You already told me you do, when you asked the question. Otherwise, why would you question it?
[ He may not know, but he can guess. He can feel through the imprint the indications of softness, of fondness, of hurt or other things. Silco had so little of those in his life, that they feel foreign across the line. They feel... wrong. Unnatural.
He has no need for those things, because he knows what it will lead to. What it will do to him, if he allows that back. Those are the feelings of a man who is dead. Long, long dead. What's left in its wake is a walking ghost, a shadow that feels Zaun's wrath and meters it out with distinction. Here, he has died again, and yet, he rises again. Perhaps in this time, he will find what kind of man he will be now. Powerful, yes, but what else? What sort of evolution will be required to survive this. ]
Piltover is soft compared to most places. I would wonder how you would fare in Zaun, had you needed to. Ah, but you went for the soft people topside. Perhaps you figured that they would capitulate to a Noxian's tactics, if necessary, whereas we would not, hm?
No, I pay people to dot he job I ask them to do. I exchange. That is the difference. There is no such thing as trust, councilor. Anyone who says otherwise simply has not seen what it will do, when it falls. Or perhaps they are the one who will revoke it, when the time comes.
Continued assumptions. To feel for others is not trust; it is empathy. And I did not choose Piltover over Zaun because it was kinder. I chose it because it is where my family sent me.
[ From a mother to an uncle, and from an uncle to a council. Silco isn't wrong to think she considered Noxian politics once she came of age and entered the stage, when her uncle retired to keep an eye on her cousin's antics far afield in search of treasure. But she would have considered Noxian politics even if she'd gone into Zaun. And, frankly, had she done so...
Well, a teenager in the depths of Zaun from another home would've been picked apart. It would not be because Zaunites are inherently cruel; it would be because she would be a fool putting herself in the unknown. ]
Exchanges still require a piece and parcel of trust. If you give me money to complete a job, you are trusting me to complete it. You might call it expectation but you are trusting me to keep my word and to fulfill what would be a contract to the letter. Do you give something of yourself to offer it? No. You have given me coin and information and nothing else.
But you are correct in that trust is easy to twist and use for another's gain. What one calls trust another can call bait. I do not think it wrong not to trust.
[ She simply cannot afford not to extend some of it here. And she thinks in the end, that will be the difference: Silco's refusal to extend that trust means he has not made the necessary ties to ask for what is needed. Mel wants to hope, perhaps vainly, that the trust she has tried to build with others will hold steady when she needs it to.
Or perhaps Silco will be right once more, and she will find that bridge just an obfuscation, and he can feel vindicated when she falls. ]
When one does not have information, what else is there but assumptions? It's whether or not you prove my evaluations that will prove me right, or wrong.
[ He thinks he is right. In some way. The way she asked the question... Silco is not unused to reading people, even via text. He normally keep them to himself, but... ]
Regardless, you are Noxian. Would you say the most successful of Noxians trust? Or would you say that they understand a truth.
People respect power. They understand the consequences of slipping. One cannot control every factor, but rather someone in control knows how to predict for the unpredictable. Predict for failure.
By anticipating, knowing, understanding who is working for you, understanding their lines, their limits. What fuels their passions? Is it loyalty? To what? A cause? Money? Can they be bought out? Is there something they need that isn't being provided? Who can provide it, and how does one make it yourself?
There is a difference between prediction and knowledge and trust, after all.
Trust will waver, but people will always revert to their nature.
[ For a time she simply stares at the messages, memories flitting across her thoughts. She thinks of her father Azizi; she thinks of Kino; she thinks of her cousin Tivadar. ]
I cannot speak for most Noxians as I have been away from home nearly two decades. But in the interest of not being pedantic, Noxians favor ruthlessness in their approaches, whether they be in politics or on the battlefield.
[ All of this, the anticipation, the control, the prediction... She was bred for it in Noxus, lived and breathed it in Piltover. The question has always been about who presented the best opportunity to do more, who could be molded into what was needed, who could be nudged along. Silco is speaking of the very life she has always lived. It hasn't been about proper bribing but collaboration, quid pro quo, but she is not so different from what he speaks of.
Mel sighs, the tips of her talons clicking on the device. ]
One is not an island, however. One person cannot do it all, as much as I might wish it so.
No. That's why one predicts what is necessary, and puts those in place as they are required.
To pretend otherwise is a fool's errand. It is how a structure falls apart.
[ Even Silco... knows this. Oh, he doesn't like it, of course. He fights it every step of the way, and tries his damnest to control as much as he can. However, he... is a man. A frail one. One who will do whatever is necessary, do everything that he must, but he can't knock a bunch of mooks together, or create bombs.
He had to have people for that.
But he knew. He knew Sevika was teetering. He knew Jinx struggled. He had nobody to trust. He only had anticipation. Prediction.
Words. ]
That, however, does not require true trust. Only that of an organization. And that is a structure I can trust, because it is mine.
So perhaps, Medarda, you could say: I trust myself.
[ The quiet down their tepid connection isn't one of judgment. Instead, it's something like acceptance, perhaps even understanding. For many years, she could trust herself and Elora and no one else. With Elora gone, with so much changed, she cannot even believe in who she is any longer, and that was before being brought to this forsaken place. ]
I find it interesting that a man who has difficulty trusting still sees fit to have people around him, even held at arms' length. Especially as many as you had and have here.
[ Perhaps it's an appraisal. But it truly does make her wonder if Silco isn't desperate for some kind of contact, some kind of camaraderie, even if he knows he can never trust for it to be mutual and safe. Mel refuses to go so far as empathetic towards him, not with all he's done, not with the manipulation he uses.
She does, however, see her own reflection in it. Like calls to like. Silco is just a man like any other, someone who wants connection but who has been too burned to ever hold his hand out.
For not the first time, she wonders who Jinx is to him truly, and if she isn't the bridge he has towards some kind of humanity, as jagged and flawed as it may be. ]
However, the people around me understand the consequences of betrayal. I made sure of that. Those that choose to try, will learn that my lesson was a "light" example.
[ It had not been light.
Mel, however, does understand something about him. He does, though Silco refuses to admit it. He always had, since the incident. He is aware that he can't do it alone, because he's nothing more than filth under their boots, a dirty little thing that cannot do more tha kick up a minor dust storm. He has to rely on others, but how does he force it? Through coin, through coercion, through the concrete things he knows he can trust.
Jinx had been... the first since. Of course, it had to be Felicia's daughter. Of course it had to be the child Vander raised, inept though he had been at doing so, in his opinion. Silco understood Jinx, because they were the same. Because she had been like him. How long had it been, since there had been a connection? Something concrete? Something to hold? How long had it been since Silco had trusted?
Jinx had been the only one to make it through that armor, so long ago. Of course she had. Who else could? ]
[ It's not written with animosity. Silco and she both know the consequences of allowing people close, physically and emotionally. They pull people in who are necessary but the risk and consequence of what may happen if even one of those people betray their trust... But Silco uses the heavy hand of violence and destruction, whether it be physical or emotional. Mel's way is not softer, only less outwardly physical. Silco's lesson is not to cross him. Mel's lesson is to not approach in the first place.
Both of them islands, though one of them remains below.
There are times when she is choked by the reality of too many people who have come to know her, that all safety and pretense falls away beneath the reality that they will be harmed. Her heart is a weak thing, its muscle so often unused. She cannot tell Silco that opening himself up for the mere possibility of kindness will be worth it because even now she questions it herself. Which person will be the wrong one? Which one will hold the knife behind their back? Will the betrayal or the pain or the grief be worth the moments of contentment? She doesn't have that answer.
But there are times that she hopes having more allies, more friendships, will win out over the reclusiveness. ]
Choosing allies has become more difficult here, layered with these other souls, and with no access to what we once had as shields.
Hence why keeping people at arm's length becomes even more imperative.
[ Silco learned this lesson long ago. He knows the price, he knows what it costs. He's lost everything once already. He's been mutilated, cut into pieces, and left alone.
Why would he let anyone in again? Why would he dare, when he knew what would happen? Mel had always kept people at arm's length. Silco had... not. Once, Silco had been like so many others. Young, hopeful, even... trusting. He'd trusted in a way that he saw in others as a foolish endeavor.
He'd trusted someone with everything. Is it so surprising that he is more like a wounded animal now, lashing out because it is all he knows how to do? ]
You must look at the motivation. What motivates individuals, to do what we do, and what is their goal? That is our only guide, what they want out of the connection. We both know what we want, to return to make our individual cities better, after all, yes? Save them from their own foolishness.
[ To try to fix Piltover. To stop her mother from taking it all apart for her own means and leaving all of the citizens with nothing but animosity and fear of one another. Silco wants to see Zaun rise again and be equal to Piltover, something she cannot condemn. But she only has so much time before she'll need to leave. It's one more step she'll have to consider if Silco survives to return: who is going to keep him in check when Mel makes her exit and he is no longer beholden to their agreement? (Assuming, of course, that he won't renege on it the moment they return.)
She sighs at the device. ]
So we continue. We need to prepare for Patho-Gen to come down on us. [ On him first, likely. ] They may be motivated to survive but that can mean many things. It's what we'll need to discover in order to stay alive.
[ They're on the back foot in terms of Patho-Gen, with teleporters and locks and the nullification of their abilities. Collars, secret facilities. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ He may not know, but he can guess. He can feel through the imprint the indications of softness, of fondness, of hurt or other things. Silco had so little of those in his life, that they feel foreign across the line. They feel... wrong. Unnatural.
He has no need for those things, because he knows what it will lead to. What it will do to him, if he allows that back. Those are the feelings of a man who is dead. Long, long dead. What's left in its wake is a walking ghost, a shadow that feels Zaun's wrath and meters it out with distinction. Here, he has died again, and yet, he rises again. Perhaps in this time, he will find what kind of man he will be now. Powerful, yes, but what else? What sort of evolution will be required to survive this. ]
Piltover is soft compared to most places. I would wonder how you would fare in Zaun, had you needed to. Ah, but you went for the soft people topside. Perhaps you figured that they would capitulate to a Noxian's tactics, if necessary, whereas we would not, hm?
No, I pay people to dot he job I ask them to do. I exchange. That is the difference. There is no such thing as trust, councilor. Anyone who says otherwise simply has not seen what it will do, when it falls. Or perhaps they are the one who will revoke it, when the time comes.
no subject
[ From a mother to an uncle, and from an uncle to a council. Silco isn't wrong to think she considered Noxian politics once she came of age and entered the stage, when her uncle retired to keep an eye on her cousin's antics far afield in search of treasure. But she would have considered Noxian politics even if she'd gone into Zaun. And, frankly, had she done so...
Well, a teenager in the depths of Zaun from another home would've been picked apart. It would not be because Zaunites are inherently cruel; it would be because she would be a fool putting herself in the unknown. ]
Exchanges still require a piece and parcel of trust. If you give me money to complete a job, you are trusting me to complete it. You might call it expectation but you are trusting me to keep my word and to fulfill what would be a contract to the letter. Do you give something of yourself to offer it? No. You have given me coin and information and nothing else.
But you are correct in that trust is easy to twist and use for another's gain. What one calls trust another can call bait. I do not think it wrong not to trust.
[ She simply cannot afford not to extend some of it here. And she thinks in the end, that will be the difference: Silco's refusal to extend that trust means he has not made the necessary ties to ask for what is needed. Mel wants to hope, perhaps vainly, that the trust she has tried to build with others will hold steady when she needs it to.
Or perhaps Silco will be right once more, and she will find that bridge just an obfuscation, and he can feel vindicated when she falls. ]
no subject
[ He thinks he is right. In some way. The way she asked the question... Silco is not unused to reading people, even via text. He normally keep them to himself, but... ]
Regardless, you are Noxian. Would you say the most successful of Noxians trust? Or would you say that they understand a truth.
People respect power. They understand the consequences of slipping. One cannot control every factor, but rather someone in control knows how to predict for the unpredictable. Predict for failure.
By anticipating, knowing, understanding who is working for you, understanding their lines, their limits. What fuels their passions? Is it loyalty? To what? A cause? Money? Can they be bought out? Is there something they need that isn't being provided? Who can provide it, and how does one make it yourself?
There is a difference between prediction and knowledge and trust, after all.
Trust will waver, but people will always revert to their nature.
no subject
I cannot speak for most Noxians as I have been away from home nearly two decades. But in the interest of not being pedantic, Noxians favor ruthlessness in their approaches, whether they be in politics or on the battlefield.
[ All of this, the anticipation, the control, the prediction... She was bred for it in Noxus, lived and breathed it in Piltover. The question has always been about who presented the best opportunity to do more, who could be molded into what was needed, who could be nudged along. Silco is speaking of the very life she has always lived. It hasn't been about proper bribing but collaboration, quid pro quo, but she is not so different from what he speaks of.
Mel sighs, the tips of her talons clicking on the device. ]
One is not an island, however. One person cannot do it all, as much as I might wish it so.
no subject
To pretend otherwise is a fool's errand. It is how a structure falls apart.
[ Even Silco... knows this. Oh, he doesn't like it, of course. He fights it every step of the way, and tries his damnest to control as much as he can. However, he... is a man. A frail one. One who will do whatever is necessary, do everything that he must, but he can't knock a bunch of mooks together, or create bombs.
He had to have people for that.
But he knew. He knew Sevika was teetering. He knew Jinx struggled. He had nobody to trust. He only had anticipation. Prediction.
Words. ]
That, however, does not require true trust. Only that of an organization. And that is a structure I can trust, because it is mine.
So perhaps, Medarda, you could say: I trust myself.
no subject
I find it interesting that a man who has difficulty trusting still sees fit to have people around him, even held at arms' length. Especially as many as you had and have here.
[ Perhaps it's an appraisal. But it truly does make her wonder if Silco isn't desperate for some kind of contact, some kind of camaraderie, even if he knows he can never trust for it to be mutual and safe. Mel refuses to go so far as empathetic towards him, not with all he's done, not with the manipulation he uses.
She does, however, see her own reflection in it. Like calls to like. Silco is just a man like any other, someone who wants connection but who has been too burned to ever hold his hand out.
For not the first time, she wonders who Jinx is to him truly, and if she isn't the bridge he has towards some kind of humanity, as jagged and flawed as it may be. ]
no subject
However, the people around me understand the consequences of betrayal. I made sure of that. Those that choose to try, will learn that my lesson was a "light" example.
[ It had not been light.
Mel, however, does understand something about him. He does, though Silco refuses to admit it. He always had, since the incident. He is aware that he can't do it alone, because he's nothing more than filth under their boots, a dirty little thing that cannot do more tha kick up a minor dust storm. He has to rely on others, but how does he force it? Through coin, through coercion, through the concrete things he knows he can trust.
Jinx had been... the first since. Of course, it had to be Felicia's daughter. Of course it had to be the child Vander raised, inept though he had been at doing so, in his opinion. Silco understood Jinx, because they were the same. Because she had been like him. How long had it been, since there had been a connection? Something concrete? Something to hold? How long had it been since Silco had trusted?
Jinx had been the only one to make it through that armor, so long ago. Of course she had. Who else could? ]
no subject
[ It's not written with animosity. Silco and she both know the consequences of allowing people close, physically and emotionally. They pull people in who are necessary but the risk and consequence of what may happen if even one of those people betray their trust... But Silco uses the heavy hand of violence and destruction, whether it be physical or emotional. Mel's way is not softer, only less outwardly physical. Silco's lesson is not to cross him. Mel's lesson is to not approach in the first place.
Both of them islands, though one of them remains below.
There are times when she is choked by the reality of too many people who have come to know her, that all safety and pretense falls away beneath the reality that they will be harmed. Her heart is a weak thing, its muscle so often unused. She cannot tell Silco that opening himself up for the mere possibility of kindness will be worth it because even now she questions it herself. Which person will be the wrong one? Which one will hold the knife behind their back? Will the betrayal or the pain or the grief be worth the moments of contentment? She doesn't have that answer.
But there are times that she hopes having more allies, more friendships, will win out over the reclusiveness. ]
Choosing allies has become more difficult here, layered with these other souls, and with no access to what we once had as shields.
no subject
[ Silco learned this lesson long ago. He knows the price, he knows what it costs. He's lost everything once already. He's been mutilated, cut into pieces, and left alone.
Why would he let anyone in again? Why would he dare, when he knew what would happen? Mel had always kept people at arm's length. Silco had... not. Once, Silco had been like so many others. Young, hopeful, even... trusting. He'd trusted in a way that he saw in others as a foolish endeavor.
He'd trusted someone with everything. Is it so surprising that he is more like a wounded animal now, lashing out because it is all he knows how to do? ]
You must look at the motivation. What motivates individuals, to do what we do, and what is their goal? That is our only guide, what they want out of the connection. We both know what we want, to return to make our individual cities better, after all, yes? Save them from their own foolishness.
no subject
She sighs at the device. ]
So we continue. We need to prepare for Patho-Gen to come down on us. [ On him first, likely. ] They may be motivated to survive but that can mean many things. It's what we'll need to discover in order to stay alive.
[ They're on the back foot in terms of Patho-Gen, with teleporters and locks and the nullification of their abilities. Collars, secret facilities. ]
If something comes up, I'll be in touch.