8th Wave

[tentacruelest]

Th' next time this Barge feels like poking around in my head, I'll be keeping to my quarters. The lot of yeh - useless dregs not fit to scrub a floor. It's bad enough I'm locked in here with you, I don't need to call any of yeh friends.

[Private to Bush]

Was dealing with me yerself so difficult that you sought to work through less offensive channels, Captain?

[Private to Arthas]

A word, my king.

[Can you feel that heavy sarcasm, Arthas?]

Comments

[godsays]

Yes. You think it's inevitable.

No. No. You look at me. You look at how I found family even on a Barge where cruelty is what's supposed to happen.

[tentacruelest]

It is inevitable!

And what is a family but yet another vessel for cruelty in and of itself? Show yourself to me, Zane; I'll teach you where family will land you!

[godsays]

You challenge me. A man who's made it known that he doesn't kill, and if he does it's as painless as possible - on a Barge where death never lasts.

Please. It's cowardice that your only way out is violence. That you can't accept the slight to your ego that words get you.

[tentacruelest]

You kill. You kill when pressed for it. Call me a coward to my face, or suffer hypocrisy.

[godsays]

Back down. This doesn't end well for you. Taking the blow to your ego now is braver than forcing it.

[tentacruelest]

This is not about ego. This is about freedom.

[godsays]

You're not free. And even if this jail was gone, the one you've built for yourself would be as unbroken as ever.

[tentacruelest]

No, I am not free. And I haven't been free in decades. This is only one instance of a never-ending line of humiliation.

You keep your unfounded opinions to yerself.

[godsays]

If you stop threatening my family, and threatening me, I will leave you alone.

You do this, and I won't.

[tentacruelest]

To keep up your pestering will be your undoing, boy.

[godsays]

To follow through on your threats would be yours.

[tentacruelest]

They are not threats. They are promises. Prophecies of pain to come.

[godsays]

Why don't you find someone who wants to fight with you?

[tentacruelest]

From your lip, I took that to be you.

[godsays]

I wanted you to leave her alone.

[tentacruelest]

And I wanted to go throughout this day unmolested.

private

[godsays]

Remember what you said, once, about men being unable to endure pain?

[He pulls aside his tunic, and shows the end of the metal spike, embedded.]

It goes through my heart.

I feel it. I feel my heart beating around it.

private

[tentacruelest]

[Jones is fully unimpressed by this. Giving a snort, he pulls back his seaman's coat and his torn, soaked undershirt to a hideous wound in his chest; a butchered job by a knife]

I ripped my heart out when I was not much older than you.

Private

[shakenandlimp]

Zane, lad, please. Reminding him he is powerless won't be what causes him to back down. It will only make his bluster turn real.

Please, Zane, I don't want you harmed and he will regret, someday, that he did it.

Private

[godsays]

First, I think Iris is more worth your time than me.

Second, I wasn't just doing this to try to stop him. I want him to fight me, if anyone, because he won't have to regret that in the future. Fighting is something I do very well, and if I get hurt, I won't be any more angry at him than I am from him saying those things.

And finally: I won't stop telling him he's an idiot just because he doesn't like it.

Re: Private

[shakenandlimp]

I am glad you think so because it's her I contacted first.

Secondly, it is my business that he learns to do anything other than be cruel. And I don't know how, Zane. I am sorry to put some of the burden on you, I know it ain't fair, but he is an inmate and it's to wardens not to rise to him as long as all he has is words.

Tell him he is a fool, but not that he is weak. I made him weak, was me asked the admiral to take much of his strength away.

Re: Private

[godsays]

...good.

But he shouldn't have threatened my family.

Private

[shakenandlimp]

No. But he hates, proper hates that no-one is afraid.

I will try to distract him. We could all use that.

I've seen you speak to him before. Lord, I have been grateful most times, you have been so sensible. But I've got to try to be his warden. To keep him from murder, and murder from him. I'll own I ain't good at it, but I've got to try.

Private

[godsays]

You know I'll try not to kill him, if he does come after me.

Re: Private

[shakenandlimp]

I'd prefer neither of you get hurt-!