zauneyete | KENOS IC CONTACT

KENOS IC CONTACT

SILCO

CONTACT

WRITTEN ◦ ACTION ◦ COMMUNION

[ Communion with Silco is like being doused in cold, polluted water. It feels like taking a breath is difficult, like there's fingers around your throat, pain all over. The water is too-slick like it's almost more pollutants than water, and the water crashes against you, inescapable, even if you were to somehow find the ability to breathe, there is still no escape from the sickening undertow. Somewhere, perhaps deeper in the water, or something else, is a simmering, vile hatred, resentment, and it feels like it should be hot enough to make the water around you boil, even if it's almost too-placid, and too cold. Like all of this hatred is buried deep. Then again, the fact that it feels so close means it must burn so hot. ]

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[ She says it like she truly hadn't considered, but Silco certainly doesn't believe that. Tezcatlipoca had said something about how there was nothing going on in the mind of his brother, but Silco... didn't think that was true. Couldn't. She'd stepped on too many of those carefully buried landmines Silco had buried in the sand between his mind and others, and Quetzalcoatl dropkicked onto every single one, like each was a target. She may not be smart, but she knew things, and she had used them to create an enemy of him. If she hadn't meant to, then it was too late, because Silco would kill her. He would crush her shard, and he would destroy her, rip her into pieces limb from limb from —

That violence, the intent is clear, in communion. Silco has no filter, no pretense, no body or action or ways to hide it. He is only thought and intention — and barely those. He is a soul laid bare to the world, a sharp, violent little thing. His shard is like a blade, really, a poisoned little stiletto that would cut the one who tried to wield it as they stabbed someone else.

Silco cut both ways, after all. Destroying what he tried to protect. ]

You have allies who tried to put you back in the ground as soon as they could, didn't they?

[ Sarcasm again, intention, in words Quetz could translate, but truly it was more the sensation of someone watching alone, as others worked together, to uplift one another. The sensation of being left behind, coupled with anger, determination, and that cold bite of revenge. ]

Souls do not need to sleep.

[ The sensation of being alone for long stretches of time, now. Silco has had nothing but rage and himself, plans, and thoughts. He wondered if anyone in Zenith had even bothered to notice. He spent most of his time in Kowloon, sure, but even his supposed allies were more interested in trying to kill him, than they were on their mission. (This is clearly not Silco's fault.)

The shard feels. Aware. Like it's just watching the void, knowing that there was a fact that had never changed, would never change. The story was the same, and it had never changed. It was always the same. There had only been one time that it wasn't, and that would always be taken from him.

As always, he understood that he was left behind. ]

Oh, Silco…

[ The revelation stings with sadness and regret, though she’s not sure what she would have done otherwise. This is the sort of conflict she’s not well-suited to deal with. She could kill him, over and over again, but crushing his Shard…? She’s not sure if it would even be something she could physically do as a god of life. But especially after her conversation with Set, she worries too about letting Silco continue to cause so many problems for her fellow Meri. He was an obstacle to their goal.

…But here, in her room by herself, she stands from where she’d been sitting on her bed and just looking at that oddly dark little Shard. She goes and picks it up from the bed of golden flowers gently. She holds it over her heart and cradles it with both her hands like he might be able to feel the warmth of it, but it comes through more in what she feels than her actual body.

As she cradles his Shard so gently, there are little impressions of memory that are just flickers as she tries to think of what to say. There’s a man (that, through Communion, Silco will understand is her) in the deep darkness of a pit. He cradles bones to his chest just like this as he weeps, but why isn’t clear. It’s love, a sense of failure, but it’s large in a way that’s hard to comprehend. This is a god’s love, after all.

Quetzalcoatl is a god that would give his life. His blood. It’s the sacrifice that created humanity, and it’s the sacrifice his people repaid. But those complex feelings are probably something Silco understands far less than the rest. It all bleeds through unintentionally, because despite what Silco believes, Quetzalcoatl feels things openly and freely. She’s always found it hard to filter out her thoughts and feelings in Communion. It’s harder when it’s something she’s deeply conflicted about. ]

I didn’t mean to leave you alone like that, you know? I just— Well, I didn’t want to give you back to Hayame and Voryn either. I think they would have crushed you.

[ Just by the look in her eyes, she’s sure Hayame would have. And… that part of her that wants Meridian to win so badly, she understands. Maybe that would be better. But... ]

I know you don’t like me very much [ understatement ], but I won’t leave you. I think- Um, I think I’ll ask Set what to do, yes. I’m just not sure.

[ Silco, as a shard, had no clue that Quetzalcoatl had put him on a bed of flowers — though if he had, he would have laughed in her face over the prospect — the very notion of it was ludicrous, the antithesis of a man who was the opposite of Quetz's light, sun, and warmth. Silco is all darkness, poison, rotting and fetid garbage, drugs, sickness, and death. He embodies everything that Zaun is in its self-destructive beauty, save for one thing, and that is that he is not nearly as chaotic as his home.

But being held by Quetz brings out the worst of him. Silco has been averse to touch for so long, and perhaps it had been different before... before cold water and hands around his neck, drowning and asphyxiation, and the frantic need to escape, escape, to run and escape until he had enough power to make sure that never happened again. No, it was more accurate to say that Silco hated being touched by nearly everyone in existence. (Ironic, of course, given his recent change, but... anything for power, right?)

It's like a complicated tangle when she holds him. She sends information to him through Communion, inadvertent though it is, and he sends back disgust, distrust, and derisive anger. He doesn't want to be here, being held by her, and that's clear. He bears witness to her, and even in the darkness, the memory of Quetzalcoatl — the bother Tezca told him of, he's sure — is likely met with the impression of a knife in the dark. Waiting to destroy, to rip, and ruin. Love? He thinks this is not love. It's not anything like what he (a human, a deeply traumatized and psychopathic little rat of a man) knows about love. He doesn't understand a god's love any more than he could another person's love. Not really, even as Silco held a small rotted, and broken little space of his own love. Like a black hole, a microcosm of it, so violent that it would destroy worlds, suck them in, and obliterate them over one person who no longer really existed, beyond a small precious stone he guarded with his life. ]

I don't care what you intended. [ A blunt impression that comes across as her intentions being dunked under chill water and left to gag and struggle. ] I hate everything you are. Pity is for things beneath you, and I will never accept that from the likes of you.

[ Impressions of her — but not her? — of what she stands for being shoved underwater. Into the chill and the cold, left to rot in the earth and surrounded by decaying half-dead corpses, with the garbage and stink. Like he's subjecting her to his world, but Silco is agitated enough that there's more than that. There's the deep-seated impression of pain and loss and it translates into something more firm. Actual words instead of impressions. ]

You keep me locked away from everything I'm fighting for, was everything else you took not enough for a God's hunger? You deride me, you mock me, you already took my hand — and you mock me with my — [ The rest, in Silco's protective, careful little secretive soul, is dissolved into more impressions of tangled anger/grief/loss and the memory(ies) of — But I think you’d throw it away to save someone that you loved. — I'm sorry that Jinx isn't here anymore — because Silco hates her for that most of all. For trying so hard to do something like show compassion when it wasn't hers to feel at or guess at or pretend to know. She "shows compassion" but Silco knows it for what it is. Deception. There is no such thing as compassion, and even those who pretended at it, were deceiving in favor of themselves. It's the same with Vander and the rich who rest in their comfortable mansions and homes in Piltover. They're all the same, throwing out pity, money, and pithy little condolences instead of changing anything.

Silco wouldn't allow that. He wasn't going back, he wasn't going to let them go back. He wouldn't allow a world that let this rot fester and grow, let alone one without — ]

Edited (SO MANY EDITS I'm SORRY...) 2023-12-06 08:26 (UTC)

[ There’s so much here. Quetzalcoatl wishes that they’d talked like this earlier, because she (incorrectly) thinks that maybe it would have been better that way. Like she might not have stepped onto those painful, delicate mines that Silco leaves strewn about.

He’s the knife in the dark, he dunks her in the water to kill her, he’s all the bitter, mean, cruel things in the world. They’re things she should destroy, because she’s all that’s good in the world. But, for all of these things, she doesn’t struggle against him or recoil from that ugliness. Whether it’s her or her intentions, she sinks into that cold water of his rage and embraces it. If there were hands around her throat, she would be holding the wrists with earnest gentility.

If this is what you need, that’s okay.

It’s mostly what Silco would certainly interpret as arrogance, and not unfairly. Communion is a “place” where Quetzalcoatl is closer to her true self. Impossibly vast, divine and incomprehensible, and most infuriatingly for him, immortal and untouchable. The disconnect between that and what she was in Kenos was something she’d probably never fully reconcile, because even as a Servant, there was no death. ]

It's not pity I feel for you, you know. It’s sympathy.

[ The decay around her—It feels like Mictlan. That’s fitting, in a way, but she wants to push back against it. Not for her own sake, but for Silco’s. He’s still alive, so this isn’t somewhere that should be a part of his soul so heavily. ]

I don’t know what to do with you, Silco. [ She admits it gently, because at least by now she knows better than to try and soothe those hurt little spots. Those impressions of anger or loss are things he wants, and she doesn’t understand it. ] If I free you and go replant you, you’ll just end up like this again. But probably not in my hands. Probably in someone who wants you gone. It's not just death... It's everything you are. It'd be gone.

[ She'd give those deadly hands a squeeze. It's reassurance and it's imploring. ]

You have a precious life, Silco. Are you really ready to throw it away?

Precious.

[ Even in communion, in this pseudo-language, it's mocking, and derisive. Quetz can probably imagine that Silco punctuates the word, like it's a disdainful little thing. The word is conveyed ironically, like polishing a scrap from the garbage, or holding up moldy bread in victory of finding a meal from the refuse. It's all like that with him. All of that ugliness, all of that garbage and filth, rot and poison, it's all a part of him, and it's easy to see where it comes from. A legacy of rot and scrambling just to not end up at the bottom of the garbage heap, and if one was able to do enough? They'd make it to the top.

Of that same garbage heap. ]

Sympathy. Precious. I don't believe this nonsense you keep spouting.

[ It's true, really. Quetz at least dodges this mine, she doesn't say anything about these odd memories, or the fervent protection or anger that seems to flow through him as much as blood does. Did. It doesn't help that she wants to call him "precious" or "protect him", even while this vast, unknowable thing that is the god before his shard, accepts his violence as if it's nothing. As if she would do that were he not a threat to her! (He has not forgotten his hand, or that feral smile of hers when she cut it off.) ]

You understand nothing about what I'm doing. I don't care what you assume will happen to me. I don't care about Meridian, or your worlds, and you would do best to understand that.

If you fail to take me seriously, you'll find it is not I who is gone.

[ It's a threat, actually. He doesn't care about his soul. What was that? A meaningless, metaphysical thing. A manifestation of... something? Nothing? It's not quantifiable. It's not numbers. What were souls to Zaunites, who had barely anything to their names — hell, how many of them had last names? Families? — it was difficult to explain the concept of Zaun's hunger for legitimacy, is it so wonder so many from this underground space are so broken?

Is it a wonder that Quetzalcoatl's overtures are met with derision and suspicion? That metaphysical ideas mean so little, when they have nothing of the sort? ]

Edited (formatting...) 2023-12-09 05:42 (UTC)

[ There is part of her that bristles a little at his threat, and it’s expressed as a ripple of heat across Communion. It’s the same sort that he’d felt when she was taking things seriously, that burst of truly fiery magical power. However, it’s just a flicker, not anything more. Because while it does flare, she’s not the sort of person that would make a threat in return. Not against Silco, at least.

Because in part, he’s right. She doesn’t think of him as a threat, but it’s not meant as the sort of insult he would take it as. For her, it’s simply something factual and ingrained enough that the fact that Kenos had changed that reality wasn’t something she considered right away. It was improbable that a human would be able to stand up to a Servant’s power. It was impossible that they would stand up to a god’s.

…But the fact that she had that kind of power wasn’t something she boasted about. She loved humanity too much to do that. She wanted to be their big sister who loved and supported them, not a tyrant that could enforce her will through the sheer power that she held. It’s ironic, of course. There’s likely nothing that Silco would want more than that kind of ability. ]

Ey, you’re right. I don’t understand. But I want to, you know?

[ Despite that flare, her voice is still gentle and maybe even imploring. She might not know specifics, but she knows the path that Silco is walking down is one that he wouldn’t be able to return from. He might not want to, true… But she also doesn’t think he fully understands some parts of it either. ]

I know why you want your world gone. That… Well, like I said a while ago, I get it better than you’d think. But it’s more than that. [ She pauses and hums a little note, because she’s at first not sure how to ask this, but she ends up going with the simplest. ] What does a happy life look like to you, Silco?

[ Silco really doesn't understand it. Not the gravity of it. Perhaps if souls were something to be valued among his people, or maybe if he spent any time investing in the mysticism in this new world, he could learn something of it, and come to learn what it was that he did. In the end, it wouldn't change much, Silco knew enough to know that. He didn't need a demon to make him turn down the darker paths, after all, not when there was so much at stake. Silco had no idea of what would come, whether their worlds would return, or if he were to finally give his soul to Sebastian. Everyone told him it was wrong, and not wise, but Silco recoiled at the thought of people telling him what to do.

He hated it. He hated the prospect of going back. Of a world without his daughter, even victory wouldn't sate the prospective wound. Even taking Piltover by the reins and burning them to the ground wouldn't be enough. It never would have been, because for all of his flaws, and that violent burning need to find some measure of domination over his lifelong foes... One thing trumped every single one. Only one person could have stilled his hand from this destruction. It was, and never could have been Quetzalcoatl. ]

You don't know anything. Not about why I want it gone, not about what going back means.

[ It wouldn't matter. Quetz may have figured it out, but Silco would never admit it outright, and more than that, he hated that she could even come up with what it meant. He didn't want her to know, didn't want anyone to understand just what it meant. The had no right to understand the loss, any more than they had the right to understand what it was, to be a Zaunite. ]

A happy life isn't possible. It never was. Don't you understand that? We aren't given the grace of it. I've not even thought of it since I was a boy? That you asked it means that you don't understand. I was never meant to be happy, so I will fight, and fight, until I have what I want secured.

[ Implied, of course, with that same, continuous sense of loss. Of waking up hungry, or scraping through refuse to find something to eat. To working until your fingers are so scarred and aching that they can barely move, but you have to go to sleep cold and starving, knowing that the same will come tomorrow. Of ice water, pollution, and asphyxiation, of being drowned and culled for the fact that you found that unacceptable. That you wanted to keep fighting, and couldn't accept the world as it is. It's coupled with that feeling of your hands holding the only thing you've ever been allowed to love — and knowing that there's no hope left for the future. Desperate gambles be damned, how could he go on? How could he go on with that?

He would never, could not. The only thing that kept him going — like so many years ago — was revenge. To make them pay by letting them rot. By letting them be destroyed wholly, and wasting in obsolescence, while the one thing Silco wanted — his daughter alive — was obtainable.

Revenge always came with bitterness, of course. He knew this. He always had, and he accepted it, because how could he do anything else? All this talk of going to other worlds, of traveling to new places, if Meridian won? How could that hold a candle to Jinx alive, and thriving? How could going back to what he his mind had (outsized, and diminished any words from previous brief canonmates) compare to what he knew?

It couldn't. He wouldn't allow it. ]

[ Quetzalcoatl listens. Or more accurately, she experiences. She lets herself sink into that deep, sad mire of Silco’s experiences.

It may not be her world. It may not be a place that her divinity or any like it had ever touched. But for a god of life who had fought so hard to even make people, she can only find his declaration to be deeply sad. It’s impossible to make a world where everyone is happy of course, but… ]

I wish you had been given that grace, though.

[ It’s a sentiment that’s simple, but her earnest desire is clear. It’s hard to mistake that she does truly wish for Silco’s happiness. But of course, his delusions about her especially are strong. ]

Your world… it wasn’t kind to you, and I wish it had been. At least a little, you know? It’s… Well, when you say “a happy life isn’t possible”, I want to give you whatever happiness I can. You may not be one of my precious Azteca, but I want everyone to have some happiness. I hope you know I mean that.

[ And in her room, she flops onto the bed and holds the Shard to her chest still. It’s protective, even if no one is there to threaten it. ]

I don’t think your fight will make you happy, Silco.

I don't care what you wish for!

[ Like her words are snapped, brittle and cold against a knee. What good is her sentiment? What good is any sentiment? How many times had he heard from any number of topsiders, about how sad it was that they existed like that? Wasn't it just the most tragic thing, that the Zaunites could not work themselves hard enough to uplift themselves, when all it took was hard work to do so? Pity. Wishing for better. That did not change anything, did it?

It never would, for Silco. The path to offering kindness had been Vander's way, and Zaun had never thrived under his hand either. Just less enforcer raids, perhaps, but no better. ]

You have no idea what will make me happy. None of you do. You presume and you guess, but it is not your business what will. You can not provide it, none of you can, unless you roll over and finally give up. Until every single one of your worlds is gone, until every world without — [ All impressions, that hunger for destruction, for obliterating everything where there is no world without... That impression of a high, wild and free laugh, the sounds of explosions and vibrations underfoot from destruction and mischief both. ] — You need to understand that I am not looking for happiness. I never have. I want Satisfaction.

[ Revenge. ]

[ And maybe finally, she can’t hold it back anymore. The way he trails off again, the way he denies that’s there’s happiness out there for him… ]

Without her.

[ She finishes the sentence for him, and it’s with a sigh in Communion and in person as she closes her eyes. She knows that it’ll upset him, enrage him, even. But she doesn’t think that’s fair of him. ]

Even if Jinx were here and no one could take her away, would you still say that? You love her, yes? I think that’s obvious, so don’t get mad. I’m not pointing it out because it’s a bad thing like you seem to think it is. Love isn’t weakness, Silco.

[ She’s assuming, she knows, but maybe saying that is personal to her too. ]

[ Agitation flows freely from the small, dagger-like shard in her hands. Agitation and rage filled the space, and they were so large and outsized, that it's easy to miss the tiny thread of something else lingering behind them — fear, but though it was small, it was solid and strong — like that little core, where everything else came from. Silco was a terrified man, who had long ago thought that he had eliminated the fear, and moved beyond it.

But how could he? He would not admit it, but it was there, beating like a heartbeat, the source of it all. ]

Says a god with supposedly no weaknesses.

[ He deflects. Silco doesn't want to talk about this, it's clear. Even addressing it feels like exposing an open wound to an enemy, and Silco radiates anxiety from this shard, as if he's trying to deflect, or distract, so he can cover it up and protect it. The shard doesn't respond for a long moment, though Silco doesn't retreat — can't — but the pause is almost like those walls are being erected back up. Covering all of it, the fear, the anger; it's still easy to know they're there, but it's muted, covered up as it is. Like the time spent erecting it is enough to close his walls off, and protect that delicate would that he doesn't want to expose. ]

Regardless, it doesn't matter, playing with hypotheticals. You can attribute whatever nonsense you wish, I will not satisfy you by legitimizing it.

[ Essentially: He knows she's right about at least the first, but she shouldn't say it; at the same time he is trying to protect that weak space, the one that can be prodded and manipulated. The one that he would always try to conceal. ]

[ It’s small, but Quetzalcoatl sees it all the same. It makes her sigh, because she wishes that Silco wasn’t so… Silco. It’s not a bad thing to be afraid, she wants to say. But as she curls up on her bed, she just sighs. ]

You’re so stubborn.

[ Quetzalcoatl huffs as her own stubbornness rears its head, but the way he deflects and the clear anxiety he feels makes her back off all the same. She lets him put those walls back up, because even though this was technically kidnapping and the way he was forced to be was… somewhat crueler than she expected, that’s not her intention. Even the hand hadn’t been meant as cruelty, just the alien logic of a god at work. ]

But I won’t leave you by yourself again, okay? That’s… Well, that’s the point, basically. I didn’t think about that part of things, so I’m sorry about that.

If you were sorry, you would return me to my place.

[ If doesn't matter to him, that it was unintended, for even though being alone for so long is... horrible, being alone in the dark like that was... something else. Like raging against walls that shouldn't be able to hold him, even as they held fast while he banged on the surface of them with a fist that couldn't hope to crack it. He was alone, and isolated, and perhaps it was like a caged shark moving back and forth, but Silco was used to being alone, he justified. He had been alone for years. (No, he actually wasn't, building an underground operation like his burgeoning shimmer empire, but he's always been dramatic about things.) He was alone now.

After all, Silco did not have things like friends, and the only loved one was someone who had been ripped from his hands three times now — he counts the time he held her slowly fading body in his arms as one of those times — he was used to being alone. That was where he defaulted. Perhaps there would have been a world, where Silco could have existed without such a thing, but it would have had to be a younger man, a man who had never been betrayed, thrown aside, and found inconvenient. Maybe then, there could have been a place for that, but as it was... ]

I don't want your company. I never did. I see what you're doing, you know. You hope by showing me "compassion" and trying to be my friend, you can stray me from my path. Perhaps convince me to soften my threats, should you show me kindness. I know, however, that there is no such thing as free kindness. You will not name me the fool.

Do you really— No… You do believe that, don’t you.

[ She’d started to question it reflexively, but this is a conversation they’d had before. It’s kind of what had started… everything about why Silco disliked her so much, but she wants to say the same thing now. She wishes his world had been kinder to him. She wishes that he’d never had to experience things that made him feel like it was such an absolute, unchangeable truth that people were only kind when they got something out of it. ]

Then would you have preferred that I did let Voryn and Hayame take you?

[ Surely, he knows what that would have meant. It’s only his good fortune that his Shard had come to her, because he would have surely died otherwise. She believed it was something fated, since that’s just how things worked for gods, so she was destined to protect him in that moment. But would he really have preferred that wasn’t the case? ]

…I just don’t know what to do with you, Silco. The Shards make things so complicated. I don’t want you to be shattered. But you hurt people. I think you like hurting people. I thought maybe you should just be a Shard without a body and I could take care of you, but… That doesn’t seem to be the answer either.

[ He doesn't answer the first question, of course. He does not think that they would have been given the opportunity to shatter him, of course. Perhaps that's foolish, but should that be threatened, he's sure that Sebastian would be swift to his rescue. That he was not...dead, and that he was not calling him, Sebastian would probably take every opportunity to do what he wished. At least that's what Silco suspected, because it's what he would do, were the positions reversed.

It's a thread of annoyance, but it's quickly squashed to make room for anger. At Quetz. After all, he could be mad with the rest of the Zenites later. ]

I'm not your pet — !

[ It's an immediate, snapped response. Does she think so low of him that she would just "take care" of him, like those sad rocks Zaunite children sometimes collected and scribbled faces on, to call their own pets? (Do I know if they have pet rocks? No, but it sounds like something they'd do.) He's inert, he can't act, he can't breathe. He can't eat, or smoke. This is as sadistic — if not moreso — than many of the things he's done.

But of course, Quetz will be forgiven by the masses, he thinks, because she will just say she didn't know any better. And doesn't that rankle, that Silco does not have (or deserve) the grace others get? Wasn't a world where nobody got that better than some?

In the silence of his shard, of course, Silco thinks. Twists things around and around in his head. Even when he wasn't at fault, he's blamed. What had Amos said? You probably did something to deserve it. Was there no end to it? Was he supposed to be flogged for even imagined crimes? While others got off scott free? ]

You can't keep me here! They'll eventually have to free me!

[ The longer this went on, the more that would ring hollow. ]

Edited 2023-12-20 05:22 (UTC)

[ His snappy response finally pulls out some irritation from her. She rolls her eyes, and the intensity of that sunny warmth increases for a moment so that it verges on uncomfortable. ]

Did I say you were my pet? No. Estás poniendo palabras en mi boca.

[ Even though she huffs it out in Spanish, there’s less of a need for translation in direct Communion like this. He’ll know exactly what she means, if not the precise translation. Silco is so frustrating this way! He really does think the worst of everything, and sometimes it’s truly out of nowhere!

But her annoyance softens as he continues, because this is the trouble she’s running into. If things were, well. Normal. She would absolutely just murder Silco. The journey of the afterlife would sort him out, or… Maybe it wouldn’t. But the whole point of Mictlan isn’t necessarily redemption of a soul, but reflection. The afterlife of the Aztecs was a trial in itself, and that was why her brother was so often the first stop on the journey. If there was anything she respected about Tezcatlipoca, it was at least that. He’d be a horrible influence on Silco (lol), but at least in that role, maybe…

She strokes Silco’s Shard gently. It’s tender and affectionate, as if she were smoothing down his hair, and in Communion, the sunshine dims to something more comfortable. ]

I’ll figure out what to do. I… don’t want to keep you here either. But I can’t let you go back to Zenith and cause more trouble either, you know?

[ The wave of irritation, when she tries to stroke the shard is violent, as it roils outward like a wave. Quetzalcoatl should have known, given how Silco is, that stroking the shard was... unpleasant to a man that shirked most touch. He did not trust people, and thus allowing them to be close to him was far too dangerous, given how he was. The last person that wasn't his daughter he'd trusted, after all, truly trusted, had ended up with their hands around his neck, trying to choke the life out of him.

Twice!

There is the impression of a slapped hand away, trying to separate, to get distance between them, even though there was nothing of the sort to obtain. He couldn't move, after all. (His shard can't... toll itself to highstorm.) ]

Then you've already sentenced me to a fate crueler than simply shattering my shard.

Live with the consequence of that, if you must.

[ He's also. So Dramatic?? ]

[ She recoils like he was a (n admittedly feral) cat that had reached out to swat her, complete with a sharp, apologetic noise of surprise. Granted, she knows this about Silco, sure, but physical contact is so reflexive for her that she also just. Forgot. A little bit.

But even so, his dramatics work, more or less. She sighs unhappily and uncertainly, but at least sets the Shard down next to her rather than hold onto it. Granted, it's still laying on her hair, but she simply has so much of it that it's harder for that to not be true while she's laying down. ]

That's... I don't think that's true...

[ She truly doesn't, but it's harder to believe when her voice is a little whiny in response. With a sigh, she finally relents. ]

...But if it's really what you want, I'll stop. I'll, um, leave you alone until I figure out what to do. Prometo.

Edited 2023-12-22 03:45 (UTC)

Right.

[ Like a feral cat, the impression is still of an at-guard stance, like a cat with all of its haunches raised, hiding under a bed, or in a safe space where it can lash out if needed. He doesn't need to, he is getting the sense that he is not in danger, but his prickly attitude remains.

Quetz doesn't want to kill him? Fine. She can live with the consequences of leaving him alive. He would survive this, just like he survived everything. He would hate it, of course, but he could be alone with his thoughts. (No.)

Though if she leaves him alone for long, eventually there will always be the sense of mild, irritated pacing coming from the place she kept him. ]

Do feel free to tell me what Set thinks, though. I'm sure it will be illuminating.

…Set will understand both of us. I’m sure.

[ Quetzalcoatl sighs, and the disappointment seeps through Communion, but there’s a sense of acceptance too. She would really rather keep him company… But if he hates her presence, that’s no better. So, there’s a sense of her withdrawing from Communion, but not without one little parting sentiment. ]

I’ll be here, Silco. I’ll be watching over you, so don’t worry.

[ But with that, she’ll at least finally leave him alone. ]

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just as planned... 😈

🤲🐀

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