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

[digophelia]

[ Alice would wonder if he doesn't like swearing around her, but truth be told, it never really did bother her that much. Her "formal" behavior is at least an attempt to be cordial with others.

It didn't matter, Alice would be seen as rude by others in her world and time. That being said, once she's spoken to him, it's not as difficult as she thought it would be.

But she would still pretend that it hadn't happen and that it had been blacked out in one of her psychotic episodes. It made speaking to him less triggering. ]

You are not needlessly cruel. [ That would be just as subjective, too! After all, there are more deranged people out there. ]

How are acts of kindness not sensible, Mr. Brucolac?

[vrykolakas]

[He inclines his head to that. Not needlessly cruel. He takes it as quite a serious validation, while also recognising that it is, unfortunately, more or less the lowest possible standard he could hold himself to.]

I don't mean to generalise. Just that specific acts of kindness may not be. Is it kind to tell a pleasing lie? You can tell someone...that things are better than they are, to make them feel better. But when they encounter the facts of the situation...that turns your kindness into cruelty, no matter your intention, and gets in the way of actually solving whatever it is that is so terrible you struggle to tell others of it.

[digophelia]

Then it is a matter of perspective. Perhaps some time away for your scribe will be sufficient enough. Who knows -- I suppose that will be up to him.

[ He's a very strange man, she's always thought. So frank and honest, always right to the point. Some would see that as rude, but Alice appreciates honesty. ]

If it's forced, then there isn't much of a point to it, especially if it does not seem to fancy your mood at the moment.