nestingdevil | (no subject)

[ The tone is so different than what he is used to when speaking to Greed. He had thought that he would hear some sort of laughter and dismissive comment about what his threats. His head drops as he tries to make himself smaller, even though the Sin cannot see him. He makes soft whining noises like a beaten animal. Though, there is a part of him that knows that it won't work.

It won't work to make himself appear as pathetic as possible for sympathy. That is the way the he works to get out of trouble. Look at me. Look. Look how broken I am. Look at how incompetent I am. Look at my madness. I cannot be blamed. I CANNOT be blamed. Yaha sees enough of himself to be able to know that little piece of the reality that others see. The reality that he wraps himself in like a shield.

But the shield that Greed wears is one that knows these little truths and rebuffs them. Still, he makes his voice soft, his tone submissive and head remains low as he responds. ]

Stealing is not allowed. [ The elf repeats like a disobedient child who has been found trying to take cookies before dinner. ] I just ... I came to a thought... a little thought that I choked upon. Very few people will be able to keep me from tearing the flesh off others ... either out of anger or joy. It will happen.

I am just lucky that COMPASS torments people more than I could ever hope to torment. People forget what I do because we have a greater enemy, but ... maybe ... they will defeat them and then they shall descend upon me like wolves. [ ... ] I thought of my future and thought of how beautiful it would be to have my body scattered across the battlefiled... staining everything red.

It would prove to them that good does indeed triumph over evil. [ His tone changes then to a sardonic one. ] Not that you believe in such concepts. But I do. They do. They choke on them just as I choke on them. I did nothing, but something will be done. I can feel it building in the back of my head.

I work for you... and the fear and love and hate I have for you keeps me calm... but when you are not around, what will become of me? [ The whimpering dog reappears. ] I must find someone to be able to hold onto this madness. Hold onto it until the time comes when the wolves will eat my body. When the time is right. When they need that truth in their bloodied hands.

I will not make the battle easy for them... and they will be all the better for it. [ ... ] Well, what do you think of my beautiful plan?

[The truth of it is, Greed hadn't entirely meant it. The snarl - it had crept up on him like a bad omen. Like bad blood. Because he hasn't forgotten. A promise of a pay out that never came and the bastard just had to go and die with a smile on his face.]

[Wrath was a feeling he didn't experience much. It still isn't. But at even the threat of having something taken from him, instincts reacted. A bottle of acid sitting on the shelf, out of sight and out of mind. Until someone foolish enough came around and knocked it clear off.]

[Then splat, crash, sizzle: it's over.]

Eh- [Greed's voice is close, his sigh dramatic. His nails scritch at the base of his hairline and glass taps glass on the other side of the line. Chiming, like a crude bell, and there's a rush, a gurgle of liquid.] Don't get me wrong, friend. Just not the smartest thing you've said to me. Pretty stupid, actually.

[The bottle's sat down with a heavy thunk and Greed takes his time swirling ice in a glass, though even that's watered down with the heat. It rattles, swirling as he pitches his wrist counter-clockwise. Then clockwise. And back again.] As long as you don't try it, I don't care what you do. But don't play bullshit with me, Yaha - after all, I've been nothing with honest with you.

[Another slosh and teeth crunch loudly at ice. Splinters, shatters and cracks and Greed's smile is audible again. Charming with all the flare Hell had to offer.] Don't try to be the martyr - doesn't suit you.

[ He feels like his madness is clearing just a little. But it probably isn't. The fog that he thinks is lifting is actually putting him in another new area. One where he isn't sure he feels safe in -- the desire to want to bleed for others so that they can feel validated in their own sense of right and wrong. That which even the Empire could not do with a smile.

But ... ]

It doesn't suit me. I'm much better the aggressor than one who would lie down for anyone, right? [ ... ] I thought of what someone said to me. His name was Julian... he is now gone. He told me to forget about all the people who abandoned me and try to move on.

But how can you do that? How can you forget about your family, your race, your friends, your fathers? How can you hate them and leave those memories behind? What would you be left as? [ The elf lets out a soft sigh. He hates this mood. He would rather be drinking blood and laughing at how pale the person is rather than this. ]

I'm feeling sorry for myself and I'm not sure why.

Say... do you have someone that you want dead?

[If it had been video, there would have been an exaggerated frown. A raising of both eyebrows to make lines of his forehead. Instead, there's only silence. Quiet with the lick of liquor at a glass's edge. Greed runs his thumb up the rounded side, reclines forward on the receiving end.]

[His grin turns to something else. Letting part of his jaws open, as if what Yaha says hits a chord. The last strum of a girl's guitar.]

None of those matter much to me, or didn't you get that? [Fathers, race, family. But friends are a different matter - friends. Greed's not sure he still believes what he told Ling in his final moments and he licks his lips, draws in a breath. What comes next is an awful sort of laugh. Curdling in his throat, hissing through his teeth.] Don't mistake me for someone else, Yaha. I'm just not that kind of guy.

[Greed clicks his teeth shut and forces a smile. There are some things better left unsaid and this is one of them.] Choice - [The Sin states as his fingers unfurl from his glass with an audible series of clicks.] - it seems to me that's what you're really asking. Whether to leave it all behind or actually go after what you really want.

[But the homunculus isn't one for serious conversation. So he shrugs, tosses the glass up with a thud, and tosses both hands out on the other side of the line.] I think you know the answer to that - I'm just not interested.

Now who is lying? Of course, they matter to you... or else you would not care if they would be torn to pieces underneath my hand. [ The days when he felt sorry for himself really were the worst. He wants the fog to come back so he can no longer see himself, no longer catch a glimpse of the world which he sees around him. ]

... your choice would be that I go after what I really want. But we both know that it wouldn't make me happy.

[ A loud sigh. He shakes his head from side to side. ] One day, I hope you will make use of the violence inside of me.

[The glass spins. Grinding against the top of the desk as Greed scoffs. Laughs. Wide-mouthed and sharp-toothed; he slaps the broad-side with an open palm.] Don't mistake my avarice for something it isn't, Yaha. I just don't let anyone take what's mine.

[Greed pulls away, clacking both heels solidly to the floor. They could do this for hours: argue the rights and wrongs. The what and what-if(s). Whether he's good or bad or both. The Sin doesn't really give a damn either way.]

Maybe. Like I said before this whole thing happened - if you need to, I'm built a bit stronger than the rest. [The homunculus' voice is like vinegar to milk. Curdling the substance, making it thick.]

What you want - everyone wants something, Yaha. Whether or not that makes them happy? [Greed shrugs. This kind of conversation isn't for him and his eyes snapped shut.] I guess it's up to them, isn't it?

As you say.

[ So dismissive. Greed is just as difficult as he can be. ]

I want to be loved completely and obsessively. I want to be able to love the same and know that I will not destroy the person who I have targeted. [ ... ] But even if I adore and worship some of the men here, they are weak. They would not be capable of handling my madness. They would shatter under the pressure and ... the events which I try to keep for escalating will escalate. Blood will rain down upon the ground and stain my hands as I try to find a quiet place in my own head.

[For a while, Greed just listens. It's like the last will and testament of someone who lost their mind ages ago. Rambling, raving. The same as always: of blood and love. Of violence and some glorious kind of ending that just won't happen. Not the way he wants and the Sin taps his glass.]

Maybe not, but it's not like you're giving any a choice, are you? [The Sin bounces his heel, taps forward.] And the mortal lot may be weak, but sometimes they can surprise you.

[He leaves his ill-gotten liquor behind. Trailing away from a desk that would have served for a bar-top, to wander out. Into the hallway, where the usual quiet has been replaced with the humid-buzz of the mid-tropics. Greed flicks a match, pauses, then shakes it out.]

I guess you have to make a choice then, hmn? It's always better to take a deal, Yaha. Equivalent exchange - remember? Eh - [He can beat the horse all he wants, but in the end?]

[It'll still be dead.]

A deal with humans?

[ ... ] You really believe in them, don't you?

[The rustling of fur gives evidence of another shrug.] Some will surprise you, friend.

Ha - ! [Greed slaps his thigh, briefly.] You're starting to sound more like them - thinking they were so much better. Sure, built tougher, but it's not like it helped 'em any.

[He presses his lips together, narrows his eyes with a vibration in his throat.] You don't?

I have no faith in humanity as a whole.

[ He lets out a soft sigh. ]

I know there are some that are exemplary, but they are so few and far between. I lived through a rather awful war, Greed. I watched what humans could become at their worst. And when it was over, when the land and society was revived, they acted like it didn't happen. They acted like they had no choice and that... that is just the way things were and held no remorse in their hearts.

They were worse than what I am.

Sure, they make their mistakes - but haven't you?

[Maybe it's his age, maybe it's the fact that he's seen wars, too. But they had been calculated in advance. Pawn after pawn pushed forward to make for calamity. He had been part of it once - the grand plan. And after a century or so, it had just grown stale.]

That's the one thing you have in common - what's right, what's wrong. You're so quick to get righteous, Yaha. Ever think for a second that that may be your problem?

[The Sin moves two clicks forward, one heel back. From the recording, there's crickets. Birds. Creatures rustling in the thick of it. As if they're just as lost, just as clueless, as it what to do next.] Of course, the mortal lot are - it's not like they have a lot of time. What do you expect? Eh- [The Sin sighs. Full of dramatics and it's all-too-clear the rolling of the eyes.] - it's not like they're about to change, but they aren't all so bad, y'know.

[ The elf makes a soft, huffing noise. The offense he felt obvious. ]

How is that my problem? Humans force us to live in their worlds and live by their laws. Yet if we turn the same eye upon them, they act otherwise.

[ There is scurrying in the background. His children giggling as they go. He pauses to turn towards them before sighing soft. The worry he has for them tears at his heart. Poor mad darlings. ]

No. There are some worth keeping. But only some. The rest should be flayed and fed to those far sweeter and kinder than they could ever hope to be.

Who ever said we had to?

[His tone is dry, his pitch low. It's as if he's speaking with a lazy-haze, one similar to someone just woken up from a particularly-long nap. Yaha's dauntless in his efforts, venomous when struck, and Greed shuts one eye on the other side of the feed. Had it been a video, there would have been one long cock-slanted smile. A knowing sort of gesture, as if he had heard the rant before in the two-centuries he has under his belt.]

[As it stands, it's just mild silence on the western front.] Most won't understand - as much as they may say otherwise. The mortal-lot likes what's at the surface. They don't really want to know what the underworld has in store, what's really going on until it's too late. But that's not their fault and you certainly can't blame 'em.

And who am I to judge? [A match sparks, spitting fire on the feed as a rush of air meets for an ignition point.] Seems to me you're already set on that idea, but I'll tell you this, Yaha:

I've always been a bit of a fan of the underdog.

Your faith in them is admirable.

[ The elf breathes in and out a few times. He pushes back his hair as he finds his calm. All that venom has nowhere to go. Swallowing thickly, he finds the red flickering just outside his vision fading until everything is as it should be. ]

I do wonder if one has the capability of saving me. But you would rather we save ourselves, right?

[The bottle grinds against the surface of wood until it's plucked up between his knuckles. Greed clacks his nails against the side of the neck, grinding the tips in as he listens.]

Save yourselves? No, not really. Like I just said: I'm always a fan of the underdog, Yaha.

What is it you really want from me here?

I wish for you to make the decision for me.

[ Then he won't have to take responsibility for himself. ]

(no subject)

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