impure_tale | 235 [Video]

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235 [Video]

Well, that was rather unexpected.

My apologies for my sudden absence, especially so close on the heels of the last. [An uncomfortable clearing of his throat.] So tell me, dear neighbors: What excitements have I gone and missed?

[Something off-camera catches his eye and he perks up.]

Other than a new assignment, apparently!

[He picks up the file, and upon reading a couple lines looks positively tickled.]

Loki Laufeyson. It appears we need to have a little chat soon, and you have my deepest apologies for my initial absence. We shall have to begin in earnest to rectify this. In the meantime, however!

Admiral, please see to it that a fully updated copy of my file be delivered to Monsieur Laufeyson as soon as possible.

As for everyone else, my dearest friends and loves, I'll be out and about soon to greet you in person. I feel we must all have a visit lest I pop out of existence again and miss the opportunity.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I never said they didn't work. People are many and varied and a pain in the arse, especially when they're wrong. Guiding is hard work; make no mistake.

You have to know the person you are working with, make some attempt to earn their trust or somehow protect them even without it. You must be the first to forgive. You must see them well enough to know where boundaries must be placed, what bridges to cross and which to burn.

However, in the end you cannot make a person absorb a lesson. You cannot force them to see the good in what limitations you've placed on them. You can't make them see right and wrong for themselves rather than just what you decide they are. All of that is their own work.

[He scowls deeply, knowing the marquis is at least correct where it concerns his own warden. Bush did have an entirely too forgiving way about him. Did Jones trust him? Well...yes, he supposed he did]

Yeh make it sound like a parent to a child.

[Not that Jones ever had children, or had particularly attentive parents]

[For whatever reason that stings a little, and it shows on his face. He thinks of Iago.]

Considering I myself was considerably less than an ideal parent in life, I balk somewhat at the notion.

[This comes as a significant surprise to Jones, who frowns]

I didn't know yeh were a father.

Two sons and a daughter, all grown.

Couldn't say I ever felt the urge. Irritating things.

I'm never without the urge. That children on occasion come of it is unavoidable at times.

[A dry look back. Srsly, sir? Srsly?]

Spend a few months at sea with only men around yeh. That'd cure the urge quick enough.

If they are well-endowed I carry few complaints.

Aye, they are that. And covered head to toe in barnacles.

[Obviously said in jest.] Well that ought to make things interesting, at least.

[A throaty laugh. Jones isn't sure whether to be amused or disgusted]

Painful, more like.

It is only by way of pain that some may arrive at pleasure. [He thinks on that a moment.] My. It's been years since I've said that, I think.

You talk to those flogged on my ship, that'd change your opinion quick enough.

You'll have to forgive me, but I have to stop this line of conversation before I say something in jest that offends.

Old habits. It's like slipping on an old favorite robe for the first time in years.

And here I thought yeh didn't have a filter at all. All right, then. Best we stop.

Oh please, I've been positively tame around you.

I'm not your liberal type, Marquis. I've been under the sea a good number of years and let the world change away from me.

A notion which I, as a staunch denier of gods and magic, still find paradoxically fascinating.

You still deny it? Even after all this time here?

I like to remain consistent.

I'd rather just not know than have people talk of angels and repentance to a higher power and all of that rubbish.

People here need to get better for themselves, not for some invisible finger-wagger.

So yeh think meeting gods make men compliant. I'd like to say it's the opposite. Men have power over gods yeh wouldn't expect.

I think that the very concept of 'gods' is horseshit. Those who claim to be as such may be other than human and powerful, yes, but that does not make them divine.

Nature suffices unto herself.

Edited 2014-02-21 17:31 (UTC)

Nature ain't divine, then?

Only when we're feeling especially poetic, I think. Nature is nature. [He shrugs.]