nexus_sages | At What Price Respect

Verity in the forum? Not a strange sight. Verity without coffee? Rather less common. Verity slumping, exhausted, into a couch? Unusual. Verity covered in scrapes, bruises, and dust? Definitely strange.

"Help isn't if it's forced on someone. This is true. Someone not in possession of all of the facts cannot give fully informed consent. This is also true. But nobody can be forced to listen." Of course Verity has things on her mind. Who here doesn't? "How do you reconcile that? Is ignorance truly bliss? Or do you do what's needed to save someone despite their choices?"

((A note before you come to play with Verity: she's got a magic spell stuck in her that lets her always know when someone is lying to her. This includes sarcasm and knowing when someone believes something to be true when it isn't. This doesn't include lies of omission. She can also see through illusions. Please respect this; if your character is trying to lie to her, please make that known so she can react appropriately. [I completely understand this isn't going to be everyone's idea of fun.] Thanks.))

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She manages a little smile, thanks to the reassurance. Knowing at least some of her friends understand and agree helps. He must feel strongly about this to talk so much. That helps too, in its way.

"It's not a club I'd want people to join." She's not a sadist. Her life has only had the usual sorts of sorrows. She's unprepared for this heavy a burden. She can barely comprehend the weight. "How do you do it?"

He almost wanted to add 'can you blame them?' He still didn't believe in hope. He wanted to, sometimes, but what he found on the fury road wasn't hope.

He leaned back a bit and let of a short low laugh, "I don't think I should be giving advice."

Someone said once that hope is a thing with feathers. She's pretty sure hers is a Monty Python sketch.

At least he's laughing. It can't be so bad if he's laughing. "Why not?"

Max grunted, shifted, and rolled around the words to actually say. Maybe the laugh was a defence to a very real thought on his own character. "Well I uhm, I'm not a very good person." A pause. "I'm just a person."

She knows all about defense mechanisms. They could compare notes about them the way some people compare scars. (They could compare scars, but hers are few, tiny, and mostly medical in nature.) "It's okay to be a person. I don't think I'm a very good person either."

After a quiet moment she adds, "You've been nice to me so I like you. I hope that's okay."

They could probably compare both. Mental scars, physical scars, defence mechanisms, general issues. It'd definitely be a way to pass a lot of time. He looked at her when she spoke and gave him a short smile... this was usually where he'd say something like 'save it, I'm just doing this to get something I want' which was usually a half truth but now that he had most of what he needed here... it was harder to make that excuse.

So he nodded and looked away in silence, and in a moment of rare truth-telling he spoke again. "The world has enough pain."

He looked toward her again, "no point in adding to it."

An especially large amount of time, given how neither of them likes to talk about these things. But it wouldn't have to be all at once, or right away. They can stumble toward trusting each other together, in this awkward way of theirs, and all shall be well in the end.

"Yeah." She's not a great conversationalist today. She needs to do better. "I think that makes you a pretty good person."

He'd tell her she was doing just fine. Sometimes you just need someone to exist near you. He just gave her a look, like this had somehow become a debate about how he also kind of wanted to be looked at as a not-great person... and he sort of did. It was safe.

Anyway. Max shrugged, "so uhm." Here it comes, his excellence in conversation skills. Prepare yourself. "how's things," a wave, "this situation aside."

Existing together would be nice. She'd love to have something like that again. Gods know Max isn't the storyteller Loki was, but he's not nearly so demanding either. The look doesn't affect her much. She's made up her mind about him and she's not easily convinced to think twice about her friends. Doom couldn't make her do it, Thor couldn't make her do it. Max isn't gonna make her do it.

She appreciates the effort. "Pretty good. I've found a safe place to live, and my roommate's being extremely kind to me. There are plenty of things here to distract me from thinking about things. And there's no rush to make decisions about anything beyond surviving, right now."

No, Max was really not a storyteller. He's spent too much time thinking about what was next or how to get to next that he'd forgotten so much about the past. That wasn't his strength, but he was sure she had picked up on that already.

"Do you," he listened, and it was good to know she was in a good place more or less. "Is it hard, you uhm. You know, adjust." To nice things, or nicer things. Because he's found.. it's difficult for him. He's met Furiosa here, considered scavenging what he could and returning to their world.

Maybe come back every once in awhile, but he wasn't sure he could live here. It was too... good.

Once a soldier always a soldier?

He has other strengths. She can appreciate a man who never lies to her and is honest about what he wants or needs. She can enjoy not having to second-guess his suggestions or his motives. She can like having a friend who doesn't mind sitting quietly.

"It is sometimes," she admits. "Things are different here and... I miss my home sometimes. I miss the familiarity of it, and the fact I could walk the streets in the safety of being anonymous. Nobody there was spying on me," hi Colonel Hughes, "and I had no particular responsibility to anyone alive except my mom. But I'm better off here, and I have to allow myself to accept that. It would be foolish to not take a good thing when it's offered, right?"

Right, Max?

At What Price Respect

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