With Scarlet Words

[yutzen]

Would you like to know a fun thing about the mind?

You see, memory’s not a perfect painting, but it’s also not just dots free-floating in the void, you get me? Memory’s a web. When you remember something, it’s often because you were reminded by something else, even when they come up from seemingly nowhere. Remembrance starts at one spot, and crawls from there, memory by memory, link by link… even if it has to make that connection in the first place. Happens often, but once that happens, that connection often stays there, you see? And unlike an actual road – a paved one at least – the more it’s walked, the stronger it gets, the easier it gets to traverse, and the more it gets used en route to something else. And sometimes you get dots with many different roads from this, because they’re that fundamental. They become a foundation outright! Memory’s like that, part of why personhood’s the way it is.

Where I’m going with this is, and I know it sounds like a leap, this is something you learn when most of your work’s done from the inside out. When you’re looking to knock down… a tower, for example! If you have a catapult, or a giant pile of gunpowder, that’s just great, if all you’re looking to do is knock down the tower and fuck everything else. But towers always exist in a wider context, you see? Maybe a city, or a wall, or like a nation’s border, let’s go with that too. And when you go ahead and get the catapult or the gunpowder and bring it down, you realize “oh, damn it, now I gotta bring down that one, and the next one, and everyone here is pissed”. You see you’ve just made it harder for yourself, you get me?

So you think about how to make that easier. You think, maybe I’ll take a bit longer and dig out the tower from the bottom! Make it crumble, they’ll be too busy asking questions for a while, you can go for the next one! Maybe blow that one up, you see? But when they answer the questions it’ll be harder again. So then you wonder how to make sure they don’t ask those questions. Or at least take longer to start asking. And that’s where at least two of you would be stumped, but I have more options. And the key is to dig deeper, deeper than the foundations. Deeper than the dirt the tower’s on. Maybe you can go literally, strike at the base of the hill and bring that down, or maybe bigger, it takes much longer for the questions to come up if it just looks like an earthquake, you see?

Or maybe you take it metaphorically. Maybe you go into the structures that let that tower stand, the ones that aren’t even physical, and want it there and hack at that instead. Because then the people who would ask questions will have their own answers, and won’t ask again as they bring the things down themselves.

It always pays to hack at the base that’d ask the questions in the first place, you get me? What you learn when you keep things on the down low, when you need to wear a different face for each takedown, is that the people that’d be asking the questions and doing the research, they’re pillars in themselves. But you also learn that, given enough time, everyone can start doing it, better or worse, but still. You just have to make sure they don’t. It’s a base that can replace itself, you see? So either you hack at it quickly, or undermine it just like a foundation, so that it can’t stand.

Don’t get impatient, this is the part where memory comes in! I know what you’re thinking, and it’s easy to do so, but no, I don’t mean erasing them. My colleague, you’ll meet him soon enough, he is all about what’s missing and gone, about what’s removed or wasn’t ever there, and so on. Could call it the dark to my light, you see? No, too romantic, not the deal, let’s go with “the theft to my arson”, that sounds more like it. I’m about illumination, addition, energies put to the right place. Less about pulling the right support and more about pushing the right domino. Just so we make it clear, you get me?

Now that we’ve covered that, think about what that means when it comes to memory. Sure, I could wedge something that never happened right in there, and it gets fun, but it’s not my style. Truths, things that you actually did, that’s more fun, and when you’ve worked a gig as long as I have, you’ve got to find ways to make it more fun. No, all you need is to do something, say something, and play with the way memory works so it takes root in the way you want it. The way I need it to. Like slipping a brick into the foundations, if you’re good enough!

…hah. Hahah. See, I don’t think you’re getting it yet. But that might be my fault! Let me do this right and lay down some specifics. Let me lay down a favorite for you all. Because I’ve found all you really need is a sentence, just a sentence. Just need to say it right, find the best words for it, and slip the right… tone? Let’s say tone, it comes closest to what I mean. The right tone to make it really memorable, so that they’ll remember every syllable exactly as it was. So that it’ll come up, and keep coming up, as it slowly becomes more than just a persistent memory, and starts becoming something like a reply to their thoughts. As if I were right there, again, saying it right to their face, or whispering it in their ear. So that it’s so perfectly remembered that as soon as they speak it, it sounds just like I’d been there to say it.

Yep, still not getting it. Flying right over your heads, aren’t I? Fine, an example then. It’ll outline what I mean, and might also save me a couple questions on why I’m here in the first place.

Let’s talk about an old realm, crumbling a little too fast for our tastes. Always easier to sweep dust rather than rubble, you see? So there we were, puzzling together a way to stop that, to halt it, slow it down so that maybe we wouldn’t need to bin it all so early. Taking account of what we could do, and more importantly, what was in the way of getting it done. For the former, it was easy enough, it was the sort of standoff where everyone loses as soon as one does. But they were holding a metaphorical knife to some real important, also metaphorical veins, you see? Threatening each other with some pretty fundamental weapons, could rattle the realm itself. And when the potential exists, if it’s big enough, it vibrates back through the branches, you see? Weakens the whole thing right up to where the damn things were made. They didn’t know this yet, but we sure did.

Oh yes, something a little like that is happening here, but lucky you, it’s only one! Now, I’ve outlined why I’m keen to make that zero, but you got me started and so I’m going to finish. Just as a little motivator, you get me?

Here’s the thing: Convincing someone to drop their weapon is hard as it is, and if someone else is holding theirs while you aren’t showing yours, well that’s about the hardest combination you can get. But when you go beyond the individual, the reasons to hold one go beyond safety and insurance, you see. Even having a weapon like that can be a boasting point, and when you have such an audience to boast to, letting go’s even harder. And now that you have the audience, as well as antagonists also holding a weapon of their own while the audience has nothing of the sort? I could count the people I’ve seen let go of that by themselves on just one of your hands. And people embedding themselves like that, they’re like an oversized screw, jammed in without forethought or planning, just pure brute force, deep as it’d go. It holds things down, sure, it seems to keep it all stable, and in the moment, it does, but it’s from it that the cracks spread out, where the foundation can start to crumble and rot as the water seeps in. It’s something you’ve got to pull out before you can pull the boards and start fixing things. But good luck doing that!

But I don’t need luck. I have the tools, I just need to know where to start uprooting, barely even need to hang around and fix it later! They’ll do that themselves, few things teach a man to build like knocking down his roof, you get me?

No need to get like that, but you’re right in that I’m getting sidetracked. Figured you might want to learn a few things, is all!

Back to the standoff, then. Not completely between leaders, not completely between countries, the measure of each varied depending on the side. Bosses always wanted some, but they could only drag so much of their countries along, usually. But in one case, a whole chunk of ‘em was pushing for it. I still wonder sometimes how many of them were too ignorant of what that might entail, just never thinking about it and getting carried away in spite of it… and how many pushed for it because they were, deep down, keen on an ending. Maybe not an ending to themselves, but people dream about some wild and dangerous things if it means not working tomorrow, because it’s gotten that awful, you see? And sometimes, when it’s gotten bad enough for whatever reason, that kind of thinking picks up a little too much steam.

Though one thing I do know, some of those didn’t care what happened, so long as it dragged down the others. You see that a lot more in this line of work, the drag-downs. Some are a lot more active about that one, seeing they’re ending and just trying to pull their place down to oblivion, but you mostly see it in people who don’t care if they go, so long as a certain someone else goes first and harder. I don’t wonder about those, I know them too well. They make my job real hard sometimes.

Which is part of why this one’s worth telling! But yes, clearly the time’d come to tear out the flooring to bare the foundations, you get me? My colleague and I could sort out the other cases, but this one, it looked like a real challenge. You had whole ages of buildup, said flooring was thick. The higher-ups got entrenched, sure, but openly entrenched. No shadow cabals by then, no figureheads or anything, they’d just managed to get everyone below them to look away anyways. And whoever tried to look, the rest just put them back down all by themselves! Sometimes it was differences, but when you really got down to it, most of the time it was just… “I’ll be king one day, and I’m not gonna dent the crown when I could wear it”, that kind of thinking coming from, let’s see… hovel peasants who barely even knew who grandpa was, you get me? I’m putting this in terms you can understand, they were way more advanced than you are, so you better get it.

Okay, good. This sort of thinking, it doesn’t feel right to call it optimism or hope, it’s like an egotistical, tyrannical mirror image of it. Not that they ever realize it, which was part of the problem here. A lot of the people that hold these things in place, they don’t realize much. Because realization might mean change, and change might mean something was mistaken before, and mistakes may be personal, and that’s impossible, you see? The kind of people who can’t learn because it would mean having been wrong before. You know them, do you? They’re anywhere, I’d outright say everywhere, because they’re both born and made. And here, well, it would’ve been a case study on how they’re made, leading to everything else I told you. They, too, make my job into a slog sometimes.

Where I’m going with this, and I hope you’ve been listening, is that I was up against a real problem. Be level with everyone? At best, get ignored, at worst, get heard and start a miniature civil war. Tinker in the shadows? Too long, not my style, I’d need actual decades hating every minute, no thanks. Take out the boss? Meet the new boss, so on and so forth. Charge face-first in and torch it all into shape? Worst option, more harm than good to everything involved including my aforementioned face, would’ve been funny though. No, I’d need to be subtle enough, but also still forceful. Not an oxymoron, but biding time until I had the chance to strike at the whole thing at once, and rattle the rust off of it, even if most other parts came off right there. Not even from the bottom up, but from the side, parallel.

Lucky me, they also had the tools for me to do so.

Like I told you, they were way more advanced than any of you. The communications you over there have, speaking across miles to one another, you could do that with trinkets bought off street shops there. And I know folks just a little more skilled than you here can add sights to the sounds, so you can see each others’ faces; that barely upped the cost there, it practically came bundled in. Granted, you had to pay more for a bigger picture but you get the point, it was casual. Casual enough, in fact, that there were bigger ones to put in homes as furniture, so as to get messages from important sorts, so whole countries could have town criers of their own all in one place. And bigger ones still in public squares! But you can imagine by now these big ones, not just everyone could show up in these. No, those weren’t two-way, not usually at least. It was for many to hook onto the words and face of one, you see?

Well, while I have all of your attentions then. Call this bit a lesson for you over there, with the instrument. I started slow, but not that slow. In a place like that, and in most places, I’ve found that the way to get your voice to go far is to say the things someone wants to hear, but isn’t brave enough to say, and then push them a little further, make them spicy. Depending on who you’re speaking for? It doesn’t need to be true. It just needs to burn, you get me? But the more truth you can cram in it the better, makes it harder for them to shut you up. So long as you’re like me, I mean, some of those can get a dagger stuck through your ribs, but that’s a you problem.

In this case, I wanted my voice to go wide. Coup or revolution wasn’t gonna do it in my timeframe, you see? And I found the best way here was to speak just slightly tangential to the guys at the top. Just enough critique that the ring around the top thought they could use my voice, not quite enough for them to immediately silence me, strong enough that even the people that hated them all would be forced to listen, if only to dismiss me as a stooge or better yet, fight over how wrong I was. You know, “we gotta take what we can get vs. we can’t settle for this one it’s not even better”, that kind of argument, you get me? So that’s what I did! Show up out of nowhere, game their systems so that I’m a bit more heard than I should be – that one was easy enough with a deeper look – and climb up from there, with a goal in mind.

And hear me out they did! Most of them had to, because I was either a threat, or pushed in their faces as one, or just because the… town criers – let’s keep going with that – felt like they’d be heard out more if I was the topic. Infamy’s like that, it’ll yank you right to the top as soon as the talkers think they’ll fall out of relevance if they don’t bring you up! I was making a pretty quick name that way as someone who, hah, “tells it like it is”, and no matter how many actual jabs I snuck in to amuse myself I still find that one to be one of the funniest parts. Ah, the little wonders you get to try when that happens, just makes me wish I could’ve thrown the real truths in their faces sometimes…

But that wasn’t the time for that, I’d get a chance later. Here, I just said whatever would grate enough to pick up some actual steam. I wasn’t saying anything that’d change anything, mind you, if anything my work there was just piling it all on, making the unwanted rot worse, but that’s a minor price for the platform, you see? Just a bit of trouble to climb my way up and find a place where I could publicly talk to the upper echelons, because they too needed to at least pretend they were there, that they were listening. The kind of pantomime you’ve got to do when everyone is so hooked onto what you’re doing thanks to the trinkets I mentioned. And I made it to a key moment with not even one of your weeks to spare!

Right, one thing I forgot to mention, they used to swap rulers over there, not just wait until they died and then go with inheritance, but by then it was practically the same thing, what with the ages and who got picked, and so on. You don’t need the intricacies, you just need to know it was contested enough that one of those up for grabbing what passed for a throne over there could’ve used the extra clout, and hey, I was right there! Every little bit could help, and I had enough of an edge to let him court the outliers! Or so he thought. His circle was almost completely convinced, I made sure of that.

So there we were, in a venue of his choosing, tuned in by many – not by everyone, but there were enough – and we got to the little charade, where I would ask the questions that’d concern everyone, supposedly, and he would answer them, in all those sneaky, sinuous ways that let you cram them full of lies without looking the part. This was someone who still bothered to be sneaky, in contrast to others who’d just tell you three different lies and hope you’d give up by the fourth. I’d ramp up the abrasion as we went, of course, it was the style that’d made my name in the moment, plus it was part of the fun. But most of all, it was windup, making sure it got heated enough to get people to look at us, and to make what would follow look natural in the moment.

We’d made it past the usual things, what he said he wanted to implement, the problems haunting the nation that were polite to mention, and some of the less polite ones, making digs towards the ones actually in charge right at that moment. We were now retreading over others’ embarrassments, bad moments for the country. The bits that everyone agrees were missteps, but no one wants to agree on how even when it’s clear enough. Okay, it was clear enough to me, but I had to save that one. Thing is, we got to the controversies, the clear fumbles with less clear culprits, and I pushed him to start pointing fingers – not that subtly, but subtly enough – to see where they landed. To miss the usual scapegoats, because clearly if it had been them, things would’ve gotten a lot better after they got smacked down, you get me? Not that they got punished much either, but I was saving that one, too. I was making headway…

One last nudge, towards things closer to his own history. A bit of faked frustration, as I dismissed the usual scapegoat one last time. A little push towards someone the guy had backed, and that the people had approved of once, emphasis on once. A few pointers at the signs that this had been coming, just to see them dismissed or knocked down by the guy. And there, I found my big chance. That’s where I put the trick in action.

Hahah… I did not look at him for my answer. I instead rolled my eyes, before settling them right on where I knew the vision’s eyes would be, where everyone watching would feel my gaze. I put on a smile much like the one I’m wearing now, I gathered the most sarcastic, disdainful tone I could muster, one that’d be memorably grating… And I uttered the words, loaded as could be with my little brand of trickery:

“Of course. Because it’s never gonna be your fault, is it?”

Oh, hah! Got a little carried away there. Don’t worry, I didn’t load them this time, but you can tell I put a little special something in those, I bet you can.

The heart-to-heart we were having deteriorated from there, obviously, but it was close to over, and I did the important part, so it didn’t matter much if my mask’s reputation went down in flames from that. It looked like a fumble, though they couldn’t completely agree on whose while they could bother to argue. But again, it didn’t matter. I got the words I needed out, right where it was public and relevant enough, and most of all, I had them charged enough in the perfect context to stick.

Everyone who saw me, everyone who heard the words, they’d remember them perfectly. The cadence, the smarm, the disdain, the roll of the eyes, everything. So perfectly did they remember it that, whenever they brought it up or told it to another, even to critique it, they’d replicate it perfectly too. Say it the exact same. And whoever was told this way, they’d remember it just as perfectly, with no loss, no degradation, nothing lost in transcription nor translation. Outright contagious recall. Even the town criers would do it the exact same, whether it was a copy of me doing it, or them saying it themselves. And everyone who saw them, they could do it too, just as perfectly – and they would, because the little discussion had been important as it was, but the words in question had been striking enough to remember, even if they didn’t know just how much yet.

Oh, but they’d find out.

At first, they realized that the words were oddly hard to mock, or parody, or even just fumble. They remembered it a little too perfectly, and it became like a groove to fall into when they actively went to recall it. Then they realized it was just too easy to remember, period, and whenever someone thought back to the little argument we had, they’d get stuck on the words again. Then it wasn’t just recalling the argument itself, but thinking about the place they’d seen it in, or the person that repeated the words a little too perfectly to them, no matter how many times it had iterated. Then, even the ones that never saw the original would still “remember” my mask and voice, as if they had been there with me the moment it happened. So far so good, nothing earth-shaking, just very remarkable and a little concerning, the world could keep moving, much as I kept making headlines even after disappearing off the grid for a so-called vacation…

And right after that is when things got serious. That little ditch of remembrance remained, but then, thanks to the bit of linguistic trickery I used, they’d hear the words once more when the thought of troubles and the blame thereof came up. It went from the wide and general, to more personal matters, as tiny, incidental thoughts of blaming anyone veered a little too close to the words, to the ditch of memory they’d carved; like I said, memory’s a web, each link grows thicker the more transit it gets, and when one of those is so marked and deep it seems to have a gravity of its own? It gets a lot of transit through it. And so, whenever they saw something and felt the urge to point a finger, whenever they were accused, whenever they felt affronted, or even slighted? They’d hear my voice again! They’d think of who to blame, the individual who just offended or wronged them, and again it’d be me, asking them with biting sarcasm whether it would ever be their fault instead! And each time they tripped it, the ditch would grow a little bigger, the roads a little thicker, and next time would be easier.

Ahaha, you’d think so, you’d think the more narcissistic of them all, and the sorts of people that made that land what it was, would endure it, but the thing about how they work? These issues, they’re defense mechanisms, you see? They dismiss and turn around and refuse to listen because it’s an attack. And the thing about a defense mechanism is that it needs to acknowledge the threat, even for just a moment. Even if it’s just subconsciously, without actually realizing it. And usually it works, even when throwing away stark reality and facts, but here it just made sure it’d be set off again. Every word, heard against their will, acknowledged, while the actual workings that tripped the memory go unnoticed.

And round it goes, as they see my face and hear my voice again with all of their disdain, and react to it again. But that can’t be, their subconscious mind would go, they can’t be wrong, it’d be shameful to be wrong, and thus it cannot be acknowledged! It’s a direct challenge, and thus it’s not acceptable! It’s someone else’s fault, the subconscious mind would think – and one way or another, it would trip over the ditch again. Widening it, deepening it, making it worse, involving even more of the other thoughts and memories…

Until their minds burned to the ground in a cacophony of their own making.

Hah. Hahah! Yeah, they were the first to go. You might think it’s ironic, that the most unreachable people of all were the ones that crumbled first and fastest under this little critique of mine, but that’s the mind for you. In that, and so many other things, it’s easier to just keep giving them rope until they hang themselves and everyone around ‘em. Or would it be have them dig their own graves? Either works. The words just forced the question, again and again, and without an answer, it just kept going and getting them to react every damn time, until they just scoured themselves to nothing. And that alone made things so much easier, you can’t even imagine! That sort is at the heart of so much trouble, here and everywhere!

But here, it wasn’t enough, not just yet.

Yes, I know, it’s very easy to forget about the others in a place like that, but they exist, they were always there! And my words dragged them into the forefront, because so many of them had forgotten they could stand there. Or worse, didn’t want to acknowledge the idea, because it would mean stepping off the spiral they’d carved into the ground with their steps and onto completely unknown territory. So many of them were afraid, you see? Because to so many of you – in general I mean, all of you are pretty different seeing you’re in your line of work – the unknown is more terrifying than even something you know will be awful. And so, they just watched. Sometimes just kept the supplies that kept things screwed down going, sometimes just stayed off of it, paying it no mind so they didn’t need to ask themselves anything. Whatever it took to know what would happen tomorrow, so that they wouldn’t have uncomfortable questions hanging over their heads.

And then my question made it all moot. All it needed is a little crack, you get me? A little way in, the passing thought that skirted the edge of culpability just enough to make them hear me again. Usually it was something, anything, that would make them think there’s nothing they could’ve done. That was enough to let my words in, words they couldn’t dismiss. Words that threw them out of the grooves they’d worn into their lives no matter how much they fought to stay in them. And hey, to their credit, that was often enough! There’s so many people that need to be punted out of the ditches they’ve dug themselves into, you know? Plenty of them would’ve gotten so much more done if someone had just reached in there and dragged them out of it before it all went downhill, or even just during the process!

Collateral? Hah! No, there was no collateral here, if I wanted this done quick I’d need to rope each and every one of the involved into this. I know there’s consequences, I took them into account. Every last ripple. I’m not new to this.

Already helping? Ahaha, already helping? Come on, don’t give me that, will you? I met them, alright, because I wanted to see for myself if they could start the fire I needed. Needed to check just how much prodding it might take, you see? And you know what I saw? Chatter, grumbles, empty promises. So many shoulds and woulds, but never wills. Words spread but never acted on. And whenever someone did something even at the most minimum another so-called “helper” ran in with all haste to tell them it was pointless. “Oh, it’s not enough, nothing you could do is going to help, they are never going to listen and they are the only ones that can do anything!” Even their suggestions were basically a joke, skipping steps at best, completely impossible at worst. No, couldn’t get anything done with that. Compasses are for people who go out into the wild, and that includes moral compasses, you get me?

Oh, and the ones that wanted to, the willful ones I found when I looked deeper? The ones that weren’t discouraged? The ones who worked up the courage and direction, and would’ve worked an actual push if they were given the chance? They were frozen in place, not because they weren’t pushing, but because they pushed against each other and canceled right out before any momentum on anything they could do was achieved. One minus one is zero, no matter how many times you run the math. Often because far too many rejected what the place had pushed on them, as they should’ve, yet bought the mirror image of it! Hook, line, and sinker! As if it was all a matter of staring at a problem far bigger than themselves and slapping a minus sign on it!

So, no, these folks weren’t collateral, I made them stare at all the things they didn’t do. I gave them all a push in the same direction: Away. I ended their little deadlock right then and there with my words. They scattered to the four winds, sure, but what was left finally had a direction. The right direction, after all was said and done, after I had scoured everything useless out of them. They’d start from scratch, from beneath scratch even, but they’d actually start. Out of them I got something that’d knock over what was left of this old order in their scrounging to survive, and make something else that, ideally, wouldn’t need us to come over again.

Look, sorry to disappoint, but it was never my job to check if they’d bumble their way towards utopia after that. Just that they wouldn’t completely fuck themselves over in the way they were so eager to. We made sure the world that was left would, in fact, keep spinning, instead of the alternatives that would’ve followed if we just let them at it. I’ve got a good track record, so I’m sure once they’ve put out the fires and sifted through the ashes they’ll have something better, less volatile. Definitely less rotten, I made sure of that! But if they’ll climb the heights they had again, that’s up to them. Seeing my words will stay with them, I’d call… a coin toss. But I did my part. They’re lucky they didn’t get my colleague, you know? He wouldn’t have bothered, and in fact he didn’t bother, over on his side of the realm.

Don’t start getting like that, will you? If this place was a cause as lost as that one, it’d already be too late for you, I’d be going elsewhere. To higher, yet way worse places! Like your king in particular. Yes, you over there. He’s gonna be part of the problem, spoiler alert. Up to you how you deal with that one, still time for options. I’ve got my suggestions there, but hey, go ahead and surprise me! Unless you fuck it up monumentally I won’t need to be back in several lifetimes! I think I’ve outlined by now that’s a good thing for you, haven’t I?

Oh? You want an example of what awaits you if you don’t? Of what happens when a realm cracks open? When we’ve got to sweep ruins instead of dust, complete with actual survivors trying to eke out a living like rats in debris? You want to know what comes next when a whole world dies, like this one might if you don’t get this done? Hahah… No. No you don’t. I don’t want to deal with that, and you don’t want to deal with that in the least. My arrival alone means things are already gonna be worse for you, because the path I took to get here? We didn’t open it, and we can’t close it, you get me? The sooner we get this done, the quicker I can get to making sure no one followed us here, or finds the way in afterwards. Someone always tries to find it, down there; there’s valuables you can only find in fresher realms like this one, you see? You do not want to meet the sort of folks that tear them down for scrap.

But that’s okay! I’m here, with my colleague, and we can guide you through what you need to do, and tell you exactly what you shouldn’t do! Real shame that we have to be here, but it’s good that we are here, you see? Just need to see a little further and deeper than any of you to spot the path to a lasting realm, one that can keep going down its path in the proper way… But if that’s not enough, and it rarely is, well, I think I’ve outlined some of the more utilitarian reasons fairly well already, right? But you’re lucky on that too, since we’re early enough that I don’t need to do any of that, you see? You can still sort it out yourselves with the right steering, and hey, even if you fail, I don’t need to do nearly as much! Though I’m sure none of you want any direct action on my part, not by now, right? Thought so. Again, we can all be glad that’s not necessary this time, I know I am pretty relieved to work with willful folks like you!

What? Don’t get like that, I already told you I have a good track record! You can’t deny this place has the potential to get absolutely fucked if no one does anything, I’m just here to make sure that doesn’t happen! At the very least the fact I’d need to deal with the tail-end of the fallout if that happens should be enough to know I mean that. Morality goes all over, but wanting to avoid an awful fucking inconvenience is universal, you get me? And you saving this place from this whole mess and that monarch you had that’s setting it off, it kills your bird and mine in one stone, you see? That’s how you know you can trust me, we have a common goal!

Ahaha, pardon?

Oookay, I’m going to assume you don’t, in fact, believe me. Because the alternative here’s that you’re standing there, right in front of someone who actually wants to help, in your way for once, someone who’s got some actual power that isn’t pointed at you – for once – and who’s just outlined what will happen if you fail, which you very well could, especially if you don’t take her help, and telling them to fuck off. Because, what, it’s against your conscience to take help from someone like me? Someone that’s doing her job keeping the wheels turning right? Because that sometimes involves scraping the gunk that jams them up? It’s somehow a worse sin to take my help than to take an even bigger risk of your whole country and even realm burning to the fucking foundations than you already would? Is that the moral thing to do here, dying with a clean conscience as everyone else screams? Is that gonna be your choice, even if you actually believe me?

I thought you wanted to be a hero!

Hah. Hahah! Oh, now you believe me, don’t you? I can’t fault you, seeing is believing, as they say! Or hearing, as the case may be… And honestly, if you don’t? You will. I pulled my punches way more than the example I just gave you, but it should be settling in right about now. You hear it, don’t you? You hear me. Go ahead, tell me off. I won’t answer.

…

Hah. Real shame that it had to come to this, but honestly, I warned you. I offered my help no strings attached, but seeing you don’t believe in that kind of offer, well, there you go, have one string for each of you. It’ll make things more believable for the lot of you, okay? Just as a favor, think of me making things easier for you all, see?

Now, with that out of the way, step forwards! Come closer, I know you’ve got a map with you, let me see that, and I can outline your next stop if you want to get this all over with nicely and quickly. I can mark it down, I’ve seen this place for what it is already, don’t worry there. Or are you gonna just stand there and wait for it to get worse?

Hahah… That tells me everything I need to know. Now that we’re on the same page, let’s get to it, shall we?