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KENOS IC CONTACT
© TESSISAMESS
[ 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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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.
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[ 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. ]
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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. ]
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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. ]
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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.
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[ 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.
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[ 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.
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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. ]
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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?
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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?? ]
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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.
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[ 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.
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[ 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. ]