[There are cairns on a thousand worlds in the Empire where half-lives tick down like clocks. When Palamedes speaks of cracking open, that's what Paul remembers, vast caverns of stillness and death traced in the ghostly projection of a filmbook.
There are things that cannot be made safe; things that can only be contained and hidden away. The thought that rises like a drifting body in water is of a cold, small world husbanded by skull-painted acolytes, a thought he lets sink back into an abyss, as he always does.]
I'd be glad to try anything you come up with. [He reaches past Palamedes, picking up the bracelet by its links, the stone refracting slickly as it moves.] That's exactly the question, isn't it? Where does it come from, and where does it go? It's like the storms. There has to be a source.
We should give them some space. Come on.
[He straightens to standing, looking down at the them in question, who trills wetly, scuffling in the dirt with ragged fingers. The new bracelet gleams securely around a wrist, and he tries not to see a cuff.]
...I won't say no to your help, but- [He shakes his head, twining the bracelet around his fingers, stone still untouched.] -I wouldn't...I would not have you be complicit. If anything does go wrong, or if anyone objects - I started this alone. Anything that comes of it falls on me.
Palamedes hums in agreement; the source and the independent nature of corruption-as-force, call it, are fascinating on an academic level; he's sure that understanding both of those would shed new insights on how to deal with the immediate problem of corruption turning people into beasts; it's the part where the beasthood problem is immediate that puts a wrench in the plan to write a series of papers about the topic. Because someone could. Write papers about it. But in the face of immediate, commonly occurring misery like corruption and beasthood, the joys of academic productivity should take a respectful backseat to a solution, as immediate and widespread as it can be made.
So the cave full of corrupt beads is going to have to sit and wait a while, much as he doesn't like it. He stands, giving Epsilon one last look before turning to step pointedly away, while Paul fusses with the spent bracelet.]
I'll work on it, [he says, for the dissipation strategies, and shakes the dirt off his fingers.
Then, hm. He wouldn't say he's involved himself as a purely unrelated party; Paul's methodology might be a touch stomach-turning, that voice, but turning back beasthood is already a pie he's got fingers in elsewhere, in various places in the city. Understanding the makeup of Sleepers as it corresponds to the shape, Paul's imago, that too— so. Then.
He cants his head slightly, considering Paul, not critically or with an eye to pick on his continued insistence on doing dangerous things on his own, but - with an eye to size him up, perhaps differently than before. It's fatalistic on some level, but there's a maturity to Paul's words that Palamedes respects; making clear his stance, very Sixth of him.]
Trust me when I say I'm not throwing my lot in with you without thinking about it; I know better than that. And because I've thought about it, I can tell you this: you are my friend, and almost all of the time, I support whatever misdemeanor you come up with.
[Not The Voice Though, and he's still not belaboring it. He picks at his fingernail to get the last of the soil out from under it, continuing:]
So I think you'll understand where I'm coming from when I say that if this goes sideways and other people are endangered by what you're doing here, I'm going to help them first. Right now, this is almost entirely people who have consented to be here; if something happens that drags in people who have no part in it, I'm not going to worry about anybody's reputation.
[It's still notably not a criticism, particularly not when he smiles, bright and clear.]
Don't lose your focus, but you can count on me for that much of a security net.
[This is a threshold Paul has stood on before, watching someone's sense of him shift another inch towards respect more like an equal than a junior. He straightens up as he follows Palamedes away, to a distance he can count on to be sufficient to react in if his control does somehow slip. Behind his back, he makes a rolling permissive gesture of the hand at Epsilon, who hunches over the bait at last, facial fingers peeling back and forearms rising up to hide the mouth they reveal. It's for the best. The teeth sound the same.
Palamedes lays out his terms, and Paul doesn't try to hide his relief this time. They're past the point where he's concerned his desire for approval might sway Palamedes' decision, whether either of them realized it.]
Thank you.
[The bracelet hangs at his side now, not between them. Palamedes' smile shines out like the kind of warding light that might have once sat on top of the broken tower beside them.]
I'll do my best to keep you from having to make a choice, but I feel better knowing you'll make the right one, if it comes to that. [He runs his free hand through his hair, ducking his head.] I don't always see things the way most other people do, I think.
[It's meant to be light, like an invitation to a joke (something he's picked up from Gideon, without realizing), but there's an off-note to it, skating dangerously close to another layer of confession. He doesn't always see things the way other people do; he sees them wrong, and what kind of burden is that to ask anyone else to carry for him more than he already does?]
I suppose neither do you. [A flicker of a smile.] Do you ever wish you'd lied, instead of telling the truth? Not about this. About anything.
[That's light, if otherwise neutral. For his part, Palamedes has never concerned himself overmuch with what other people think of his point of view; it comes with the territory of studiously refusing to lie to save face or feelings, ultimately. Not that he aims to be callous, or cruel, but a lie to spare feelings inevitably does more harm than good.
He supposes his mindset is somewhat black and white, in that way. He likes to consider himself more nuanced, even as he says:]
But again, no. There aren't too many trappings of home I'm all that enamored with these days, but it'd be an ordeal to part with 'truth over solace'.
[A shrug, and he doesn't offer any other specifics as far as what constitutes trappings of home.]
Let's get out of here. I want to draw up a chart of things to do with a cave full of malicious stones.
[The juxtaposition of truth and home in such proximity is like a cross-tabulation that summons a memory, one of those rarely recalled ones that Paul holds, but doesn't dwell on.]
My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to the basis of all morality.
[The breath he takes after that is swift and expansive, almost and not quite the kind of inward drawn shock that comes after brush a hand across searing metal. He settles himself as fast as he unsettled, tamping himself down with the coolness of the breeze coming in from the sea, but there's a trace preoccupation left behind like an after image.]
I suppose you'd agree on that. [Paul pulls back his shoulders, scans the treeline for anything else lurking there not already at his back.] Yes. Let's go. I'd like to see that chart.
[Palamedes almost certainly recognizes the look of someone who finds themselves considering a problem from a novel angle, not yet sure if it's a useful one, but not yet rejecting it out of hand.]
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deercountry2022-04-13 04:55 pm
no subject
There are things that cannot be made safe; things that can only be contained and hidden away. The thought that rises like a drifting body in water is of a cold, small world husbanded by skull-painted acolytes, a thought he lets sink back into an abyss, as he always does.]
I'd be glad to try anything you come up with. [He reaches past Palamedes, picking up the bracelet by its links, the stone refracting slickly as it moves.] That's exactly the question, isn't it? Where does it come from, and where does it go? It's like the storms. There has to be a source.
We should give them some space. Come on.
[He straightens to standing, looking down at the them in question, who trills wetly, scuffling in the dirt with ragged fingers. The new bracelet gleams securely around a wrist, and he tries not to see a cuff.]
...I won't say no to your help, but- [He shakes his head, twining the bracelet around his fingers, stone still untouched.] -I wouldn't...I would not have you be complicit. If anything does go wrong, or if anyone objects - I started this alone. Anything that comes of it falls on me.
no subject
Palamedes hums in agreement; the source and the independent nature of corruption-as-force, call it, are fascinating on an academic level; he's sure that understanding both of those would shed new insights on how to deal with the immediate problem of corruption turning people into beasts; it's the part where the beasthood problem is immediate that puts a wrench in the plan to write a series of papers about the topic. Because someone could. Write papers about it. But in the face of immediate, commonly occurring misery like corruption and beasthood, the joys of academic productivity should take a respectful backseat to a solution, as immediate and widespread as it can be made.
So the cave full of corrupt beads is going to have to sit and wait a while, much as he doesn't like it. He stands, giving Epsilon one last look before turning to step pointedly away, while Paul fusses with the spent bracelet.]
I'll work on it, [he says, for the dissipation strategies, and shakes the dirt off his fingers.
Then, hm. He wouldn't say he's involved himself as a purely unrelated party; Paul's methodology might be a touch stomach-turning, that voice, but turning back beasthood is already a pie he's got fingers in elsewhere, in various places in the city. Understanding the makeup of Sleepers as it corresponds to the shape, Paul's imago, that too— so. Then.
He cants his head slightly, considering Paul, not critically or with an eye to pick on his continued insistence on doing dangerous things on his own, but - with an eye to size him up, perhaps differently than before. It's fatalistic on some level, but there's a maturity to Paul's words that Palamedes respects; making clear his stance, very Sixth of him.]
Trust me when I say I'm not throwing my lot in with you without thinking about it; I know better than that. And because I've thought about it, I can tell you this: you are my friend, and almost all of the time, I support whatever misdemeanor you come up with.
[Not The Voice Though, and he's still not belaboring it. He picks at his fingernail to get the last of the soil out from under it, continuing:]
So I think you'll understand where I'm coming from when I say that if this goes sideways and other people are endangered by what you're doing here, I'm going to help them first. Right now, this is almost entirely people who have consented to be here; if something happens that drags in people who have no part in it, I'm not going to worry about anybody's reputation.
[It's still notably not a criticism, particularly not when he smiles, bright and clear.]
Don't lose your focus, but you can count on me for that much of a security net.
no subject
Palamedes lays out his terms, and Paul doesn't try to hide his relief this time. They're past the point where he's concerned his desire for approval might sway Palamedes' decision, whether either of them realized it.]
Thank you.
[The bracelet hangs at his side now, not between them. Palamedes' smile shines out like the kind of warding light that might have once sat on top of the broken tower beside them.]
I'll do my best to keep you from having to make a choice, but I feel better knowing you'll make the right one, if it comes to that. [He runs his free hand through his hair, ducking his head.] I don't always see things the way most other people do, I think.
[It's meant to be light, like an invitation to a joke (something he's picked up from Gideon, without realizing), but there's an off-note to it, skating dangerously close to another layer of confession. He doesn't always see things the way other people do; he sees them wrong, and what kind of burden is that to ask anyone else to carry for him more than he already does?]
I suppose neither do you. [A flicker of a smile.] Do you ever wish you'd lied, instead of telling the truth? Not about this. About anything.
no subject
[That's light, if otherwise neutral. For his part, Palamedes has never concerned himself overmuch with what other people think of his point of view; it comes with the territory of studiously refusing to lie to save face or feelings, ultimately. Not that he aims to be callous, or cruel, but a lie to spare feelings inevitably does more harm than good.
He supposes his mindset is somewhat black and white, in that way. He likes to consider himself more nuanced, even as he says:]
But again, no. There aren't too many trappings of home I'm all that enamored with these days, but it'd be an ordeal to part with 'truth over solace'.
[A shrug, and he doesn't offer any other specifics as far as what constitutes trappings of home.]
Let's get out of here. I want to draw up a chart of things to do with a cave full of malicious stones.
no subject
My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to the basis of all morality.
[The breath he takes after that is swift and expansive, almost and not quite the kind of inward drawn shock that comes after brush a hand across searing metal. He settles himself as fast as he unsettled, tamping himself down with the coolness of the breeze coming in from the sea, but there's a trace preoccupation left behind like an after image.]
I suppose you'd agree on that. [Paul pulls back his shoulders, scans the treeline for anything else lurking there not already at his back.] Yes. Let's go. I'd like to see that chart.
[Palamedes almost certainly recognizes the look of someone who finds themselves considering a problem from a novel angle, not yet sure if it's a useful one, but not yet rejecting it out of hand.]