IC INBOX ( KENOS ).

[redsoil]

█ To Commune with Set is to stand barefoot in an endless, scorching desert. The sun illuminates all, scalding the shadows themselves out from underneath whomever enters his dominion; the arch of gentle, distant, waves of sand mask the precarious chasms, towering dunes akin to mountains. The sense of vastness, timelessness, is of particular notice, lending itself to the alien, eldritch quality of his mind. There is a dark storm in the distance, and you know intimately that this divine being is far from benign. You cannot bargain with a force of nature. You can only survive it. COMPATIBLE WITH: Exalt, Iconoclast REPELLED BY: Advocate

♠

Comments

[baltimores]

[ It is a baffled, angry silence that meets Set in return — nothing to combat the sounds of war and whatever it is Set takes from that, letting them fill up the field where desert and space meet. He is not bothered by them, unlike the brief barb at the idea of Amos sacrificing Lucien for the sake of Zenith, the shock of the very idea dispersing with a crisp impression of the fuck—

Because Set is a psycho, and everything he says keeps adding to the impression.

Amos regards his proclamation, and turns up his nose at it. ]

Don't get me wrong, I know I ain't shit most of the time, [ the words coming out in a drawl before getting more pointed, ] but at least I'm not the one declaring myself better than anyone else. Nobody who actually cares about anyone else does that.

[ Yes, Set can have his proclamations, and based on his last conversation with Ruby he understands that they might even be true in some circumstances, for some people. But when Amos reflects on the people he has followed throughout his life — Yima, yes, and Lydia, and the people in between — he knows that none of them would have pulled that shit. The fucking arrogance of it all...

... This is why he hates him. Amos continues to stand his ground, offering nothing to counter Set's asserted domain. In the end, all there will be is a void; in the end, that's all he'll have (blinded to the humanity he still possesses buried deep within him, too blanketed with sheer nothingness to be uncovered so soon). ]

You didn't deliver him to shit. You don't respect anyone other than yourself, because it's all about you. You act like you're above me, but I got no problems reaching you from where I'm standing.

[ Get the fuck back down in the mud with me already, you asshole. You're already here. ]

[redsoil]

[ As if to spite Amos, Set's mind seems to step up onto him. To use him as a platform to ascend and stand over the muck he so badly wants them both to wallow in; maybe Set is filthy, reprehensible, sociopathic and maybe, he truly does belong in those mired depths — but, he'll happily use Amos as a stepping stone just to ensure the man sees him as something elevated. Something that won't just be filth because he wants it.

It's like hostile edging. ] That's because you know yourself as nothing better, whereas I do. I am better than you, and I am infinitely more than you have concluded that I am — why else would anyone share genuine connections with me, if not?

[ He sneers, lip curling as he manifests once more. A flitting creature, a storm. Fickle and cocksure in a way that probably reads as madness to an atheist, but is only because he was born-made to be this way. Everything he is resides in his purity of confidence, or — at least, the facsimile of it. ( If he acts hard, brutal and laughs like he doesn't care, he won't be caught. Won't be revealed. ) ]

You keep telling yourself whatever you need to. Whatever makes you feel big enough and strong enough, Amos Burton. I truly do not care for whatever reality you had to build, to escape the last one.

I will not fight you over anyone. You just have to accept that I will also be part of their lives, the way that I accept you.

[baltimores]

[ Nobody who has stepped on him in the past — used him in order to get ahead in some fashion — is better than him. It's always been the contrary; a display of some of the worst humanity has to offer, occasionally disgusting, always unfounded. Amos doesn't react to Set treating him as a stepping stool in this mindscape but to raise his hackles and stay otherwise grounded — reacting to a threat that hasn't done anything to him yet, but holds the potential to make it worse. A defensive, defiant position.

Because Set is, indeed, insane; because divinity isn't real, some sick joke that Amos can't make heads nor tales of, and so assigns it to the mark of a madman. (He is blind to what it could be a cover for, both unwilling and unable to pry deeper.) ]

And this is what acceptance looks like to you, huh. [ Lording, arrogant— ] How long until you drive them away? How long until you ensure those genuine connections don't want you to be a part of their lives? Because I am in the real world — [ down here, accepting of his position, his standing in life — ] and that's what happens to people like you. Either you drive them away, or you get them killed. There's no in between. There never is.

If that's what you need in order to be better, then good luck with that.

[redsoil]

I am the real world. I live it, breathe it and know it.

[ Their incompatible views of the world will never allow them to cooperate, nor look upon one another with anything but naked hostility and loathing.

And if Amos thinks he belongs down in the dirt ( where Set ought to be, too, where he does exist but fights for betterment and strength all the same — ), then he cannot be unhappy when someone uses him as something to stand upon to get out of that darkness. Set will not let him protest how he is used and viewed, if he never wants to get out of that mire. ]

I chose the third option, by the way — to be myself, and to be desired because of it and to allow those I share relations with to decide with me what we are to one another. That is what drives you mad, in the end. That in spite of all your faith that you are right... you are the only one who feels that way.

[baltimores]

[ Thing is, Amos wants to be better, himself. Feels he isn't capable — deserving? — of it, but wants it. Part of that is helping others to be better, too. It's something he's dabbled in from time to time, and every time he's helped someone — pulled them out of a spate of darkness, helped put them on a path they appreciated — it's felt good, for both parties. In theory, he should have no problem with helping Set feel better about himself.

But Set is not someone who deserves that, and so, here they are — sweet words of self-assuredness raked along his being, reminding him of his capacity to be prey after all, furthering his desire to be predator. Caught in a standstill, in the midst of a paradox of sorts — desert has an end and space does not, his realm will win every time; Set is older than him and has significantly more to draw on.

So, he at least has a chance, he figures.

It just pisses him off that Set also has one. ]

I am right. [ It is also like talking to a brick wall. ] And I can wait until everyone else sees it, too. I got time.

Don't get blood on my fucking gun again.

[ And with that, he cuts the connection. Takes a breath once he's out of that heat — as though that was the only part of the exchange that had bothered him, and not the possibility that Set could be right, too. ]