zg_shadows | (no subject)

I'm not a hero.

It doesn't feel like I've been back long - we dropped back to the caern-as-was, and I hung around just long enough for my jet-lagged-brain to work out what was going on around me. Then I paused just long enough to pop a wake-up or two (and I'm going to pay for THAT in the morning), and I'm off to find out what's going on, and see if I can put a stop to it.

Now I'm sitting on the edge of a rooftop, watching London burn, and not doing anything to stop it.

Because I'm not a hero.

And because I know my duty.

It's so easy to forget, in amongst the middle of it all, just how much cities blight Her face. I command you to destroy that which harms Gaia That where grass and bushes should sprout, the earth is instead flattened down by concrete and tarmac. That where roots should weave their way and worms churn rich soil, pipes and wires cut through Her flesh instead. That buildings raise themselves up from the ground like behemoths of steel and smoggy glass where trees should spread.

At my core, I know this place is wrong. I'm a city pretty boy, not a warrior, but even I look around me sometimes and want to scream, because at my heart like every shapechanger worth the name on this planet, I have the tiniest piece of Gaia within me, and She's screaming in pain.

I know that this place could be built properly. I know that the humans could be taught to live properly, and green living is making great strides. But in order to rebuild... you have to tear down. And even if I could see past every other crisis and decide that this problem, out of all the others, needs my attention... well, I'm not sure I could have brought myself to do it.

But the Ratkin can.

Don't get me wrong, I hate them for what they are doing, and how they are going about it. I hate them for how they think, and what they do, and what they tried to do. I hate them for listening attentively to the crazy among us even whilst they scorn the rest of our efforts to work together. I could quite happily go down there, right now, into that alley past the man and woman sobbing in collective terror, and hurt every last one of them I could get my paws on. But I forbid you to make war on your brothers and sisters they're doing what needs to be done. Sometimes, you have to break a bone in order to set it properly.

What few spirits can be enticed (or commanded) to talk say that this is happening all over the globe, that the Ratkin have risen (who knew they had those numbers? How did we not know?) in every city in the world and are running amok, burning and looting with glee. It's almost like humanity has gained its very own apocalypse. But the devastation won't be total. I forbid you to exterminate the humans The human race will live on - the death toll won't reach to even close to the total number of them across the planet, and they'll rise again. Only this time, maybe they'll do it all properly.

Maybe I'm an optimist.

But I'm not a hero.