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TEXT | BONUS XMAS MINGLE

[ The moment the clock strikes 12 midnight to usher in Christmas Day, a hoard of delivery drones will be activated throughout the base. They enter each Outsider's room or finds them where they might be and drops a gift off into their hands. Some Outsiders who have been gifted a paid subscription or virtual gift will receive this gift in their oculars instead.

Each gift was individually chosen. Please refer to this table to see what your character will receive! (If we have missed anyone, please contact us on the mod contact page.)

There's a brief note from Captain Yamakawa. ]

My Angels of LILITH,

I know we haven't made it easy on you during your stay here, but please know that we truly, genuinely appreciate your service and what you have done to protect our world from the impending threats. Please take this gift as a token of LILITH's appreciation.

Happy Holidays to you all. Let's hope for a peaceful and fruitful new year.

Sincerely,
Jun Yamakawa

[ Feel free to use this network post to chat about the gifts your characters received. Happy Holidays everyone!! ]

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[ Now here comes the point for ruining his only redeeming quality. ]

Why do you want to know? What good does the knowledge do you?

( he's supposed to be getting better at talking to these kinds of people... he's supposed to feel more for them, but it's hard to build a bridge with those who turn around and burn them.

it's not that bad, kaladin reassures himself in place of syl. )

It doesn't do me any good. It just seemed like the logical thing to ask. ( ... ) I think the first step to success here is knowing one's team. I'm twenty, which is apparently a couple of years older here. So, is she... my age? Lower?

Then ask questions about me.

[ Silco might be... Protective? No, that's not just it. It's a secret, he treats this like something not only precious, but like it is an avenue to get to him. As if even a weakness like this will end with it being taken away. Unfortunately? Enough people already know the truth that Silco just looks like he is being obtuse. ]

And pay no mind to people who are not here.

( this man... this man just makes him want to rrrrrrrrrrRRrrrRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH— )

Fine.

...

Do you like being a dad?

( selects the "being a big bitch" route )

[ Well you know what Kaladin? SAME???? he even looks it, with those narrowed eye and grimace. ]

Why exactly do you want to persist down this line of questioning?

[ He's so tired. ]

Give me one good reason that this will allow us to work together, and I'll consider answering.

One good reason?

Okay, how's this? You need the win because you're extremely unlikeable.

No!

[ He says, with a hand to his mouth. ]

Am I?

Yes, unfortunately. And the condition can be fatal if you don't ameliorate it by finding comrades you trust—and who trust you.

Be sarcastic, that's your right. But you realize it too, don't you?

Trust.

[ There's a sneer on his face. The look of a man who knows what trust looks like. What it can do to a man. His scarred lips curl into a sharp derisive look, revealing chipped teeth, and a face that is only half-able to move. The scar on the screen is easy to really, really look at, especially when Silco tipped his head toward the lens, to give him a look at it. ]

Do you know what trust has gotten me in the past, boy?

Trust is what leads to men being betrayed. Trust is how one ends up nearly dead with toxins chewing away at open wounds and leaving your body searing with pain while you fight for your life. Trust is knowing that everything you have ever done, the people you trusted, the people who had your back see you as nothing more than the refuse. Just another body to dump into the river. To wash away with the rest.

[ He hisses it out like a mantra, like something to remind himself. Silco is a man reborn from that betrayal, fighting against what he once was, to ensure he stays who he is now. ]

There is something more fatal than being seen as detestable.

[ Losing her in some way, of course. This isn't Kenos. This isn't... Nobody can... take her like he had once fretted and worried over. Yet, yet. What could they do? Too many people already knew, more could guess. It was written on his username, for those who cared to look. Once they realized, they all wanted to know. Why?

Of course they wanted to know why. They wanted to know what kind of child Silco would raise? Who could Silco love so dearly to protect even her existence? If an Outisder knew, what if more people learned. What if, what if, what if...? It winds and spirals, that old hurt. Others knew, some Silco could trust — Set, Tezca... maybe... Vergilius and he had spoken of their shared gemstones, their children — but others... Ereshkigal. Would she kill her to spite Silco, were she to show up? Was the necklace a tracker? Should he hide it? Should he toss it away? Should he — ]

I have no powers. I have a few knives, and a gun. Most here have powers beyond your wildest belief. There are gods and demons, and you wonder why I don't wish people to know that I have a child?

[ The thought of Sebastian knowing... that... that actually scares him. ]

( so, that's the reality of it. another product of poor treatment—silco, a victim who's chosen to stand at the dark precipice he, too, once looked down into. there's a sense of control in wanting to curse it all and take matters into your own hands, and he feels he knows this man better.

kaladin's brow knits beyond wavy strands of hair that partially obscure dark eyes. this is what moash, a man he once called his best friend, has become. it's what kaladin might've become if he'd never sworn to uphold radiant ideals. )

I'm sorry you were treated so poorly, ( he says quietly. ) And I think I understand. I know that doesn't mean anything coming from me now, but it must be said.

( if it felt safe to do so, kaladin would share his own story. perhaps that's exactly what silco is trying to say. trust is a gamble, and neither of them have earned the other's.

yet. )

If you don't want to talk about your child, of course, you don't have to. I won't push you. But I want you to know that I'd never hurt them or use them against you... and if they were to were to be taken here by LILITH, I would look out for them. You have my word on that.

Breaking promises... My power's been stripped from me before for doing so. I don't make them lightly.

You all always do this.

[ He says with a sneer, a dark turn to his tone. ] Apologize. I killed a god for that once, you know. For the insult of sympathy. I do not want it.

[ His lips curl into something sharp, and if he'd had fangs still, they would have shown. Instead it's just chipped teeth and lips that are warped by a scar. ] I thanked the man who did this. He betrayed me, but he made me what I am. Strong enough to do what we had to. Understanding of the way of the world. [ his voice lilts near the end, rising and falling in pitch, as if this is a secret. ]

I could have continued on. Nothing. Whiling my time away, treading water and hiding with the rest of them.

Instead, I survived. Instead, I became the monster that I had to. There was no other way, you see.

[ He shook his head. ] Do not show me pity. It was a lesson that I had to learn. It was the lesson that made me able to be here, amongst you today.

Why, if I hadn't, I'd been likely just another body dead on a bridge. As worthless as the rest of we Trenchers.

[ he promises to watch his Daughter, but Silco doesn't believe him. He can't. Having power stripped away? Who would do so? LILITH? They will prevent killing, and maiming, but he knows a truly smart, and powerful being, will be able to do so much more. They will not be so restrained.

He keeps the focus on him, intentionally. ]

( he watches an adult man devolve before his eyes on the wide screen of his implant. it goes beyond the tantrum of a child or the cornered response of a wounded animal—those comparisons are used too frequently by those who don't understand how to describe this behaviour.

kaladin does.

this isn't the sound a death knell makes. this is the righteous anger of the oppressed. it doesn't excuse silco's violence or any of the rest of the deplorable things he's done—no, but it informs all of it. )

If you want to kill me for having compassion, you're welcome to try. ( for once, there's no open challenge in his tone. he says it earnestly, as though it's a need of silco's he can meet. ) But you can't control me. I won't renege on anything I've said to you. You're misconstruing me to protect yourself... To be able to carry on, you celebrate the damage that's been done to you.

I get that. I understand survival.

( quiet for a moment, expression often troubled but more so now as his brow creases in frustration, kaladin shakes his head. )

I want to ask you something. I'm being genuine, ( he adds, keeping his voice level. it's already naturally low, smooth, and accented by language too foreign to compare to anything heard on earth or runeterra. )

Do you ever... find it difficult to carry on like this? Being angry at... everything. Everyone. Are you tired? Don't you ever want to stop?

Edited 2025-01-04 14:46 (UTC)

You aren't worth the effort of killing.

[ he says it, as if it's true. As if the implant would let him, and he is making the choice not to do it, instead of what it is: that Silco simply can't. Not here. He lacks the power and ability, the high of having everything he'd had in kenos had driven him a little bit mad, and made him fight all that harder for the one thing he'd secreted away.

He was used to fighting. It's all he knows. Even in the soft and quiet points, it's all he knows, is the fight. Is to keep fighting.

If he doesn't, what would happen? He knows. He knows what would happen.

But Kaladin asks a question he doesn't know the answer to, because — Well. He lowers his voice, and he asks with only... some judgement, and Silco understands because he is not fighting for the only thing that matters in any universe anymore. He is not so far-gone that he's lost his sense. Or rather, he had lost it, but... now... a part of him — he does not dwell on it — knows that what had happened there had been to his detriment. Pushing them all away, fighting even his allies tooth and nail. He doesn't like it, but he...

He answers honestly. ]

If I resigned my fight, I wouldn't be alive, boy.

[ Not his anger, his fight. He thinks they are one and the same. ]

I'm not tired of living, yet.

( there's a forking path branching from his feet, and kaladin lifts each of his boots in turn as though he can feel it physically beneath them. one direction looks frequently trodden and clear of obstacles, while the other is uneven and overgrown, and crossed with thick vines so tangled they've formed hanging gnarls.

his future lies at the end of one, but which?

"there is a simple path to freedom. you are my dearest friend, kal. i want you to stop hurting. i want you to be free," moash had told him, holding his shoulder. "the answer is to stop existing, kal. you've always known it, haven't you?"

he has known it. and how easy it'd be, how much less frightening. it's the least challenging option, but the one that'd result in his death. after fighting for what feels like so long, kaladin would like nothing more than to rest; however, silco hasn't stopped. he is an older man who is more visibly injured than kaladin, telling him that he's never stopped trying to survive despite the constant need to. his entire life is torn out from beneath the oppression of others with teeth and nails, yet that's worth it somehow.

"you aren't worth the effort of killing." )

Why? ( to him, his voice sounds far away.

why does silco have the strength when he doesn't? why are the scales tipped so heavily in favour of silco's willpower while his own feels so delicate? so tenuous?

what makes them so different? they aren't—they can't be. is it because silco has a child? kaladin has a family, too. he has bridge four, syl, shallan, adolin. he has a little brother. he has parents who love him, despite everything. is it because silco has a purpose? kaladin has a purpose, too. places and people to protect from a war they caused. the entire world is relying on him.

so, what is it? )

Why aren't you tired of it?

Edited 2025-01-04 21:43 (UTC)

Of persisting?

Because if I become tired of it, then they win. All of them.

[ i close my eyes here we go ]

The people who threw me in the mines when I was a boy, the people who used me for profit. The sacrifices we made would be for nothing if I just rolled over and died. They throw us around for profit, allow us to support them and their comfortable lifestyles, and then when we trenchers try to fight back, they kill us on the bridge, and force us to dump our bodies in the same river that we can't even drink.

They won't even breathe our air, boy. [ Hadn't, until — ]

Why would I give them the satisfaction of rolling over and dying. Giving up? Of letting them be right about my supposed worthlessness?

I will never let them win.

That's why I'm not tired of it.

[ Because of Spite. ]

( "they kill us on the bridge," silco seethes, and kaladin's eyes widen.

memories sever his ability to breathe. memories of people using him for profit, supporting them and their comfortable lifestyles. trying to fight back only to be forced onto the plains daily to die, carrying their bridge. memories of comrades fallen, their bodies pierced by arrows. old and young men, some only boys, like tien. memories of tien's cold corpse warmed in futility by his own. they string together in a chain whose links have locked tight around him, only growing longer each passing week. so many more than he can bear.

yet silco can bear a length of his own and, despite being weighed down by it, stand tall. it's his revenge to keep existing, an ever-present death rattle for anyone who would try to force him back to the mines, the bridge, the river. they're brandished as a weapon somehow, lifted and lashed at everyone who gets near.

by the time silco's through, kaladin's breaths have become short and noisy, suffering a mild panic. his eyes are wet without tears, glassy, and they remain wide, distant as though seeing into his past through the veil between roshar and earth. )

I want to... ( he trails off into silence.

then blinks. sucking in sharply, kaladin refuses his lung's further sips of air, refocusing on the conversation with a rapid search of silco's face. )

You told me you didn't have any powers, Silco. But being able to carry on... That is power. Everything else is a placebo. ( when his flash and fancy is stripped away, what's left of him? kaladin is a worn spear wielded in the dark. ) Flight, weapon summoning, using Stormlight... I can win a fight against a beast or a man with a bigger stick, but I've never been able to do what you do.

Hate as a compass... I've tried. I failed. I can't do it. I won't. I'm... ( scared. )

[ It's so typical. People that cannot imagine doing this. Can't imagine letting themselves fall further and further into the monster.

Maybe some of it, the fact that he admits that he can't reminds Silco too much of other people who couldn't maintain the hate. Who had looked at the monster they became, and turned away, because it was too much. Too scary and terrifying. Bestial. Silco looks at Kaladin's cowardice, and it reminds him of hands on his throat, the feeling of water rushing around his ears, and struggling to survive. He sees him for what he is. Someone to lash out at those he considers "lesser" and then hate himself afterward for the crime of lashing out. Regret it, and try to do "better" as if better rights the wrongs perpetrated.

Silco? Projecting his traumas onto other people? Say it isn't so. ]

I know it is.

[ He says it with sharp bite, with the confidence of a man who knows who he is. ]

I don't need powers to do everything that I have accomplished. I don't have them. I am not the smartest, the fastest, or the strongest. [ Never that. ] But I know what it is to be without. I take it where I can find it, and I refuse to allow anything to stand in my way. You understand that, don't you?

To carry on is transgressive. To thrive is an insult.

I will transgress against what is expected of me. [ A half-laugh. ] No matter what, it is still victory, even if I fail in the end. I've survived longer than most where I am from, and I intend to survive even longer.

[ h a h ]

( silco gives him an answer, but not the answer. in the end, it's just another way to survive, and kaladin feels disappointed that even the men claiming to know the best method to persist in a doomed universe are pretending.

perhaps it simply doesn't exist. )

But you're living for them. Surviving for them.

( hating them. spiting them. transgressing against and insulting them. )

What does it mean to live for yourself? How do you stop letting others define you?

That's what I've been searching for, I think. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll ever find it.

I do not live for them.

[ He spits out, fierce as anything. ]

I live despite them! Because if I did otherwise, I would let them win.

I am living for myself — [ Really, for someone else, but he will not share that. Kaladin has not earned the right. ]

You do it by finding what matters, boy. You do it by fighting for something for yourself. For me, it is a dream that I refuse to let die.

( silco's temper is volatile, kaladin thinks. watching him is a raw experience, like watching a wild animal. )

I don't want that. I want to move forward with my friends. (their lives are so bright that it's hard to look at them any longer. ) They've all become happy, and I'm grateful for that; they deserve that, but it's...

( painful. lonely. )

... What's your dream, Silco? If you took your hate for them away, what would be left?

For me and mine to have what should have been ours generations ago. For us to be out from under a boot that stifles our air, to no longer be dependent on runoff and scraps.

My dream is for our Nation of Zaun to be a reality.

I would have half the hate for them that I would have had — were they only to release their grip.

I would rather never think of them, than focus on how to survive despite them daily.

[ Silco says this, but we all know the truth. Without his dream, without his fight, he was nothing. Just a small man fighting a tide so violently he ruins everything in his path. ]

The Nation of Zaun.

( independence. a way to prosper without the great hand of silco's "betters" descending to steal what he makes. )

I don't understand. That's an honourable goal, Silco. Zaun should be a reality, and you've strove for that. Clearly, you have.

But... these people... these people have nothing to do with it. I don't understand why you hated that woman in the alley who couldn't have possibly earned your spite. And when you left me that... calling card. The one with your eye on it. What purpose did that serve?

Why does my interest in supporting others bother you so much?

Well, the first one is obvious. You interfered.

[ WITH WHAT? (his meal) He doesn't elaborate. Either he thinks he doesn't have to, or he is unwilling to share it via the network. No need to let LILITH know he did it. Though he does smile, and although there are no fangs, it still seems sharp. ]

The second, is because I wanted to see what you would do.

[ also weirdly innocuous, except ]

I wanted to know how fast you would pick it up, how fast you would respond, and if you would respond. Because knowing things about people like you is how I will account for you, should I have need.

[ Not for him, of course. But to avoid him. ]

Besides, in supporting others, I have learned, people become lax. Complacent. Look at the Kaiju. Instead of teaching them to fight for themselves, or motivating them to do it, they simply spend their time drinking, relaxing, playing as if the Kaiju do not touch their lives.

That is what your coddling does.

( he didn't expect silco to take the time to actually explain. it's a point in his favour, loath as he is to dole one out. there's a way to look at this that isn't weighed heavily to his own perspective; he must try to be fair.

then he insults the civilians again. )

You—

( taking a deep breath in, kaladin closes his eyes. )

Fine. Fine. Test me. Surveil me. Do whatever you feel you need to do to prove your point. Perhaps one day you'll realize that committing despicable acts in the name of a goal a universe away is an excuse, not a justification.

Maybe you say everything you say because it helps you sleep at night.

( but. with kaladin, there's always a but. )

But I can't let your last point stand without challenge. Humans can't simply survive; they must live, too. I'm including you and myself, as much as I hate to admit that I'm restless.

While our sole responsibility on Earth is to eliminate kaiju, theirs is split between protecting the sanity of their everyday lives and keeping this city going despite everything they've already been through. They exist in a world that seems to want them dead, and they have for a long time without our "help."

They're the heroes, Silco, who deserve to relax and have fun on the days they aren't fighting for their lives their own way. Don't you dare put them down for that just because you don't have the strength to.

Edited 2025-01-18 13:56 (UTC)

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zauneyete - 2025-01-19 05:50 (UTC) - Expand

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gyve - 2025-01-19 22:01 (UTC) - Expand

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TEXT | BONUS XMAS MINGLE

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🔒 private

🔒 agreed, private

🔒 aaaaall the way down

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1/2

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CW: SUICIDAL IDEATION, I'M SORRY

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ironic that next month silco is going to torch this, typical

TYPICALDKAJSNDJKNA

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THESE TWO