You donβt have to hug people all the time to be warm, Ness says, and thereβs something so mortifying in having it so aptly called out and recognised for what it is. It blindsides him a little, when his own image of himself was so deceptively off-the-mark. Stephen blinks, surprised.
Perhaps a version of him had been that once upon a time, a cold and arrogant neurosurgeon whoβd fucked up the relationships in his life, a cautionary tale and its own road not taken— but it has been a while since then. Meeting Sinister Strange had been another caution, a big blaring warning sign to swerve him back onto another path. Do better. Be better.
βSo if my calculation is about what benefits the most people, what results was Vazeiros after?β he asks, a little wary of what the answer will be.
She does Stephen the courtesy of looking away from his mortification, turning her eyes instead to her remaining hand. Her nails have grown long, she notes. She'll have to come up with a way to cut them herself, no one's going to want to help her with that.
"He wasn't concerned with morals or personal advancement," she says, distant. "He wasn't evil, or cruel, which is more than can be said of most drow. He wanted comfort. Control, too, he wanted to choose where he went, what he did, who he spoke to. Everything was about what would be the least unpleasant for him, and afford him the most control of his situation."
That's the thing about cruelty: it's an investment of its own kind. A horrible one, of course, but an investment. Without investment, without care, one can't be cruel.
"The architecture may appear the same on a surface level," Ness says, voice steady, pressing the nail of her index finger down with the pad of her thumb, trying to find a weak point to force a break, "but the foundations are entirely different. I could never mistake you for him."
Even the lack of personal advancement off that list throws him for a loop. Whatβs life without personal advancement? Ness can see from that second momentary pause that Stephen is, briefly, baffled. His entire life had been personal advancement, for better and ill. There had been so many well-established orderly rungs to climb, moving his way up the ladder of a medical career. Even clambering up the hierarchy of the Masters of the Mystic Arts had been tidy and orderly and sequential: you went from a novice in white robes, to an apprentice in crimson, to a disciple in blue, then a master with your own customised outfit, then heβd made the ill-timed leap to Sorcerer Supreme.
Advancement. Self-betterment.
βSo. Comfort, control, andβ¦ independence? These were the things he was after, for himself?β Stephen asks.
Heβs still working through something, chewing over it, piecing together a picture of the drow— and finding himself flabbergasted, too, that that created the girl in front of him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Perhaps a version of him had been that once upon a time, a cold and arrogant neurosurgeon whoβd fucked up the relationships in his life, a cautionary tale and its own road not taken— but it has been a while since then. Meeting Sinister Strange had been another caution, a big blaring warning sign to swerve him back onto another path. Do better. Be better.
βSo if my calculation is about what benefits the most people, what results was Vazeiros after?β he asks, a little wary of what the answer will be.
no subject
"He wasn't concerned with morals or personal advancement," she says, distant. "He wasn't evil, or cruel, which is more than can be said of most drow. He wanted comfort. Control, too, he wanted to choose where he went, what he did, who he spoke to. Everything was about what would be the least unpleasant for him, and afford him the most control of his situation."
That's the thing about cruelty: it's an investment of its own kind. A horrible one, of course, but an investment. Without investment, without care, one can't be cruel.
"The architecture may appear the same on a surface level," Ness says, voice steady, pressing the nail of her index finger down with the pad of her thumb, trying to find a weak point to force a break, "but the foundations are entirely different. I could never mistake you for him."
no subject
Advancement. Self-betterment.
βSo. Comfort, control, andβ¦ independence? These were the things he was after, for himself?β Stephen asks.
Heβs still working through something, chewing over it, piecing together a picture of the drow— and finding himself flabbergasted, too, that that created the girl in front of him.