Apping to arda_marred. . .

[haides]

Will a jaunt outside be your final judgement?

(His black, clawed hands are holding a mouse hostage, though the creature is not panicking.)

Humans alter their course with logic that only appeals to them.

Comments

[foundyourpagoda]

[Watching your hands VERY CLOSELY, mister.]

Even calling it "logic" may be too generous at times.

[haides]

(For what purpose? He peers at the mouse's face distantly. There is an understanding present between them.)

Logic only need be logic to the one who calls it thus.

[nostride]

Because the 'heart' rules the 'mind'.

[haides]

The Prince has a fine heart.

[nostride]

What difference does it make to you? Yours is the realm without logic altogether.

[haides]

All who are born will enter my realm. How is that illogical?

[nostride]

The path has its reasons. The arrival, I don't know.

It seems... a lonely place.

[haides]

Presumptive.

There are many.

[nostride]

A hallway of people? A palace?

[haides]

Are caves and caverns unknown to the Prince?

[nostride]

Of course they're not. I've heard the stories.

[haides]

They form naturally and they can be grander than any palace.

Sometimes water travels underground too. There are great pools.

[nostride]

It's dark.

That's what you don't speak. That's what you promise.

[haides]

Yes. (He holds out the mouse to Ganymede. The little creature looks content in his palm.) Most find it comforting.

[nostride]

[ Oh, he wants to touch it — badly, hand reaching, but fingers withholding stroke. This is the game of it: if he likes it, it's removed after. ]

It would like the field too.

[haides]

(How can he resist forever? The little nose wiggles and the mouse lifts his head, big ears facing Ganymede.)

Souls dream.

[nostride]

[ ...oh no, no, no, no, no, no — yes. All right. The hand descends, royal petting hereby given. Consider yourself honoured, brave (?) mouse. ]

Every prisoner has 'hope'. You can hold on to that, wherever you're bound to.

[haides]

A beautiful garden can confine when there is no company to be had. You would have all the company you desire underneath.

(The mouse isn't the sort one expects to find in graves or crypts. Hades may have found him elsewhere.)

[nostride]

[ The mouse, unlike Hades, earns every trickle of a smile Ganymede can spare. ]

Shouldn't you be worried more about your own fortune?

[haides]

(That inquiry earns a mysterious smile. Meanwhile the mouse lifts a paw and tries to climb into Ganymede's hands.)

Because I am forgotten?

[nostride]

[ Shameless overture! Reckless advance! The mouse wants its staircase at first, until Ganymede's cupped hands lower to give him passage. Who's a cute mouse. Who's adorable disease-ridden vermin. ]

Because you're for another world.

[haides]

(He is less disease ridden than most, but there is nothing that can be done about him being vermin. Such is the fate of all mice.)

As are you.

[nostride]

[ It's a good mouse, for now happily sprawling right halfway between Ganymede's hands to cause maximum annoyance. All hail it. ]

You're just a plaything in someone else's hands now. Does that please you?

[haides]

(A long hairless tail is swishing comfortably too. Deal with his cute. Deal with it.)

Please? (The word is tasted, balanced, judged.) I am neither pleased nor displeased. It will not last.

[nostride]

[ Hark! The mouse. It's scenting or scratching or nuzzling now, and all of Ganymede's defences crumble before its legendary cuteness. ]

You have no certainties. Not even you.

[haides]

Why should that bother me? (He is the King of Chill, dear Prince. But now that the subject has been brought up, he tips his head to the side, eyes unfocused.)

I am not above humans and they have no guarantees.

[nostride]

[ The mouse. It has quickly risen up the hierarchy of shallow niceties and earned the honour of being brought up so its nose can rub daintily against Ganymede's. This is it. This is man-mouse bonding. It's happening. ]

You're hard to hate, when you're so reasonable.

[haides]

(See? Hades knew it would be a match made in...well, somewhere.

No he actually had no idea this would work out. He just likes the mouse. He's bold and talkative.)

Tis useless to hate any of us.

[liakada]

( honestly, he almost rolls his eyes, but what hades speaks is truth.

they do not lie, after all.

the rat, however, is a little touch unpleasant. to think, apollo should be used to the antics of the other by now.

he folds his arms, jewelry catching light from no clear source as iridescent narrow against the dark of hades. ) It's why there is no absolute truth, to them.

[haides]

(Such a bright youngling. Hades doesn't mind his company, which is precisely why he answers instead of disappearing.)

Does the truth need acknowledgement to exist?

[seeker_of_vanitas]

[The vampire known as Noè gazed at Hades with a thoughtful look on his tanned face.]

Then is it really logic?

[haides]

(Noé is a rarity for the dark god and Hades stretches out his black legs, smiling faintly. It is difficult to say what the expression means, however.)

Can a human make such determinations?

[seeker_of_vanitas]

I believe they can.

[Though he had never met a human until he left the forest. Noè was also a very black and white man.]

Logic can't be molded to fit their best interest. It either does or doesn't.

[haides]

How hopeful.

(In his experience, humans have a tendency to hide from truth and logic. Or they make up their own versions of it.)

Correct.

[seeker_of_vanitas]

[Noè wasn't the most experienced vampire. Being deep in the forest had shielded the young vampire from humanity's cruelty and unwillingness to understands beings other than themselves, but Teacher had taught him the history of their kind and how it was of the upmost importance that the humans continue believing the vampires are dead.]

Why can't they see that? [It was so glaringly obvious to Noè. But that was not to say that Noè himself was immune to falling prey to his hearts wished. Far from it, the vampire was very stubborn and at times had a short fuse with certain things. But who doesn't?]

[haides]

Many reason. (Youth, naiveté, the fact that most do not live long enough to really contemplate their lives and their place in the universe.) Few of which apply to you.

Did you leave your mortality behind of your free will?

[seeker_of_vanitas]

Mortality? [Vampires in his world were not immortal, perhaps in the past they were, but none that Noè knew of.]

I am mortal....[Unless there was something his beloved Teacher wasn't telling him. He grew like a human did, he could simply survive certain things that could kill a human and had inhuman speed and strength.]

I could not imagine being immortal. [Then everyone he knew and loved would grow old and wither away.]