*Santek G'fevtk, unascended Lord of Hope, steps inside, his head tilted as per usual to compensate for his imbalanced horns. He slowly looks around, taking his time about it; without imminent death hanging over his head anymore, he's enjoyed finally feeling like he has all the time in the world to do as he chooses. He doesn't really know what this place is, but he has an idea of why he's here, and his brief interaction with Av before gives him a sense of what he's dealing with... He sees LMS, and makes his way towards you* Someone wanted to talk to me?
*he thinks that given the nature of their host, the less it seems like he's listening in, the more he actually hears, but Santek keeps this observation to himself. It wouldn't make LMS feel better* Well, I do have the time to listen. And I know how it is to not have anyone to talk to about everything...and the catharsis of finding the opposite.
*sits across from them* Start wherever you feel most comfortable starting.
Hm. I have a friend who's struggled with something very similar. And a lot of it was my fault, in the beginning.
*chuckles* If we start to argue over whose issues are worse, we'll sit here until the end of time. It's a pointless argument. If there's one thing I learned from my humans, it's that we're each made to withstand different levels of suffering. And we all have something that is the worst thing in the world, that we cannot handle, that if it happens to us, once it happens to us, nothing in our life is ever the same again... and when we reach that thing, no matter what it is, we are all equally helpless, equally caught off guard, equally too young and unprepared, equally shattered... Metaphorically in most cases, of course. I believe you that your journey has had a terrible impact on your soul. But I don't doubt that somewhere in these dreambubbles is a person who'd find climbing that tower as easy and insignificant as climbing the staircase in their house. Hm, and some who would find even the staircase difficult.
You, and my Muse, and probably a lot of other people. I don't have a wide sample to draw from, but I think Lords in general are insufferable. The ones who haven't had a Muse to teach them how to back off once in a while, to think of how the ants feel about a boot.
I can't pretend I know what he's planning. But he has no reason to stop. Not with all that power, and all that certainty that he's doing the right thing. If he's anything like I was... He's absolutely sure that he knows best, and that he can make it work, and in the most literal sense of everything, he's right. An existence in which entropy leads to new life instead of the end of all things? Much happier for all involved than life in a cancerous frog. Stopping the other you from causing the disaster you did? Arguably worth any cost, especially since it involves making you a person who did not do such a horrible thing. Nudging, prodding, whispering to a young Muse and her friends, dropping hints about better outcomes? It gives them better outcomes, obviously. He's literally right that he knows best and is doing what's best. And that's what makes him so dangerous. I mentioned ants and boots before; my Muse once accused me of seeing her kind as nothing but ants, that I didn't care about how they felt about what I was doing. I told her she was wrong about me, that I did care, that I was doing what had to be done, getting what I wanted and leading her and her friends to greatness along the way, it was the best possible outcome really. And of course, of course I was aware of how they felt. The owner of the boot is aware on some level that ants can feel pain. But that pain, in the grand scheme of things, the scheme that a Lord lives in, is so utterly insignificant. Unless, one day, the little things that a certain ant has said to him become noisy enough in the back of his head, too noisy to ignore, and he takes a closer look.
Sophie wrote:
I can't pretend I know what he's planning. But he has no reason to stop. Not with all that power, and all that certainty that he's doing the right thing. If he's anything like I was... He's absolutely sure that he knows best, and that he can make it work, and in the most literal sense of everything, he's right. An existence in which entropy leads to new life instead of the end of all things? Much happier for all involved than life in a cancerous frog. Stopping the other you from causing the disaster you did? Arguably worth any cost, especially since it involves making you a person who did not do such a horrible thing. Nudging, prodding, whispering to a young Muse and her friends, dropping hints about better outcomes? It gives them better outcomes, obviously. He's literally right that he knows best and is doing what's best. And that's what makes him so dangerous. I mentioned ants and boots before; my Muse once accused me of seeing her kind as nothing but ants, that I didn't care about how they felt about what I was doing. I told her she was wrong about me, that I did care, that I was doing what had to be done, getting what I wanted and leading her and her friends to greatness along the way, it was the best possible outcome really. All of that was literally true. And of course, of course I was aware of how they felt. The owner of the boot is aware on some level that ants can feel pain. But that pain, in the grand scheme of things, the scheme that a Lord lives in, is so utterly insignificant. Unless, one day, the little things that a certain ant has said to him become noisy enough in the back of his head, too noisy to ignore, and he takes a closer look.
I don't agree with him. I think I might understand him, but I don't agree with him. Once I would have. Now, I wouldn't...and I was born at the end of a universe, created as a last-ditch effort to make something out of nothing. The last hope for Alternia. And I could have fixed everything. I was going to fix everything. The remaining humans would just do as I told them, and I would provide them with everything in the same moment that I restored what once had been, and taken all of us into the future... I would have fed them all, been their only food, and I could have done it. But it wouldn't have been them, in the end. Not really them, and never really the future. Just me, and the past... The past at the expense of the future, and me at the expense of them... Av is chasing the past. Exploiting the future for the benefit of the past. Oh, we have a lot in common, me and him... I wonder if he'll learn? Our duty is to a future that we will not inhabit, not to a past that has already given way so that the future may occur. To do otherwise is selfish, no matter how much we try to dress it up with stories of a greater good. *pauses, laughs* Look at that. I've become as long-winded as my ancestor.
Do you know that you'll do it to minimize his impact and help someone?
It sounds to me like you have a plan of your own that you're driven to act on.
It is difficult, facing something alone. There's a reason the game is played in teams.
We do best in groups. Really. And, you're welcome. It probably wasn't the direct kind of help you were expecting, but I haven't done anything like that in a long time.
*raises an eyebrow* Is it your office, then, that's on the other side of that door?
You do realize that she's under the impression that the person on the other side of that door will undo everything that's happened because of our game.
Especially since a portion of what Av has set in motion would be undone if the game were undone... I don't know the details, but I know she has become very involved with the family there. *sighs* It's just as well that she won't take the offer, then. She's too hopeful at the moment for that.
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