[Stolen Journal 51]

[goldenpathredux]

I have returned to the village for a moment. With it I bring news: I have conquered the voice-within known as mother. We knew her as Jenova. Now she is another voice within my internal multitude, at my disposal. I have all her memories.

Does anyone wish to know anything about her?

Comments

[goldenpathredux]

During the suggestion curse, Kadaj took advantage of it to make me ingest some of her cells, as he did to several others. For the previous couple months I have been intermittently fighting her influence.

Yesterday, with the help of a good friend, I retreated into my cave and fought it out with her voice in my head. I emerged victorious. Most of her memories are mine now.

[silvergeneral]

All, truly? Strange indeed, her genetic material alone does not hold so much, you know.

[goldenpathredux]

It holds her memories, and that is enough for me. Do you know how many planets she had taken before she came to your world?

[silvergeneral]

[he's quiet for a long moment]

I do. Keep what knowledge you glean, sand king. What I know is what she has shared, deliberately or otherwise, and it is enough. I don't care for that fine line of madness she walks. There is no returning from there.

...As I know the situation, it was not she who turned her hand against you. To fight what fragments of her are left bereft of her consciousness, that is one thing. We all fight that particular battle for dominance. This is what separates the children from the clones.

To broadcast her history, most of it useless to others, simply because she is not here to stop you is another. Why do you do it?

[goldenpathredux]

Neither does she. She's long since lost count.

Because I take personal affront. Because she would absorb people into herself in the same way. Because we have precious little enough freedom in this place as it is.

[sweetcissy]

Actually, I wondered if you could explain what you mean by 'internal multitude'.

[goldenpathredux]

Certainly. Myself, my twin sister (who is not here) and my Aunt Alia (who was here for a time) are preborn. That is, we were born with the complete memory-lives of all our ancestors. Some preborn win the fight with the more malevolant personalities inside their heads. Some don't.

I won my fight before I was taken here.

[sweetcissy]

Like... a hive mind? But for memories, not everyday thoughts? [The closest thing she can equate that to is having a million Pensieves in your head. And that's rather a scary thought.] Are the memories constant, or do you need to search for them?

[goldenpathredux]

Think of a crowded tenement. That is my interior landscape. I have had to fight for dominance of my own mind from the moment of my birth. Fortunately I have the assistance of benevolent personalities...And friends.

[merepuppet]

Conquered, you say?

[goldenpathredux]

Her voice, yes. I now have her memories. That was a foolish thing you did, during the suggestion curse.

[merepuppet]

I think it was far more foolish of you to announce your... success to the world.

[goldenpathredux]

Why so, child?

[belmontlegacy]

[Now this was interesting...]

You have absorbed the soul of another being?

[goldenpathredux]

I was born with many of them. I added this latest addition yesterday, after a protracted struggle that has been going on since the suggestion curse. I would not say I have absorbed her soul per so, but rather a copy of it.

[belmontlegacy]

[It didn't sound right. Was the copy of a soul still a soul? Still, this was someone to be watched. Only two beings in Simon's world were said to be capable of stealing the souls of other beings. And one of them was Satan himself.]

What is your name?

[goldenpathredux]

["They will call me shaitan." he had predicted.]

Leto Atreides.