<div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 24pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: impact;">SEVEN</span></span></div><div align="center">---Current Location: The Bridge---</div><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=77165.msg3382584#msg3382584">Quote from: Travaius on 30-07-2010, 05:05:00</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"> Decorus will one day kill me, just like she kills anyone that truly fights her. If not in her action, then she will slowly take pieces of me until the old me is entirely gone.”<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>"Do not think in inevitabilities," he responded, whipping his arm out in front of him as though to swat away all the oily thoughts squirming around in Etienne's skull and banish them utterly.  "You say the Blight will consume you.  That it will gnaw upon your being and leave nothing but a hardened carapace, ill of temperament and devoid of passion.  You claim this as fact, and fact it will become so long as you hold it to be true.  Do not allow her this victory.<em>Refuse</em>it with all your being.  Reject her words and actions with every breath you yet draw, and the reality of things will be as you choose them to be.  Or succumb, and rot.  But if you must, choose to do so in silence."<br/><br/>Seven's arm retracted with an audible suction, the tension freeing itself from his muscles and seeping out of him with a shudder.  So too did his agitation seem to fade, as though merely saying his piece was enough to take the fight out of him, regardless of the man's response.  Outbursts like that were rarities for him, and he disliked the confrontation.  His thoughts buzzed unpleasantly.  Writhing.<br/><br/><em>Human Etienne.  Broken.  Hum-...Kara.  Exhausted, but clinging to fragile hopes.  How can they be this way?  How is it possible to see anything but victory?  There is no sadness.  There is no hopelessness.  A constant struggle towards a certain end.  I may die.  Human Etienne may die.  Kara may die.  But the Mission lives on.  The Ultothar lives on.  Eternal, and righteous.</em><br/><br/>His eyes--every one of them--focused on Kara as she spoke, and followed her as she fled the bridge.  It was difficult to read emotions on such a strange and alien mask as his, but something approximating worry lingered there; the subtle twitching of mandibles, a bowing of the head.  Bafflement.  Concern.<br/><br/><em>Weakening.  Sickening.  All to maintain a guise.  Shrouding that which remains hidden.  And in deception, we all weaken with her.</em><br/><br/>"I return to my quarters," he said abruptly, casting only one eye in Etienne's direction.  "Steel yourself for what is to come.  Do not falter in this, Human Etienne."<br/><br/>He slipped from the room in a flash of red flesh, faded blue, and glinting steel, a slithery bolt that vanished as the door slid closed behind him.  Serpentine, he fluidly passed through the maze of corridors, bending around the occasional surprised crewman and hissing stilted apologies until he'd appeared beside what he deduced would be the proper door.  His hand hesitantly hovered before it, then rapped against the side.<br/><br/>"Kara?"