People are better when they're puzzles, because people suck— prejudiced and stupid, inconsistent, fallible, the dreaded b-word, vapid, selfish, or the worst, just slightly irritating without any grand offsets. Daniel doesn't love people. But he doesn't hate people, and he believes that despite his own pitfalls and inability to connect on a normal, broadly compassionate bleeding heart level, that people are mostly good. Individual people can be good, they can be born good or they can change to become good; societies can rise above, with work. And he believes such work should be encouraged and celebrated, even if he, personally, is frequently mired in bitterness and apathy about the trajectory of the world.
So it's a bit of a bummer to look at this poor fucking guy. He gets it, or at least he thinks he does, but it strikes him that it's already a waste. Armand has godlike power and he uses it to prune a misshapen flower that's already half-wilted instead of an actual invasive weed.
The blood of the dead can pull a vampire down into the grave. They all hear their victims' lives as they die, sung through blood. What do these depressed fucks pull Armand into, time and time again? How is Daniel going to feel draining someone who is, psychologically, half dead already?
He looks at Armand. It's a hard look. Searching. A horrible x-ray of a thing.
Of what he finds there, if anything, he says nothing about.
"Hey," quiet, as he paces over to the man, curled up and half-catatonic. He gets a startled response, gazing up in confusion as a strange old man sits down beside him, hand on his shoulder. Something preternatural enough about Daniel already to hold his attention, and prevent him from casting around for context, from noticing Armand or anything else. A quick exchange that nevertheless, for a moment, seems to stretch on for an eternity. Daniel asks him if he's alright, and the magic of Armand's spell his shattered with a shocked sob, a toyed-with mortal stung by the surprise of random empathy.
no subject
So it's a bit of a bummer to look at this poor fucking guy. He gets it, or at least he thinks he does, but it strikes him that it's already a waste. Armand has godlike power and he uses it to prune a misshapen flower that's already half-wilted instead of an actual invasive weed.
The blood of the dead can pull a vampire down into the grave. They all hear their victims' lives as they die, sung through blood. What do these depressed fucks pull Armand into, time and time again? How is Daniel going to feel draining someone who is, psychologically, half dead already?
He looks at Armand. It's a hard look. Searching. A horrible x-ray of a thing.
Of what he finds there, if anything, he says nothing about.
"Hey," quiet, as he paces over to the man, curled up and half-catatonic. He gets a startled response, gazing up in confusion as a strange old man sits down beside him, hand on his shoulder. Something preternatural enough about Daniel already to hold his attention, and prevent him from casting around for context, from noticing Armand or anything else. A quick exchange that nevertheless, for a moment, seems to stretch on for an eternity. Daniel asks him if he's alright, and the magic of Armand's spell his shattered with a shocked sob, a toyed-with mortal stung by the surprise of random empathy.
Daniel still kills him.