#interesting that nona never pleads with varun; she never says 'please'. she's got so much self-worth god bless cam pal and pyrrha

[vaguely-concerned]

For personal reasons: Nona’s conversation with Varun towards the end of NtN (I had to do my own transcription of the audio book here, so pardon any errant punctuation or mistakes) 

The Captain opened her mouth and said, “Get him! Get him! Get him, he flees!”

“I can’t!” said Nona, “I can’t do anything. I don’t want to do anything.”

The Captain moaned sharply. “All for nothing! You asked for help — you asked — and all for nothing, only pain! You asked. I gave you blood for blood!”

Nona, grief-stricken, hollered: “Not like this! I love this place!”

“Do you love?” said the Captain’s mouth. 

Nona struggled. “Yes! No. Yes,” she said, then, “I don’t know what it means. I say it, and I don’t know what it means. Did I ever know what it meant?”

“Green thing,” said the Captain, “green—and—breathing thing — the ghost, the drinker, transformed — what will you eat now? Where will your body go? What did he do to you to make you this way? You eat yourself. I gorge on unliving marrow!”

It was true. The Captain looked as if she were withering before Nona’s eyes. She cried out in haste, “Don’t! Stop that! I can’t stop it, but you can stop it. Stop hurting her! She doesn’t know what you’re doing.” 

“You cry mercy?” said the Captain.

“Yes! Mercy, yes!” said Nona.

“I have crossed the face of the universe,” said the Captain. “I poison it to match my grief!”

“Yes,” said Nona, “but — but stop this. Stop hurting the Captain.” She rooted around wildly to find a phrase, and fell back on Cam. “You’re acting out. Maybe you should take five.” 

“For eight thousand unjust bodies I will stop,” said the Captain. 

Nona said, “NO! I want you to stop now!”

“They concoct their own vengeance,” said the Captain. “Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know. They are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.” 

Nona said, “Hot Sauce never did anything wrong. Or Beautiful Ruby, or Born-In-The-Morning, or Kevin. And Honesty — “ here, she was compelled by the truth, “Honesty doesn’t know any better. Camilla and Palamedes never did anything wrong. Pyrrha says she did a lot wrong, but at least she knows it. And we don’t like the Captain, but we pity her. Stop hurting the Captain. Don’t do this.” 

And Nona found herself saying: “I’m ready to die. Really ready.”

“Nothing is really ready to die,” said the Captain. 

. . . 

Nona looked at the Captain’s face with its closed eyes — still wasted, but not dead, and looking a little less like a piece of fruit someone had sucked all the juice out of. 

Nona lay on her back atop the stretched canvas, and Nona’s mouth said: “Just — wait. Just… help me. Help me do this. I might be different, soon.” 

*

Planet ghost arrives to pick up little sister after she called it crying her eyes out earlier that night; thousands wounded hundreds dead natural order continues to be in shambles. To be serious though — Nona’s plea for humanity here has stuck with me so deeply. I love this place. I love these people. Don’t hurt them. The love is stronger than the rage, and Varun listens. She cries mercy, and is heard, if ony momentarily. Not happily and not forever, but it agrees to wait and to help her in the way she needs it to. (“We had the choice to stop”/”I can’t stop it, but you can stop it”............) It ties in very neatly with the overarching themes of vengeance in TLT: that you have to love and care for what’s hurting more than you hate what inflicted the damage, or else very bad things can start to happen. (Also ‘Honesty — doesn’t know any better’ is the funniest and the loveliest part of it to me. Like yeah. If you want to love humanity that’s such a crucial part of it. You have to accept that the Honestys of the world won’t know any better no matter what you do or say and that they’re still worth it; they live here too.) 

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #nona #varun the eater #justice for varun the eater tbh #and judith deuteros is just hanging out as a necromantic telephone line! I'm so sorry about your life judith god #interesting that nona never pleads with varun; she never says 'please'. she's got so much self-worth god bless cam pal and pyrrha