video. locked to unseelie.

[vrykolakas]

An act of kindness?

[The Brucolac has clearly just received bad news. He looks positively poisonous, wide streaks of silver whorling over his skin. His jaw is stiff with it, even his hair frosted over with strange metal. His right eye burns gold still.]

I am sick to shit of this half-cocked magic. [He shudders—would gesture, but he doesn't want to show off how badly his left arm is faring under the encroaching silver. It hurts to raise it to shoulderheight; above is impossible.] An act of kindness is no godsdamn cure, to be bottled and applied at will!

What is an act of kindness? Is it kind to tax a people, that a city may grow? Is it kind to lie in order to protect the honest? Is it kind to enforce a system of law and punishment?

By the gods, [he drops back, shaking his head, looking weary,] there is no hope for us.

Before anyone tells me to just do something nice, [pitching his voice mockingly higher] I've given my scribe a longer lunch break. [It is midnight.]

And apart from a marked decrease in efficency, fuck all has happened.

Comments

[uneulogized]

Sounds to me like you're limiting your options. That, or you really hate being nice. Is it so bad? Do you think you're gonna be covered in silver-colored hives for doing it too much?

[Jason is far from the nicest guy alive, but he's impressed that there is such a focus on the kindness aspect of things.

After a beat, he adds:]

Kindness is obviously not your ticket. Or maybe it is. Sounds like you're overthinking it. Either way, spit some of those colorful phrases at me so I can remember them for the ages. You have a wonderful way of speaking.

[vrykolakas]

I don't hate being nice. I work every waking hour to get my corner of this hellscape in order—making a place for people to damn well live in—so excuse me if I'm prickly about the suggestion that it would somehow better the world on a massive scale were I to...give people flowers more often or tell people how much I, I simply adore their hair.

[That's kindness, yes?]

Go to sea.

I'm not telling you to fuck off, I mean seriously, go to sea. It's the only way to get the cant down pat.

[uneulogized]

Y'know, I met a pirate recently, and he didn't quite have your way for words. And if someone is suggesting that you keep with the kindness, then, you should tell them to go to sea.

But make it clear: you do mean for them to fuck right off.

[vrykolakas]

Must have been a shit pirate.

Is fucking right off different to just fucking off, you reckon?

[uneulogized]

There's a sense of urgency to it.

And righteousness, I believe.