what is to be

[ronfiction]

Lou watches Vasily move and stands to be is opposite. Vasily shifts and fidgets as he talks where Lou stands statue still, his voice and tone keeping as even as his footing.

"You may have more enemies than I know, but you've also got more friends than you think"

The janitor explains.

"We want to help you V, some of us just don't know how to. There's a lot going on and you find yourself in the middle of a lot of it. Just know that on the end, you won't be alone."

Lou says and stiffly removes his Bruins cap and turns to face Vasily.

[Tempest]

Vasily tilts his head almost questioningly.

"i just know things can't continue as they are. I did not know Gus to well and i know he volunteered to be used. But before him all those people those kids" vasilys hands clench and his eyes look darker. "were taken without permission to be killed on a rock in a DAMN CAVE."

Vasily starts shaking with rage.

" i may not be a good person or a person at all,but i know what it is like to be taken away by those that wish you harm. The only thing the only tenant i hold in my dark heart is no one should ever be taken away and kept as slaved and killed. The question i ask you is Who dies this year on that stone?"

[HecateSkivvy]

"Whose blood was one the stone!?"

With one hand over his eyes, and one arm over his head - holding some imaginary noose, Leslie creeps into the conversation. Having made a sufficiently dramatic entrance with his passer-by eavesdropping, he continues;

"That's the question, isn't it? Blind Molly even said so."

Hand on chin, pensive. Doesn't pause talking, though.

"Really, the important thing is I'm not even sure a sacrifice - willing or not - will work this time around anyways. The locals report diminishing returns on the phenomenon, post-burning skies, so if this thing follows a standard curve we might be shit out of luck this year or next. I haven't done the math, since I dont know enough about the history of this place to do it, but 'volunteers' might not even be useful even if that's the plan. As far as my own opinion goes; Vasily, we've talked." He gives Vasily a pointed look. "I trust you to figure something out, but as far as this thing is concerned, this darkness inside you and under the lake - you are correct. Time is of the essence, and we really shouldn't be sacrificing anybody against their will, and this thing is playing with all of us - you're its favorite toy, apparently. So, my question is this...."

Big breath.

"What do you want to happen? And, what do you want to happen if you cannot make what you want to happen, happen? What are your ideals and ideal contingencies? The fact of the matter is, you are straddling a barbed wire fence of allegiances, and your performance has been worthy of applause, but you arent wrong to assume there's a lynch mob coming for you at some point depending on which side you touch down. I don't even know if I'll be grabbing a pitchfork myself when whatever happens happens, despite all camaraderie and understanding. And I like and respect you - a lot. This is not easy..."

Leslie looks somber all of a sudden.

"Rardless of fear, in terms of the outcome - are we going to have to kill you for our own survival, and is that what you want? Nevermind betrayal, nevermind anything beyond your own will - Is. That. What. You. Want. You are a good person, Vasily - there are darknesses inside you, but they are not you. You, sir, are literally, a god-damned candle in the dark."

[Tempest]

Vasily head jerked up and looked at the slender man. Then grinning with a shadow of his normal madness.

"ding ding ding."
Vasily chimes as he takes a wobbly step closer.

"now those are the questions no one has out right asked. And I think you see the bones of the issue. Well what I want does not matter. My actions will be decided by others action. If people move at me in anger I will strike back it is my nature. I have one last thing to do two to protect. Beyond that my life can be forfeit for what little it is worth. I don't plan on living out the month."

Vasily starts to pace.

"this may not answer your question and I am sorry. We should talk more in a more private place.but I ask you this. Will you stand for people to slaughter someone on that stone again this year? Will you stand by as another is taken and put to violent use?"

At this vasily pointes at Leslie.

[ronfiction]

Lou regards Leslie has he arrives and fights back a sneer as the man starts on his explanation. Between Vasily and Leslie, there weren't too many issues that came up and got miss managed in this town that didn't somehow come back to this two. The notion of these to being at the for front of dealing with the up coming situation did not sit well with Lou.

"If you folks come up with an idea that doesn't involve sacrificing people or letting the world get destroyed you let me know. I'm sure you too are working real hard on it."

Lou says in an unconvinced tone. He stay standing there with the other three and his mood sours some as he looks between Vasily and Leslie.

[Tempest]

Vasily looks back to Lou. Knowing the man has no love or trust for him.

"Lou I know you nor anyone else would trust a damn word come from my face."

Vasily tapped the side or his head.

"it don't take a psychic to see that. And I know you mistrust me. But I ask you again plainly would you be willing to sacrifice someone on that stone? Hell why don't you hold the knife this time. Look that person in the eye well you do it. Then tell me it was the right thing to do."

Vasily shakes not just from anger bit pain.

"Doing a killing like that is how you end up a thing like me. Taking an innocent life. That's the recipe for monster soup."

[HecateSkivvy]

The tone of Lou's words bounces off Leslie's ego like a handful of rice tossed casually at the hull of an oil tanker. Vasily's question, however, sticks. He ponders it as the others speak.

"If there's soup, somebody has to drink it."

Which is a shame, considering the veritable army of ingrates burying he and Vasily's respective accomplishments in rice.

"It'll depend on what we make of the situation. Should we find an alternative, I'll go for it. If we can't, I hope someone volunteers. If there is no option other than annihilation..." He trails off, empty. Then, a with a half-smile, he says "Monsters beget monsters, I guess."

Leslie is full now, of nostalgia and wistful contempt. Lou doesn't understand how lucky he is - with only an apparent need to grapple the void. Vasily, though, he gets it. The world needs less monsters, not more.

He smiles at Vasily. "We'll talk soon."

[ronfiction]

Vasily asks Lou the same question he's been asking himself over and over again. Could he do the sacrifice himself if it came down to it? The logistics of ritual magic aside, could Lou actually kill an innocent person to stave off the what seems like the end of the world.

"Killing a thing doesn't make you a monster. Killing a thing that don't need killing makes you a monster. A lion eats a boar, a frog eats a fly, a Philadelphia eagles fan eats a cheese steak. Something had to die for it. I don't shed a tear for every fish I pull out of the lake..."

Lou says and hikes a finger towards the water.

"But I do respect it. Somethings are just as important to the world alive as they are dead. Whether it's a trooper on a battle field or the cow that died to give my pick up truck leather seats, things die Vasily. All things die, just something are more useful than others when they do. If I could give my life like Gus did, I would. But if I have be the fella holding the knife instead of taking the knife this time around; then so be. Personally, I would much rather die giving my life for others than because of a heart attack caused by too much Poutine."

Lou says sticking to his very base logic on the matter.

"Again, I hope you folks think of a better way. But I aint putting too much faith in either of you two hot messes and more importantly, the back up plan needs to be ready to go weather you like it or not."

[Tempest]

Vasily nods to to the slender man

"talk soon."

Looking back to Lou sadness in his eyes feeling rage almost uncontrollable.

"so a man with a clean conscience you be? I knife you will hold? That's bull shit. The ritual barely works the enemy it holds back is still here more and more. So what did gus's sacrifice even do. Riddle me that? As much as I hate what the darkness can do it shows a fuck tone more compassion then half the twists around here."

Vasily points angrily towards the town.
"it healed me when the rest of them all would use me as a weapon. Keep me crazy and knifing the enemies in the dark. Guess what the darkness never asked me to do that."

Vasily is rambling words out fast at this point.

"you can hold to the belief that killing an innocent unwilling person is the right thing to do but know this Lou once you wet that blade it never gets clean. I know. And why is it the town monster" thumping his own chest "that wants to save a life. WHY?"

[ronfiction]

Lou smirks some, seeing that he had been able to draw out Vasily's true nature.

"I'm not gonna take a moral beating from a drug pushing hobo. You steal, you kill, you pop your pills. Comparing you to me is not even a thing. I work hard for living and if there's a dirty job that others don't want to do but it still needs to get done, it always falls on the working man. I clean up plenty of messes that you two make."

He says to two of the three others by the lake.

"I can't even tell if it's the kindly hobo or just a husk filled with darkness that I'm arguing with. I intend to keep things simple. Consider it a matter of Occam's razor. What needs to get done will get done, and if that pisses some folks off or makes me more like you. Then so be it."