withintenfeet | TLV Inbox

[Backdated to around the time of Kahl's aggression towards Collins and Trevor during the Sheehan network post.]

Do you have a moment? I have business with you to discuss.

Of course. Like this, or do you want to meet in person?

This is adequate for now.

[He'll agree to meet in person if Zersus requested it after he learned the nature of the call, but Collins was content steering clear for now. Not that it did him any favors or anything...]

It's about your inmate, Kahl. I have not interacted with him lately but he used high level magic or god-like abilities on me to disintegrate my tongue and hide my communicator for some time.

[ He stares at the screen for a solid thirty seconds. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't know he had any motive to do that, or I wouldn't have let it happen.

Were you able to have it healed?

I'm not looking for an apology from a man that didn't do anything to me. But it deserves action taken in response.

Regrown. John Doe. It's awful. [It's not awful, it's just weird and awkward. Not quite fully human.]

Kahl's actions are his own, but I have a responsibility to minimise harm. Falling down on the job requires an apology, I think.

What sort of actions do you want taken?

...It's always - strange. Losing a part of you, having it again, and knowing - it isn't yours, not really.

Noted.

It would seem to me that someone claiming to be a god of vengeance shouldn't have access to all their reality bending abilities, particularly one that still has no qualms in harming someone without just cause. It's waiting for trouble to happen, and so it has. I would have them taken away.

[Let's not talk about that. It hits too close to home about more than just the replacement tongue.]

I understand where you're coming from. ...One of the first questions I asked, of other wardens, is how the hell you decide to draw the line between "letting them learn" and "stopping them from hurting other people". If I strip all of his power away, he's never going to grow into the god he's meant to be. Vengeance doesn't need to be petty.

I can ask him not to attack you, specifically, because he does keep his word once it's been given. If you don't trust that, understandably, that part can be left to the Admiral. But as for Kahl himself -

Restricting him, I can and will do, and I'll let you know how once I've spoken to him. But I won't compromise his graduation.

The only way you can keep someone from hurting another person is to take away their ability to do so. Otherwise, there's always the chance for it. [Like with him and how he was restricted in various ways to make it stick.] And there's no such thing as revenge that isn't petty. I've seen it all. If that's what he wants to be, he'll never be what you're expecting. He'll just be another entity out there with too much power that shouldn't exist.

I don't trust anyone and certainly not you or him in any capacity at this point in time.

Wardens don't have anything to do with it in my experience. Good luck with that. [He doesn't mean it.]

Want doesn't really come into it. He can't choose not to be a god of vengeance, only how he plays that role. And while it's never appealed to me, personally, there are people who cannot feel whole or safe until retribution is done. Cruelty has been thwarted, tyranny has been toppled, through that kind of anger.

That's fair.

...No one got a deal off of the back of not actually helping you, I hope.

Edited (paragraphs! how do they work) 2025-03-05 21:10 (UTC)

[He thinks the first part is full of bullshit and ignores the total uselessness of it.]

I had a permanent warden at the time. What do you think?

I think I was already tired of useless colleagues getting rewarded for it.

Well get used to it like everything else around here that's ridiculous and unnecessary. Not everyone needs a permanent warden like some childish babysitter. Sometimes all they do is make things worse. [Or are just really annoying to the point of further contention rather than less.]

Changing isn't easy, and needing guidance - or support, or protection - isn't childish. What any given inmate needs is going to vary, though, and it sounds like no one was good enough at figuring that out with you.

...It would probably be an awful suggestion to say an inmate should get to veto their warden's deal. Especially considering I don't really have a stake in it.

It is childish when your warden acts like a naive child and is as useless as one. At the end of the day, I needed nothing but to wait for the bastard entity to grow tired of his own charade.

[Keep telling yourself that, Butcher.]

Then I suggest no one get a deal and we all go home.

[Because he's definitely not sticking around for nothing and he doesn't believe any of this is actually needed.]

Edited 2025-04-14 15:23 (UTC)

You really don't think you've changed at all?

No, I haven't. And if this place has taught me anything it's that there's no reason to once I'm back in my own space.

Then why stick around for a deal?

Because I'm selfish and don't want to immediately become some other bastard entity's plaything upon leaving. Leaving here isn't an option until that false god is destroyed by this worse false god.

[If this was audio this is where the scoff would be.]

Did you expect something else for an answer? Pathetic.

If I already had an answer in mind I'd just talk to myself.

Do you know what the consequences will be, when you get rid of this god?

It's not a god. It will die. Like everything does in the end.

Does it matter if it's a god, if it needs to be stopped?

Now you're just waxing philosophical for no reason.

You really don't think this is a question I've had to think about practically?

I don't know a damn thing about you. So, no, I don't know what you think of in your spare time nor particularly care considering it has no bearing on me.

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