Day 64, Public Channel

[whattaprick]

[ After the Ringmaster's finished kicking everyone out and the tent arrangements are more or less settled... ]

So, I'm up. [ Short and to the point. ] Heard people were yelling at my nightrunners. You wanna yell about it some more, you can come yell at me.

[ That's it, that's the post. ]

Comments

[whattaprick]

Save it for the fae.

[dorkypantsuit]

Like you did?

[whattaprick]

Exactly.

[dorkypantsuit]

Fortunately for you, I have some sense of moral decency.

[whattaprick]

Lucky me.

[dorkypantsuit]

Lucky you, unlucky everyone else.

[whattaprick]

Why should they be worried? You're here to protect them, right?

[dorkypantsuit]

Unfortunately not for the people who serve under you.

[whattaprick]

If you're that worried, you can always check in.

That's what you're good at, right?

[dorkypantsuit]

...It might help the people under you to talk about how torturing someone felt.

But probably not as much as not having to do it in the first place.

It certainly doesn't help the victim.

[whattaprick]

Did you try talking about feelings to the vampires too?

Bet they must have loved that.

[dorkypantsuit]

[He laughs.]

No, not with them. With some other people afterwards, yes. Some of whom had been turned into vampires.

[whattaprick]

Wouldn't have an afterwards if the carnival didn't cut them down.

I killed for the carnival when I barely knew it. I'd do a lot worse than that now. [ A pause, and he relents, grudgingly: ] ... But only if I think I have to.

[ Yeah, yeah, no more wholesale fae torture. The Courts are different, he gets that. ]

[dorkypantsuit]

Killing in self-defense is much different than torture.

[whattaprick]

We needed to know more about our enemies. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not much of a diplomat.

[dorkypantsuit]

If you cannot do the job you should not hold the position.

[whattaprick]

I've been doing my job. My job is I fight whatever the Ringmaster points me at with everything I've got, and to tell the people working with me to do the same. Unless she tells me not to.

[ That's it. That's the job. ]

[dorkypantsuit]

So then your skills as a diplomat are irrelevant.

[Which is sort of the point Psi was trying to make.]

You had no reason to torture the fae.

[whattaprick]

Fighting's about more than just reacting. It's about stopping it, too.

The Ringmaster's been in a fight with the fae since before we ever signed up for the Carnival. They just forgot about it. If we want them to stop kidnapping our people, we have to think about more than just the next fight, the next time we have to take our people back because they got taken. They know we'll come after them every time.

If we want to end it, anyone who gives a shit about this place needs to do better.

[ Whatever it takes. ]

[dorkypantsuit]

You're right.

I only think torture does not count as 'better.'

[whattaprick]

Then help figure something else out.

[dorkypantsuit]

Isn't chasing down these weapons enough?

[whattaprick]

There's still the question of what we do with them when we get them, right?

[dorkypantsuit]

Typically the point in having a weapon is to use it.