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]

[ 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. ]