Vodquila

I hadn't bothered to look over to see what the screaming was about, until my unsettled companion drew my attention to it. When I did look, there was nothing to survey but a stranger in a red suit, and the young woman who had seemingly been involved in every kerfuffle to ever occur.

I looked back at James.

"I was saying... something about...the starsh! The starsh, on the ceiling, the ceiling of the Neath. Now, I've seen them go up in, in derrigi...derigibles, and they add more. I don't know why they do, and I shall probably never know, because I don't waste time with conshpiracy theorishts."

I paused to ponder over it for another minute. The subject lasted for about five seconds, before it was inevitably swept up by something else.

"...Did I make a spelling mishtake in that letter?!" I exclaimed, more loudly than was appropriate.

"God Almighty, kill me now." I groaned.

Wilson watched as Kratzer was turning into another puddle of sad little tears, and after a few seconds of letting him cry words into his drink, she hurled herself over the bar and hopped into the seat next to him, putting an arm over his shoulders.

"Hey bud, I'm sorry so many of your loved ones've been getting hurt..." she said, giving him a few pats. "I could offer to help some? Uh... I mean, me intervening always kinda complicates things a little, but like, if it's an issue of safety. I know some pretty chill places in time and space if you just need a break."



James stared at Boris blankly. All of Boris's words were beginning to swirl in his head into a nonsensical mush. He looked at Boris in whole, genuine confusion.

"I... I'm... what."

"I can't," he mumbled glumly. "She'll just keep hurting people until she has me, and...Sieben...she has him and I..." He sniffed and burst into another wave of tears.

Wilson pouted slightly, and pat him on the back more. Kratzer was drunk, and it probably wouldn't be wise to get him to agree to any time travel in his current state. That was something someone should at least be sober for.

"I f***ed things up and I can't fix them and it was all I had and now I lost it and I sacrificed my honor 'n my loyalty 'n my conscience for it," he slurs. "And now it's just nothing but...death. I don't even have my own will."

"You mean you can't make your own choices?" Wilson asked with sympathy. "Dang," she whispered. "It really do be like that sometimes..."

Edward flinched at the noise, but Schadel, who had yet to drink enough to become as drunk as almost everyone around her, was unfazed by the sudden crashing noise. By some miracle, the fall didn't break the glass - apparently it was made of harder stuff than she had expected. It did, however, send little bits of vodquila flying across the floor.

"Okay," she said, giving a nod. She wasn't sure how much help she could actually give, but she wanted to try. "What do you need advice on?"

"Sometimes I can, but...when I kill...when it...when she...I don't know what's me and what's the demon and what's my mistress anymore, they just...all become...one. And I know sometimes it's not what I want or what I would do and yet my hands still find that blood on them."

Wilson continued to rub Kratzer's back in a comforting gesture. "That's pretty heavy. I can't imagine what that must feel like." Which was a something of a lie. She could if she allowed herself to - but for the purposes of prompting him gently, she went with that.

"But it's my own fault. I should've left with my family when I had the chance, but I hadn't lost a fight in too long and I flew too d*** close to the sun, and then I fell...Then I took my son with me, and I can't...he'll never forgive me, and she's using him, and I can't save him any more than I can save myself," he says, then takes a long drink from the bottle of vodquila.

Wilson stared out past Kratzer, having trouble piecing together all of the fragmented information she was getting from the guy through his drunken talking. Flew too close to the sun? Like... Icarus? Or something? And Sieben or something was his son?

"I mean... I know it probably won't mean much if you're able to do it now and you wake up with a big bad hangover, but I know... forgiveness usually starts with yourself. You can't make other people forgive you, and sometimes they're on their own journey and it takes time, but if you can find it in you to forgive yourself, that makes a big difference. It hurts a lot, and sometimes you gotta do it on the daily, but it helps, cause at least you're giving yourself a chance. And I think you deserve a chance. To do what you can, with what you've got, even if it's not much. You're a good guy, deep down-" she closed her eyes for a second, reaching into time almost involuntarily to confirm her assessment. A flash of his memories and emotions hit her, and for a second, she felt the full intensity of what he was feeling at the moment before she pulled out of it.

It wasn't something he would be able to feel, or even tell she was doing, but she did pause. Her breathing quickened for a second as she blinked it away, dark eyes shimmering with a few tears of her own.

"-yeah. You really are."

"How can I be after everything I've done? I was a Nazi working for a demon, a demon more powerful than the Verdammt Devil," he choked out through the tears. "I don't deserve forgiveness. Not after...all the things I've done...I've watched myself do..."

"No," Wilson said firmly, tilting her head to look up into Kratzer's eyes. "No, that's a lie. You can be forgiven. No one 'deserves' forgiveness, but no one's too far gone. Whatever you did, and whatever happened - you can get past this. You have a good heart-" she poked at his chest with an insistence but kept it gentle. "You know what's right and wrong. You know what's screwed up and what's not. You can forgive yourself. All of your regrets? They're in the past. You can still move forward. You've just gotta decide for yourself that you want to. And sometimes that's the hardest part. But I know you can, dude. You're not hopeless."

He looked up from his bottle to meet her eyes, the solidity of her words conveyed even through his drunken haze. "How can I forgive myself when those I've hurt will never be able to feel anything but hate for me and my comrades? How can I allow myself that...that...that luxury when I caused so much pain?"

Wow. Kratzer was really here asking the hard questions, wasn't he? Wilson sighed.

"It's not a luxury. The worst thing for you would be to wallow in your misery forever and never let yourself grow into the person you know you can be. It's the best thing you can do for yourself. But most importantly it's the best thing you can do for the people you've wronged. Even if they never forgive you, you can still take those steps forward. It doesn't always work out that people notice and appreciate our positive efforts towards change. But sometimes, when they see you working on yourself, it can provoke them to do the same. Sometimes it opens doors that wouldn't otherwise be there. And I know... I know there will be dozens if not more people along the way telling you that you're not good enough and that you'll never be able to right your wrongs. That you've done too much bad in the world to do any good. That it's selfish of you to do so, or that it's all vanity. But those things aren't true. Being the best version of yourself is a lifelong journey. People who don't think people can grow are dumb. Don't listen to them, even if the person telling you that stuff is yourself. The thing is - we're all gonna hurt people, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes it's by accident. We're always gonna keep making mistakes, but that's just part of life. You own up to it. You apologize. You do what you can, and let people respond as they might. The only thing you can do is decide how you respond and take responsibility for your own stuff. You help people, and you learn how to as you go. That's what life is. It's learning, it's growing, it's becoming a better and different person than you were a day ago, or ten years ago."