==>

ROSE: Has this changed how you view me?

ROSE: Right, that's not the part I'm stressing.

ROSE: The important part is that when we met, before our friend groups became one, my only friends were John, Dave, and Jade.

ROSE: It's a contradictory statement, that hasn't really been substantiated by things you know about me.

ROSE: I've just told you this fact, and maybe it's recontextualized the way I exist to you. Maybe it hasn't.

ROSE: In fact, I don't think I've ever spoken about my life before this game with you. It's not something I'm ashamed of...

ROSE: It just never came up.

ROSE: But back onto a tangent closer to the topic at hand, I had a lot of friends during my time in school.

ROSE: I was, against all odds, well-beloved.

ROSE: It was one of the few upper hands that I had when dealing with my mother.

ROSE: Having a December birthday was quite good for me in this sense.

ROSE: We lived near Rainbow Falls in the Adirondacks.

ROSE: I couldn't tell you what it means to those who spoke the language the name originates from, nor what language it was they spoke.

ROSE: What it signifies to me is a mountain range, lush with waterfalls. Rainbow Falls itself made its name by being a waterfall you could walk behind, and explore the caverns within.

ROSE: Like a video game.

ROSE: The twinkling waters from the fall cast a rainbow.

ROSE: Hence, Rainbow Falls.

ROSE: You would think so, wouldn't you?

ROSE: On the surface side of the mountains, there was a ski lodge.

ROSE: Do trolls have skiing?

ROSE: A sport of sliding down snow-covered mountains, gaining exorbitant amounts of speed?

ROSE: May I hazard a guess as to how it's different?

ROSE: Damn.

ROSE: Every year my mother would rent out that ski lodge - the Garnet Hill ski lodge - for my entire grade school class.

ROSE: It's a simple set up and punchline, where the punchline is you.

ROSE: Everyone wants to go, but nobody's there for you.

ROSE: This kind of passive-aggression was characteristic of her.

ROSE: But as I said, I was well-liked by my class, and it always went well.

ROSE: This is a true statement, by all means.

ROSE: I had friends in real life, until we moved further out of town.

ROSE: But... does that feel true, knowing who I am now?

ROSE: Maybe it does.

ROSE: Forgive me if my speech is unclear, or absurd.

ROSE: My mother was Jewish, and by extension, I am as well.

ROSE: She was not particularly observant of the culture, and I had not grown with it.

ROSE: I've done a fair amount of research, but recitation of facts isn't the same as living those facts.

ROSE: It feels untrue of me, since I haven't been expressing this trait to its fullest.

ROSE: But... knowing that I'm very potentially the last one, at least for a long while, I'd like to.

ROSE: There's always the chance that there are answers within that aspect of myself to questions whose answers I've been lacking.

ROSE: Maybe it's rearing its head as we are put in the position of literally repairing the world for a reason.

ROSE: But even before that, it's been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember.

ROSE: Removed from my being, in my orbit, but do we not consider Phobos and Deimos when we speak of Mars?

ROSE: It's neither wholly real, nor wholly fake...

ROSE: ...

ROSE: I wonder if I can just... reach over... and...