08 - Spam + Messages

[onlysurvivor]

[Kelsier has been restless which is never a good thing for anyone. It usually leads to trouble.

The trouble today is that he raided the Art Therapy room and made off with googly eyes. He had originally gone there for another reason but something about the googly eyes spoke to him. ]

[Around the Barge, various inanimate objects have been defaced with pairs of googly eyes. There is a broom with a pair of eyes. A plate in the mess hall. Several books in the library. A pair of shoes. A lamp shade. A few of the pool balls. Anything that looks like it could use a random pair of eyes.]

[Kelsier can be seen casually putting the eyes on various objects in public locations. When he's done/out of googly eyes, he ends his day at the Pub where he puts his last pair of googly eyes on his mug.]

[Outside the door to Charles cabin a bottle of mysteriously strong liquor has been left. It has googly eyes pasted on it so it now has a silly face. It also so a note: You still look like you need it. --Kelsier]

[Private to Erik]

I left some of the certain mysteriously strong liquor we found for Charles. Let me know how it turns out.

Comments

[onlysurvivor]

They are when I don't want to actually hurt anyone.

[velocette]

Lucky for us there's no one you want to hurt on board, then. Right?

[onlysurvivor]

There's no one on this ship I want to hurt.

[velocette]

There probably will be, before too long.

[onlysurvivor]

You'd be surprised.

[velocette]

Why? You a pacifist, or do you think all your grudges are dead?

[onlysurvivor]

No. I have one grudge and he is dead. He's not here and never will be.

[velocette]

Hope you're right. But I'm dead, back home. Doesn't mean I'm not here, you know?

What'd he do?

[onlysurvivor]

Oh, I'm dead.

It'd take a while to go through all he's done. He was a tyrant who happened to have powers to back up his claims. He started as a halfway decent person -- that person -- could perhaps appear here but I have not quarrel with him.

What he became was a creature that tortured and subjugated his own people. Killed thousands upon thousands of innocents over his lifetime. He made the world choked with ash and barely livable. For each good thing he did, he committed hundreds of atrocities.

If, by some oversight, he were to appear here as that man... [Kelsier really smiles here.] I would enjoy every second of his redemption. To see the pain as he understands his deeds. That pain is far greater than any injury.

[velocette]

[He rubs his jaw slowly.] You're probably the only person I've met who has a real definition of vengeance. Of justice.

What makes a person turn into a tyrant like that, though? People don't, I think, just have it in them like a stick of dynamite.

[onlysurvivor]

Well, I did kill him with hope. [Strange little smile there.]

Power and immortality. For him, he believed he was in the right that he was justified. It took hundreds of years. Each year a little more of his humanity slipped away and by the time I faced him he was husk. He knew only cruelty and oppression.

He wasn't a true immortal, I should point out. He was killed, but not by me.

[velocette]

'Time makes monsters of us all'.

He was killed by your hope and someone else's hand? [He smiles, too, but curiously. You can't dangle cryptic phrases at this boy, Kelsier, he'll pounce on them.]

[onlysurvivor]

[A nice big grin now.] That's what happened. I had to spark something and let go of my own ideas of vengeance.

[velocette]

[He leans closer, aware that at any moment his hearing might just go out, and he doesn't really want to miss this conversation. Which is strange, for him.]

But how'd you do it?

[onlysurvivor]

[He leans a bit forward in turn.] I died.

I had become a legend among the people. The only one willing to rise up. I fought him, publicly, and died by his hand so my plan could move forward.

I left behind everything they needed... but most of all: hope.

[velocette]

[It's bizarrely magnetic, the way Kelsier speaks, or at least the way the Motorcycle Boy finds himself reacting to it. He used to be the spokesperson, the one people strained to hear, and he'd known then it was because they lacked hope. The dark little secret was that he had lacked it, too, and had assumed everyone did once they grew old enough.]

I tried to do that. I don't...understand how you could have had hope in a broken world.

[onlysurvivor]

[Another smile.] Because it's exactly what he wanted to destroy. I couldn't let him win.

[velocette]

Were you ever trapped, ever helpless? I have to think you were. Real hope doesn't come from ignorance, from being sheltered. So how did you keep the despair away?

[onlysurvivor]

Did my delicate completion give me away? [He holds out his scarred hands]

My moment of despair came before I Snapped. I gained powers I never had before. They brought the seed. It took me awhile to clear the despair away so it could grow.

[velocette]

...I guess I can't quite imagine how that works in the real world. I read about it in all the heroes' journeys, but in practice...? There's no handbook for clearing the wreckage. So it's impressive you did.