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

( video, unseelie. )

[atoned]

[ truth be told, zuko thinks these "cures" are all shit, too. where the redness of his scar once was over his left eye, it's now silver. the tips of his dark hair shimmer, silver threading through even that. what can be seen is zuko, walking backwards in azure, holding his locket as he's been trying to do this without looking over his shoulder for an hour now. it's one of those types of cures he knows to be bullshit but finds himself too desperate not think too much of his pride and not do. ]

Did you feel good giving him a break?

[ zuko thinks the answer is going to be no. ]

( video, unseelie. )

[vrykolakas]

[He opens his mouth to answer and then stops himself, considering.]

I'm indifferent to the action in a vacuum. It's meant reordering my schedule, but hell: it's not like the poor bastard doesn't work hard.

Feel good walking backwards?

( video, unseelie. )

[atoned]

[ that's probably why it didn't work. but zuko's been nice to people and has felt good doing so, and still his face is half silver! ]

[ it's sad zuko actually considers his response when he knows the answer is no. he hates walking backwards; it's tempting to peer over his shoulder, but he's been told countless times that's perhaps the reason why his face is still the way it is. he huffs. ]

It's not working, is it?