video; un: leavegodalone

[necrolord]

Is this thing on?

[ The camera opens on a man, but there is something horribly inhuman about his eyes: they are black from edge to edge, the iris burning with a ring of white light. He is flanked by two skeletons which stand at attention, each with a speck of glowing red in their shadowed eye sockets. ]

Been a while since I had to do this. Hey, hello, kia ora. You face the King Undying, the Necrolord Prime.

[ He claps his hands together. There is something wrong with them: the whites of his metacarpals are exposed, flesh crumbled away like so much ash. ]

But let's not stand on formality, right? I hear we're on a first-name basis, now. So: I'm Emperor John Gaius, creator of the Nine Houses, and also God. Not locally, mind, [ and he gestures vaguely upwards, ] here it's a more crowded playing field. I'll admit, it's been an adjustment. I tried to get a peek at my usual domain... turns out Mariana doesn't like to share.

Now, I get that I've made a few mistakes. [ He says this like funny understatement, hands splayed. It shows the bare red tendons in his palms. ] Let's clear up some misconceptions.

[ He stands accused of baby-killing, human sacrifice, and the destruction of whole planets. He riled Mariana into a deadly storm. But what he says, with all the gravity of a king, is: ]

My wife is that hot.

[ Fantastic. Amazing start. He leans in to regard the camera. ]

Look, I get it: I haven't made myself popular. I'll get a lot of kids at my door screaming log off. We're on, what, bloody retribution attempt six or seven? It's been a constant parade of death lasers and witches and kids with swords. And I see where you're coming from. I put a serious damper on everyone's fun vengeance beach party.

But it's getting a little old, so consider this a friendly warning to all my executioners: I will start losing patience. [ He quirks a smile that does not touch his eyes. ] Not to be all, I have over ten billion confirmed kills, but: maybe do not fuck with me.

Cheers.

[ The skeletons perform an ancient First House salute, and the feed cuts out. ]

Comments

[wapples]

[Billie has seen the accusations against this guy - this baby killing, world destroying, human sacrificing, ocean punching, dad blinding necromancer. He trusts him about as far as he can throw him. The guy can't even play volleyball!

He's still going to ask the question, though. Even though the attitude in his tone doesn't soften.]

Yeah? And how are you gonna do that?

[necrolord]

Magic.

[ He taps one bare-bone finger beside his own inhumanly black eyes. ]

Look, I get that I'm a jerk, [ and here he splays his hands again in defeat, conceding the victory of the nine-year-old, ] but I'm not actually out trying to blind dads I've never met. And eyeballs count as spooky, right? That's my domain, just like skeletons.

[wapples]

Eyeballs aren't spooky, that's just dumb. Your skeletons don't even have them.

[Billie maybe settles just a little from 'still kind of want to stab God' style fury to 'hmph. This guy still sucks' bitterness.]

Besides, if you messed it up, I'd have to break a promise.

[necrolord]

[ He clutches his heart as though wounded. ]

A real critic, huh? Suit yourself. But if your dad needs help fixing his eyes, tell him I'm offering, since it's my fault he lost the old pair. Healing the blind is my day job, when I'm not out losing fistfights to the ocean.

[ Augustine would probably be stressed he's putting himself out there, but Augustine isn't around he's in dark and cold and panic and John needs something, anything, to distract from it and anyway Pyrrha would call this reparations and less stupid than picking fights. So: why not. ]

[wapples]

Really? 'Cause it sounds like your day job's killing lots of people and blowing up planets.

[He guesses... he could tell Vyng this guy has offered to fix his eyes. It couldn't hurt, right?]

[necrolord]

[ This is an absolutely devastating and equally true assessment of what he is and does. ]

That's a bit of an overstatement, if you ask me. I command our army, back home... but here, I'm a healer. It's a much nicer gig.

[wapples]

[This isn't even the first sketchy healer he's ever met. Vertog did seem to at least try to help his friends, though.]

Healers don't attack people. They. You know. Heal them.

[Does Mariana count as a person? He's pretty sure she does, just like he counts Argonaut and Dorothea as people.]

You didn't even try to help Mariana after you hurt her. If you were really sorry, you would. You'd try to fix it instead of threatening everyone. Not just people like Vyng, but even the ones that want to hurt you. They only want to hurt you because you hurt them first.

[necrolord]

Believe it or not, Mariana and I are not on good terms.

[ He will not, in fact, be offering to heal Mariana. ]

I only do human people. But, I'll admit: you have a good point.

[wapples]

[He's pretty sure most healers don't care if they like the person they're trying to heal or not, but it doesn't matter much. Vyng, Illarion, and the others have already done what they can to soothe Mariana.]

So are you gonna try to fix things then?

[necrolord]

[ He is not in a mood to fix things. He isn't going to apologize to the sea.

But it's weirdly embarrassing, being cornered into a conversation about morality by a nine-year-old. ]

How's this: I won't make them worse.

[ As if this post wasn't gasoline on the fire. Easier than trying to put it out. ]

That might be the best I can do.

[wapples]

[Billie crosses his arms. He knows not making things worse is a pretty low bar when people are dying, or going blind.]

How's this: Do better. I bet you can if you try. You offered to help Vyng. That's already better than doing nothing. Or trying to scare people.

[necrolord]

[ Brutal! Tiny child believes in him. This is the most devastating blow yet. ]

We already agreed I'm a jerk. And, apparently, that the skeletons aren't very scary.

But I'll take it under consideration. You give good advice.

[ Not really, but he is very small and determined. Of course that would trump the anger of gods. ]