know. I'm not sure how much there really is to remember in the first place.

You mentioned the blonde wispy one - do you recall what any of the others looked like, however vaguely?

I'm curious for a few reasons.

I remember general traits, certainly.

The ringleader was a girl who carried herself like an empress — tall, squared shoulders, with dark eyes and dark brown hair she kept tied back in a ponytail that sat a little higher than yours. Her lieutenant was shorter and stockier, and her hair was black, chin-length with bangs. A pageboy style, if that term is one you're familiar with. Mary was the blonde one; I remember she had a white nightgown trimmed in lace that made her look like a doll when she wore it. Another had braids she would tie off with ribbons, but her hair was very thin and she would pull them too tight, so it made her look like she had less hair than she did.

I do remember I was the only one with blue eyes. Mary's were green, and most of the other girls had varying degrees of brown.

[...huh.]

Do most people from America have dark hair and eyes, then? The ones I've met all seem to, at least as the hair goes, and they've all been reasonably tanned to some extent - is that common?

Many people do, but that's less because they're American and more just because brown hair and brown eyes are dominant traits in people across the world. There are some nations where certain traits are so widespread as to be almost universal among the population, but America tends not to be one of them — that is, there's not really a defining "American" trait, save for maybe a certain accent, or an overbearing sense of arrogance.

Ah, is that so? It's not nearly so diverse where I'm from - it's closer to what you mentioned, where there are traits that are so widespread that they're almost universal; there are a few separate sets of those traits, but it's generally very easy to tell where people are from just by looking at them. Whether they're from Amestris or Xing or Drachma; whether they're of Ishvalan descent. So on and so forth.

I'm a bit of an unusual case; I told you in the past, before we met in person, that I look different from most from Amestris.

Are they mostly blonde, the people from Amestris?

...Come to think of it — humor me the question, there's a point to it — I don't look particularly Amestrian, do I?

The blonde ones are more than likely descended from the people of Xerxes in some way; their defining traits were gold hair and eyes, and it's incredibly rare for people to display both of them nowadays. There are still a fair amount of blonde people around, though their eyes are usually blue or brown; most people actually tend to have dark hair (and again, eyes that are either blue or brown). You're right in saying that you don't look Amestrian despite that, however; your facial structure is different, among other things.

Mine is as well, though in a different way to yours. One side of my family is from Xing, originally, and it's incredibly obvious; I wouldn't be surprised if there's Drachman somewhere along the line on the other.

When I spoke to you — from back when you were still in Ishval, I mean — you knew almost instantly I wasn't Amestrian. I didn't think much of it until you brought this up; I thought it might've been something to do with the way I was drawing my circles, at first, but maybe it was just as much that I didn't look the part, either.

Is it considered some form of social taboo, to marry someone who isn't from your own nation?

That depends on whom you're speaking to, really; some consider it to be such, some don't really mind. Of course, given that we're surrounded by many countries and we're at war with approximately all of them at any given time, both the marriages and the scorn are more or less inevitable.

I'm surprised there haven't been any political marriages for the sake of attempting peace through blood alliance.

Or would be, I suppose, if it weren't for the fact that you said yourself one of your country's main exports is war.

Well, it may happen sometime in the future, given the outcome of the last major battle we experienced. Our Fuhrer didn't see the end of it.

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