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I'd much rather hang out with all kinds of people than fight monsters I can't even talk to. After all, there is nothing more complex and interesting than "people" in this world.
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breathes in
he has to go back to jinx ]
Imagine two cities. One is in the remains of a bomb, the earth cracked, spanning downward. Natural resources are revealed, but mining and industry pollute the air, the earth, the water. The people mine it, they dig deeper. Trenchers, they are called. Fissure folk. They do not own the mines, they do not even own the land their own city is built on. Some from this city, when the bomb hit, moved to the island on the other side of the river. Two islands, linked by bridge. Isolated from anyone and anything else, except by boat.
The city on the island thrives. Calls itself progress. They were the wealthy of this Osha Va'Zaun, but as they looked over the remains of their past, they called themselves Piltover. They owned all of the land, so the rich lands on the other side of the river was Piltover as well, but they called it the Undercity instead. They mined, they built, for generations all that Piltover, the city of Progress could call their own, came from the undercity.
Do you know what happens, when the industry and mining seep into the ground? When it pools in the water? When they pump waste and dust and filth into the air? It becomes hostile. It becomes toxic. These trenchers, they are sick. Poor. Their only worth is to mine and work, toiling day in and day out, for the people who keep them stuck in the mire on the other side of the river.
They take our raw materials, they use them for their own inventions, and they call it... "progress". They use our bodies, our labor, and our pleasure houses, and then return to their families and full bellies, all the while calling us lesser.
They keep a council, to manage laws, and determine the fate of two separate cities. They do not give us a seat at that table. We tried, Hugo. I tried, when I was your age. The end result of that attempt, you felt once, as well. I was drowned in the river, and mutilated for the attempt.
And the head of that council? Who has all of the power?
That is Mel Medarda.
She is the one who turned her face away, ignored us. Pretended that we were merely unruly criminals, and allowed deals to happen, as long as the city she considered hers was quiet and crime free. What did it matter if the trenchers starved? We were only criminals, after all. They have never had a care for us. And yes, in my desperation, I became that which now frightens them. You know what it is, to have to become the monster they always saw you as.
I did that. We did that. Because what other choice did we have?
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But as always seems to be the case, Silco’s words are more compelling than that. It’s impressive, honestly. Silco has a talent for telling a story that’s almost frightening. Hugo can see the dangerous sort of man that he is, and he’s almost glad that Silco is a nasty fellow, as he and Mel had put it. If he had enough charisma to play nice, well…
The thought drifts away as he’s drawn into the story, and his brow furrows further as he reads. The geography may be different, but the human misery here… That’s familiar. He does know what happens when wealth and industry stake their claim no matter the human cost. How many neighborhoods have been swallowed up and then TOPS sends in people like vultures to pick at the remains? How many poor live on the edge of a Hollow and pray that it doesn’t expand, since it’s just the easiest way to go mine the valuable materials inside them?
He's seen the human cost more than he thinks Silco expects of him. Ever since he’d started venturing into the Hollows himself, he saw death. Just about every excursion meant a corpse. A lost miner, a Hollow Raider that ran out of anti-Corruption medicine. They were luckier. It was just as frequent to find someone with Ether crystals jutting out of their skin as they took their last breaths. Hugo always stayed to hold their hand. No one should have to die alone. Or he saw the last look of humanity in their eyes before they became an Ethereal. A quick death is kind.
Naturally, he applies this story to what he knows. It’s easy to map. It’s almost one-to-one, which unsettles Hugo just a little every time. Silco and his world are such a dark mirror of his own that… ]
I know you won’t accept it, because I certainly wouldn’t either if our situations were reversed, but. I’ll say it anyways. [ because he’s the one that went to therapy ] You have my sympathies, Silco. I’m sorry that the more diplomatic plan didn’t work out. And that it was as much of a betrayal as my first failure, if I understood those feelings correctly.
[ Silco might not accept it, but he still wants to say it. There’s something to be mourned there, both personally and for the goals themselves. And, yet. ]
I understand her position. Your council would be called TOPS in my world, but it holds the same cruel disregard for everything but profit. It’s the sort my birth family held. It’s what I was raised to be until I saw it for the evil it was and threw it all away.
[ And, honestly? He has to wonder if she would have wanted to as well, considering their first conversation and what he’s learning simultaneously. He doesn’t think Silco would respect the sheer brutality that exists even for those in power, and he can’t blame him. What would their personal hells mean in the face of countless people who die just to extract metal from an abyss? ]
Can I ask, then. What do you intend to do about her now? Here, where she doesn’t have her council? Do you feel the same way?
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[ An eye closes. He doesn't get into it. Again. How many times has he already said to others, how sympathy, kindness, these are all impulses to make the other person feel better. "Sorry" is a balm that fades within minutes. He wants change. He wants something different.
Sorry is what topsiders say when they drift down to the undercity, before they go back to warm homes and full bellies.
Silco doesn't want it, because it isn't anything. This is where they differ, his own personal dark abyss the thing that swallows him. It already did, and now it's spit him out like he's a sharp barb ready to latch onto the world and make it all suffer for what it did. ]
I do not trust her, but she is a capable speaker. A politician holds some measure of influence, even in a foreign land, as I am sure that you have picked up on.
She also feels "guilt". What measure, and how genuine it is, remains to be seen. She looked away for over a decade, until something happened that forced her to confront our existence.
[ His daughter. His perfect, brave, violent daughter. She would take up the mantle, she would do it. She was his daughter. She'd blown them up. She used the weapon.
He's so, incredibly proud.
He wants to hold her, and tell her she did good.
He has to go back. ]
This is a careful structure. I intend to use her. Just as she, I am sure, intends to use me. Perhaps, eventually, we will see who wins out, when she inevitably betrays me.
[ Interestingly, he does not say himself. Silco will hold to his deals. The letter of it. He will worm his way around, but he will hold to it ]
here it comes jill
Though he feels very much caught in the middle between them now. That’s the consequence for speaking up, but it’s not like he would have known it came with this much baggage. Somehow, talking with both of them feels like looking at his own life if he’d made a different choice along the way. If he’d given into his rage, he’d be Silco. If he’d stayed with Lycaon, he would be Mel. But destiny took him somewhere different.
A revolutionary, a politician, and a thief. What a combination. ]
I have.
[ Picked up on it, he means, but he keeps his additional commentary to himself. He could say the same for you, Silco. ]
I will say, the guilt may be genuine. It is possible for people to learn and change their minds, but I’m also speaking from personal experience. Sometimes it takes a shock to break our gilded cages. But I’m not advising forgiveness. [ He doesn’t think Silco would, but. ] Also speaking from personal experience, if guilt isn’t turned into action, then it doesn’t mean much.
But I understand. It’s sensible. And with that understanding now… I am sorry about revealing the connection. I didn’t understand that it was especially fraught.
So, may I ask now who else here is from your world? Since it’s more complicated than I realized, I do believe it’s good to know. Just names would be fine, since I can just take it that things are complicated and be more cautious.
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I wanted to scare them into recognizing what they were doing. Make it so obvious they couldn't look away anymore. When I am gone, all of that careful control...
[ It was gone.
The weapon was truly magnificent. Truly something to marvel at. ]
Currently, there are three, including Medarda. Jayce Talis and Viktor are also present. Brilliant minds, but they will always be focused on their work. Talis is the more dangerous of the two, he had delusions of fame.
[ Silco who will never experience s2 of arcane like: Viktor is the one you can ignore ]
One other recently disappeared. [ As if he hasn't been keeping tabs. Watching. Of course he has. ] And we are all fortunate that Vander is no longer here.
[ biased... ]
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However, as he mulls over a reply for that, he’s pleased to see that Silco actually tells him this time. Thank god, since he doesn’t want to— ]
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. . .
Did he read that right? Vander? Vander, as in the guy he had a fling with? No, surely not. Surely there’s someone who just has the same name. That happens not infrequently!
…He’s never even heard of another person named Vander in his life.
Pardon his language (even in his own internal dialogue), but how the fuck does he keep stepping on every landmine having to do with Silco?! ]
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[ He could just gloss over Vander. He should just gloss over Vander, considering. He’s no longer here, after all (though that’s disappointing to learn), but. With how Silco phrased it, he really has to ask. Just how big of a landmine was this, anyways? ]
Was Vander another council member?
[ He knows damn well that he wasn’t, but this is absolutely, unapologetically a leading question. ]
1/2
How funny. ]
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[ hey silco, Season 2 called — ]
No, nothing like that.
Let's just say that at one time, he taught me a very important lesson. The worthlessness of trust.
1/2
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On one hand, if what he’s reading between the lines here is anything close to accurate, he knows Silco is going to be unhappy. He’s already unhappy with him, so this little detail feels like it has a chance that it could turn things, volatile as Silco is. He gets the impression from the man that “it was a one time thing” does not change his opinion.
But on the other hand.
Silco has made it crystal clear that he hates being lied to. He might claim to not value loyalty, but doesn’t he, in a way? It’s why he had so quickly come to speak to him about the imprints privately. Breaking even the slightest of trust or putting up something deceptive was something he responded to rather disproportionately, in Hugo’s opinion.
So, the question is how confident is he that he could keep it a secret essentially forever?
…Considering those brands in their faces a few months ago, he wouldn’t make that bet, actually. ]
Vander and I were acquainted. I had no idea you were from the same place, though. Or that you two knew each other.
I’m only telling you this to avoid any potential misconceptions, to be clear. I’d rather you potentially be upset with me rather than think that I was keeping something from you.
It was only once, and exceedingly casual at that, but I knew him intimately.
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And then there's acquainted.
And Hugo makes it very clear that it's the latter.
Now see, the calculus here pays off. Because Silco is still thrumming with violence, and hate, and anger. Because there is someone who is the source of a great deal of his own problems (and it isn't Jinx) and it's one person. And there's a longer pause.
One would think he might be... doing something. Violence. A tantrum. Being angry.
He smokes a cigar. He drinks. This is a different kind of anger than that explosive, violent thing that worms its way through him, that holds fear as it's motivator. There is nothing to lose here. What was there to lose? He'd killed the man, but it had been so long ago now, that he knew that he was worthless to Vander. Little more than the garbage and detritus that built their walls and lined their streets. He already knew that.
It's a tired, old anger. The one that leaves him maudlin when he's desperate, and keeps him up at night, because it had only reinforced the cold, painful truths that he'd spent his entire life fighting. The only thing he wanted was for him to hurt. Over, and over, and over again. To suffer for that crime. For deciding that it was he who should be discarded, for making deals with the people that patrolled their streets and forced them in line, and for seeing him as a worthy sacrifice for... nothing. For absolutely nothing. Because he was scared.
Even in his fear, even in his fear of losing Jinx, he would have never made that deal. He would have fought.
So can he say he's angry at Hugo? Why would he be? He doesn't care, beyond the fact that the man did what he always did, which was bludgeon his way through interactions and expect it all to fall into line. (This was, of course, Silco being extremely uncharitable.) No. He... didn't care, because why would he? He was angry, because that was the only emotion he felt when he considered the man.
Once, he'd drank underneath his statue. A moment of weakness.
In the only moment when maybe he understood some of it... in a panic, when there was nothing left... When he could have had everything for his entire world... Even then, he hated him. A spark of understanding stacked against the inferno that was every single crime he'd ever committed. A drop in the bucket. ]
Then you are fortunate that it was once.
He had a habit of breaking things.
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…He does not get the response that he expects.
Is Silco making the implication he thinks he is? Hugo actually laughs, because it’s so unexpected. A moment ago, he’d been glad that this revelation was coming out through texts, but now he dearly wishes he could see Silco’s face so he could know if this was a joke or not as well as to judge if this was said through clenched, angry teeth. ]
I see. Should I take that to mean that you were also intimately acquainted once?
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Lies come so easily, these days. He had already favored them.
He doesn't answer directly. He doesn't have to. Hugo already knows. He doesn't intend to make it any clearer than that, but he will tell him who it was that he'd been... intimate with. ]
We were closer than brothers, once.
We worked together, in the mines, and for Zaun. Until the moment he lost his mettle, and I became inconvenient, because I knew we could not simply continue to accept this.
He's the one that gave me my eye. He's the one that tried to drown me. A pity it failed, as it cost him with interest, in the end.
In a way, you experienced that too, recently.
1/2 again but also it’s the same
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Closer than brothers. Being abandoned when it was too inconvenient.
He sighs to himself, because he does understand, or he thinks he does. When you were that close, even if it was years and years ago, the sense of attachment only fades, never disappears. Even if all you feel is something bitter and negative. ]
I’m sorry, then. I would have stayed away if I knew.
[ It’s a genuine apology, and that’s rarer from Hugo than he’d like people to know. ]
I had a partner like that once too. Our parting may not have been as violent, but it was over a similar difference of ideals.
So, I know that betrayal. It’s unique.
1/2
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He did that, you know. When I ran, he used the opportunity to take power over something we'd once built together, and turn it into a shining beacon of hope for the undercity. Of course, it was a false thing. A promise of something better, but what it was, was nothing. Still lean times, still barely making by.
[ That is what he hates Vander for. That after the enforcers shot them, killed some of them, tried to arrest Benzo and when all he'd done was try to Stop it, Vander had turned around and made a deal with them.
He always wondered how the enforcer who took control of them — Grayson — how she'd risen to power. Was she there, on the day of ash?
Did she shoot a gun at them? Was she the one that hit him with the butt of her rifle in the eye? He never would know. He could have asked Marcus, but... in the end, did it matter? ]
I killed him, you know.
Imagine my surprise when he came back from the dead.
[ Silco you are ALSO dead. ]
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…But it never went away. That kind of feeling never completely fades.
Hugo’s instinct is to offer sympathy for Silco, but he doesn’t. Similar as they are and with shockingly similar stories, he’s realized that he does have more empathy than the other man. Silco recoils from it so much that he’ll just keep it to himself. ]
Lycaon did, yes.
[ He might as well give his name. With the similarity of their stories, it feels like Silco should know it. ]
He was the one that ran, but unlike you, it’s because he was a coward. He ran into the “safe” arms of working for the very people that we once stole from. Bowing his head with polite words and serving them as a butler. He chose to be their dog.
[ Even in text, the disdain is obvious.
and silco feels something wrong in the ether at the word “butler” how weird]All to say. I understand why you would kill him.
[ Would Hugo? …No. He knows he couldn’t. But the pain of that betrayal was enough that he can understand why others would without question. ]
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[ look at all these dog metaphors jesus ]
They were both cowards, in the end. They cling to their little lies and the promise of comfort, safety, and keeping things level, that they sacrifice any possibility of change. They accept the unacceptable out of fear.
[ Silco you have never met Lycoan. But he feels something there. The tenuous string, that thrumming that feels so much like anger, wrong, something through the line, that he thinks he understands Hugo a little better.
Perhaps he had less to fear. This Lycoan had never tried to kill him. Had never seen him in the end, after all that loss, and decided that one more trencher was all it would take to fix the problem. Silence the radical voice speaking out. To make him quiet, was to make them all quiet. They would obey, because the two of them had built the lanes together, but what was it, if Silco had also died from the Enforcers' weapons?
An easy lie. Simple. Made complicated by the fact that he'd escaped.
Hugo was the same, but he was different. He didn't keep himself away, but mingled with people like it was an easy, natural task. Silco withdrew. The boy clearly had no issues with being around others, whereas Silco kept himself held back. Hugo wanted connection. Silco forced himself to not. ]
It is interesting, isn't it? That these tales always seem to echo. Across the span of a universe.
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Ha. How did you know that it’s been on my mind lately~?
[ That response is immediate once Silco points out how interesting it is what they share. Hugo does wonder if it unsettles Silco as much as it does him, but he also imagines not. It’s probably just a curiosity, because Hugo is the one that feels like the more he learns about Silco and his life, the more it seems like he’s peering into an alternate path of his own life.
Whether it’s better or worse, he can’t say, but it’s darker. Not because of the difference in their worlds, even, but because Silco had taken the harsher, more brutal path that Hugo had refused to. Is this what he would have been if he hadn’t met Jack?
…He thinks so, yes. ]
Lycaon and I’s paths were beginning to cross again before I came here, actually. I stole something important, and it was something that his dear master desperately wanted. Just a little gem, but I know what it’s capable of. That power shouldn’t be in the hands of anyone, frankly. But especially not the people who coveted it.
So, perhaps killing Lycaon was in my future. Perhaps we were walking down a parallel path to you and Vander.
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Or will it never be changed? How can it sit like this, into perpetuity? Does nobody else see it? Is there really nobody else with the mettle to change it? ]
Perhaps you were. Is it so surprising? That men like them, who focus on respectability, and on accommodating would be in our way?
Would you do it, in the end? Kill him? If you had to?
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...So, in this case? I would, yes. I wouldn't take any pleasure in it, since he's a good man, but I would do it if I had to.
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Truly a "good man"?
[ He thinks the opposite, of Vander. ]
Or have you convinced yourself of that?
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