Personal Entry
* V_ waits.
* Some was hoping the momentary interruption would have changed the subject [of Amy's origins].
* V_ knows better than that. He is patient, after all.
* Some sighs. "Amy is from a farm."
V_> ...
V_> A farm. *there's a pause as he visibly calms himself.* Something tells me that you aren't referring to a picturesque conglomeration of barns and cornfields from which she was stolen, are you?
* Some won't look at him. "No."
* V_ carefully puts the tea mug down before he shatters it like he did the glass the other night.* A human farm.
* Some nods.
* V_ resembles nothing more than a panther tensing to leap*
* Some shrinks in his seat.
V_> ...
* Some gets up, restless.
Some> I should go.
* V_ twitches to his feet at the sound and the movement*
Some> ...
V_> Perhaps you should. *doesn't add "for your own safety," though it's clearly implied by his posture*
Some> I didn't mean to upset you....
V_> Where ... are these farms? Underground? In the same kind of darkness?
Some> ... Near the city.
V_> *paces in a manner that seems more like the prowling of a caged tiger*
* Some gives him plenty of space.
V_> This entire Nexus is a conundrum, a multiplicity of morqal scales bordering on the chaotic. What seems normal for one, atrocities to another, lack of perspective, dizzying in its variety, vexatious vicissitude....
* V_ is apparently slipping into Thesaurus mode, rambling.*
* Some lingers, watching him. "Just... we're not monsters, please."
* V_ paces more, cloak whirling when he turns.* Why the ranching of sapient beings when you've plenty of hunting ground?
* Some puts the bar between him and the whirly cloak. "We're.... Societies always advance past the hunter-gatherer."
* V_ is clearly trying to reconcile this, his sense of outrage warring against the kind of cool, detached intelligence that would later have him blowing up albeit sparsely occupied buildings. Continues pacing.* Sapience... /Therein/ the difference lies....
Some> We're sapient too.
V_> But moreso than humans?
Some> No.
Some> We're just... higher on the foodchain.
* Some isn't mentioning that the farm-breds are largely delicacies.
* V_ 's hands curl and uncurl twitchily as he paces.* Is that enough to justify the ... farming of other beings that you know are as intelligent as you are? Trapped--/imprisoned/--living only to die?
Some> They... don't know anything else.
V_> Are you certain of that?
Some> There are regulations. There's the SPCH, and PETH....
V_> And waht are those, pray tell?
Some> Society for the Protection of Humans, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans. They have to be kept... *fails at translation* Dumb.
* V_ stops pacing for a moment, looks at Some, and /laughs./ It's not an entirely sane laugh.
* Some flinches. He's laughed like that. And he -knows- he's insane.
V_> My, it's all so compartmentalised, isn't it? Another facet of everyday life for Mr. and Mrs. Grue and their two and a half children and their pets and television lisences. How very like humans. It gives new meaning to the phrase 'you are what you eat,' doesn't it?
Some> Our culture doesn't change as fast.... we borrow a great deal from humans.
V_> And yet there are apparently enough of you who feel no compunction toward reducing them to animals when you've clearly no need to do so in order to survive. The hypocrisy is /boggling./
Some> We /can't eat anything else/.
V_> And yet you only just recently told me that your hunting grounds are nearly infinite. There is no need for such controlled situations, no need to /imprison/ a sapient being in what I can only assume is cramped squalor in conditions for which it /clearly/ was not designed.
Some> If we had to hunt for every single meal, nothing could get done! We'd still be living in our own squalor, and we would have no art, no music, no higher education...
V_> Nothing with which to convince yourself of your superiority!
Some> A culture cannot grow without agriculture. Look at your own history!
V_> Cows are not capable of learning speech. Sheep cannot exhibit creativity. Sapience is where the difference lies, here! I daresay the average Grue has no idea of the condition in which their meal lives.
V_> Or, rather, lived.
Some> Don't be so sure. You've met Kaa, I think, and I know there are humans who eat snakes.
V_> I daresay you'd be hard-pressed to find a human who would eat him, though.
Some> Well, no. He speaks your language.
Some> You don't speak mine.
V_> Thus, I am edible. *he resumes pacing, slower this time, visibly calming himself.* The age-old debate, just how far protoculture might extend. Primates are capable of communicating with humans. Yet great apes are not kept in small boxes, grown in solitary squalor.
Some> Neither are humans. We raise them in stables.
V_> Ah, and that makes all the difference. *Forgive him. He's British. Snark comes as easily as breathing.*
* Some curls up on the end of a couch, hands in his hair. "It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, how advanced, you are still our one and only food source."
Some> If great apes were all you could eat, what would you do?
V_> *stops, leaning against the bar, his posture contemplative.* I wouldn't keep them in stables, cages, cells, what have you. Even if a cell is all one knows, it isn't enough. The walls pull colour from the mind, silence deafens and sounds madden, dreams and reality blend until one cannot tell the difference and that inability to differentiate is terrifying. Even one who has never seen the sun still dreams of its warmth.
Some> You believe that?
V_> I know it.
Some> You might not keep them there, but do you honestly believe that's not what would happen? There's money in farming when there's only one food. Supply and demand.
V_> Of course there is. There always is. The rich few reap the reward gained from nothing more than well-explited opportunity, others growing thin so that they might grow fat.
Some> *softly* Farming only exploits those who would die anyway.
V_> You've thought this argument out well, haven't you?
Some> I've had to argue it a lot.
* Some rubs his nose. "Ichabod, you saw him. He was the first to learn about the farms. Broke my nose for it."
V_> *a soft, amused sound* I wouldn't have thought he had it in him.
Some> I offended him beyond bearing, apparently. *a sick sort of resigned*
V_> Why do you desire to become human?
Some> Because otherwise, the only thing I can do to earn the respect of Joe Average Stranger here is starve myself to death.
V_> Why do you wish to earn the respect of humans?
Some> Because I'm stuck in the body of one!
Some> It's either live a very lonely life, or live here, with the chattel.
V_> I see. *a short pause* There is a certain amount of ... pride hardwired into the human mind that bristles at the thought of being considered chattel. Bares its teeth and flashes its hostile colours. Nothing brings a human closer to the animal he is than being reminded of that fact.
Some> I know. Grues aren't much different. When I'm called a monster, I... become a bit of one.
V_> And there will inevtiably be those who do. As there will inevitably be those of your people who consider humans mere animals. It is ... to all appearances, irreconcilable.
Some> *deflating* Probably.
Some> I tried.... *vague gesture* When I first came here. Fell in love. I put myself in a fast state and lived without eating for almost two months.... But the insanity.
V_> Hmmm. And now?
Some> I'm still insane. I eat twice a day, the way I have to do, so I don't get worse.
Some> *musing* Missed dinner today.
V_> *chuckles* Beleive me when I tell you I'd make poor eating.
* Some waves it off. "I don't eat people I know unless I know it won't hurt them. Or they're Alec."
V_> Alec?
Some> Troven... He's a pest who used to come in here. He gave me permission to eat him once, and I did. He didn't come back for a week. *softly* I got a trophy.
V_> Did you?
* V_ sounds amused, now.*
Some> Mmm.
V_> Might I ask what it was?
Some> Trophy. Little gold cup, with handles. For a Great Public Service.
V_> ...
* V_ laughs again, the wholehearted enthusiastic guffawing of someone who's just beheld something massively funny.
* Some smiles nervously, sitting up a bit. He'd been about to disappear into the couch cushions, so this is an improvement. "You can guess how popular Alec is around these parts."
V_> Apparently.
Some> So you see I'm not useless.
V_> *sounding like a professor pointing out a detail that a student missed* Oh, now, I never said you were useless.
* Some shrugs. "I like to be useful, is all."
* V_ appears to be scrutinising Some from behind his mask, as though his eyes were capable of looking into his very mind.* Yes. I can see how you would...
* Some needs to be useful at an almost pathological level.
Some> Maybe I should wear a mask and be someone else
V_> Someone else.... What would you gain from it? *curious! Look at what a curious bunny he is.*
Some> I could be someone who no one knows eats people alive.
V_> I see. There is a freedom in anonymity, I'll not deny that.
Some> You'd know. *smiles*
V_> I do, indeed. *his posture and voice communicated far better than facial expression could, somehow more complete, until the sound of his voice and the way he held himself was capable of making a constant, frozen smile seem benign, malevolent, joyful, or pensive.*
Some> ............ I've tried a disguise. It lets me ask questions.
V_> Oh?
Some> About getting a soul.
V_> Ah, I see. *finds something to sit on now that he's not nearly as agitated. The tea is cold. Pleh.* And what kind of answers did you receive?
Some> Nothing useful.
V_> Hmmm.
V_> I wonder why it is that anyone who apparently has the power to make you an actual human wants a soul in payment.
Some> Because that's what the big bads always want, and the big goods aren't interested in helping.
V_> You would think they would be interested. Wouldn't that gain them another follower and demonstrate their magnanimity?
Some> I'm not in their juridiction.
V_> Can God create an object He cannot move? What is jurisdiction to a god?
* Some shrugs. "I've met God. One's an asshole, and the other's a teenager in therapy."
V_> ...
V_> *snerksporflesnicker....*
Some> And there's another one around somewhere... They're all useless.
V_> *chortles* If only their frothing followers could see them....
* Some hmms. "They don't have so many followers here... Maybe that's why they're so weak."
V_> A distinct possibility. It's been said that a god is only as strong as the amount of faith that is put in him.
Some> Hermes gets sick if no one pays attention to him for a while.
V_> ... I'm suddenly put to mind of a glowing, beautiful dog who is lying on the floor with his head on his paws and great, round, sad eyes staring up at you.
He's not a dog. *defensive*
V_> Oh, I know, that. It's simply a metaphor.
* Some nods.
V_> *muses* There are gods and daemons and everything inbetween here.... Men and monsters, and the age-old question remains, which is which?
Some> I'm not a monster, that's what I know.
V_> *nods*
Unconscionable.