We Can't Wait For Progress

[hextechhead]

WHO: Jayce Talis and you
WHAT: A variety of moments in the life of Jayce!
WHERE: Cadens and the Horizon
WHEN: All of August, will add more prompts later on in the month





Starters Below!

If you want a specific starter message waftingcurtains on plurk or go wildcard!

Comments

[blackeyedprince]

Kell's experience with those in power ... is spotty at best. He's still likely to assume good will more often than not, despite the long string of evidence to the contrary that he had personally witnessed. Somehow, he managed to hold to the conviction that bad rulers are an aberration. They are the ones who failed to live up to the ideal and expectations their high position carry. Even if he had met, on numerous occasions, many that never intended to try.

"Oh."

He'd like to say that Jayce was right to stand up to the Council... but he can't. Both, because himself just said so, and because - this time - he really was wrong. They were right, for all the wrong reasons, yet no less right. He was wrong for many very valid reasons. But wrong is wrong, and pushing it, doing it his way consequences be cursed, caused harm.

Kell's anger is not of the flashy, explosive one. His anger seethes and festers. It's able to fuel his darker instincts for long years. If it were him, he would have gone after that woman a lot more quietly, more deliberately, but hardly less ferociously. And there's no guarantee that innocent people wouldn't have been hurt in the process.

"That's probably not helping, but honestly, I doubt I'd have fared any better in your place."

And Rhy would be so mad at him, if he did anything like that.

[hextechhead]

Jayce is explaining because he does want it clear that he did the wrong thing. He was definitely pushed past the point of reason by Jinx's constant violence and her ability to use his technology to kill people. The hopelessness of losing Viktor combined with righteous anger and frustration at a system he'd believed in that turned out to be corrupt, it made a very bad stew. Mel told him he had to create weapons so they could defend themselves against it, and at the time, he would've never thought he could brandish a weapon let alone do anything like that.

"I've heard that from others too. I guess irrational emotions make fools out of a lot of us." Jayce is so pushed forward by emotions. He is the smartest person in his world, along with Viktor, but Viktor can be reasonable, and Jayce lets his heart guide him more than his head. And he learned a lesson about that.

"I think the lingering issue I'm dealing with is facing an ugly part of myself. You have to understand, I'd never been in a fight in my life really, I'd never responded with violence to anything." In that they may be different, but that's where a lot of the struggle stems from. To be a peaceful person at the core. A scientist who only builds, not destroys. "It turns out I have an anger problem that I wasn't aware of."

Kell saw his passionate plea to the Council all those years ago, and his restrained anger toward his mentor, but neither spoke of actual violence. Emotional, yes, but clear-headed, genuine, sincere. This was something else entirely. "I'm worried about how easy it was, if I'd do it again." Jayce is only worried because he does think that he will.

[blackeyedprince]

"I don't think emotions are the problem. I've met people almost devoid of them, and they're worse. Much worse." Cold, cruel, calculating, manipulative monsters. The only emotion they had was the joy of seeing others suffer.

"Everyone has a breaking point. It's never fun to learn you're not an exception to that."

Kell can only imagine how it must feel to see your own invention, the work of your hands, your source of pride, turned into the instrument of destruction. He never created a thing in his life. But he knows how it feels to be so angry you stop caring about holding back. To wish for the other to suffer as you have suffered.

"You say you've never been in a fight before that, and I've in far too many. I've knocked way too many teeth, and broken way too many bones in defence of my dear brother who just couldn't stay out of trouble. But I was never intentionally cruel. I never wanted to cause harm to people. Until that one day when I did."

Kell shivers at memory. It's chilling, even after so long, to remember the state he was in then. He'd love to say he wasn't himself, but no. He was very much himself. He used every skill, every talent, every drop of advantage he could to hunt down and exterminate those people. The very same people that Rhy has so graciously pardoned. Because Rhy gets to be gracious.

"It sucks to know you're capable of such things. I know I am. I wouldn't exactly call myself a good person, but I thought I was better than that. That I was above such things. Turned out I wasn't. But that's how it is."

"And I don't think you have anger problem." In fact, it's quite the opposite. Passionate, yes, but not angry. "I do think you have been pushed too far."

Maybe we can wind down on this one? Wrap on yours?

[hextechhead]

"Exactly. I couldn't see myself as cruel and violent and wanting to hurt anyone, but I did right then. I felt so righteous when I was fighting. It felt good. All I could feel was rage and something almost like relief." And that was such a strange thing to feel in that situation, but it's because Jayce finally let it all out. Everything he was holding inside, all his anger and frustration, all the tension and grief, he let it pour into his rage and out of him.

He looks at Kell and really does understand that the two of them were drawn to each other because of all the things they had in common, instead of all the things they did not. They were different in a lot of ways, but somehow the core of where they were at when coming here is the same.

"We made mistakes, but in a way, we both did it out of love." For Rhy and for Caitlyn. "That isn't an excuse, it just means we're people, and people are flawed." And they are trying not to do it again.

"I try to spend every day being better or being the person I want to be. It's not easy, but it does make the guilt easier to carry."

Yess, perfect spot to wrap it up

[blackeyedprince]

Personally, Kell doesn't think his good intentions mattered to the people he murdered in cold blood. But their intentions, the same intentions that made them almost kill his brother, mattered a lot to him. They were certain they're justified in their actions. They thought they were doing the right thing. The same way, he thought he was justified and doing the right thing when he hunted them down in retaliation.
In the end, neither of them were.

"I think that's a good strategy. Better than the one I was using for years, which is not think about it too hard... or even at all."

Kell has his doubts if being a better person, of the kind that Jayce, or his brother, are, is even in his reach. There's his own innate blood magic, and the stray bits of the black stone that he feels forever tainted him. It still makes sense to try. If trying might be just enough to stop him from doing something stupidly disastrous the next time, it's already worth it.