002; video

[vanto]

[The room behind Eli is decorated with a few Christmas lights and ornaments: a candy cane or two, some crystal stars, mistletoe. It's minimalistic but adequately festive for the Imperial household; at the edge of the room is a box and wrappings — this room has clearly just been decorated.

Eli runs a hand through his hair, nervous but content. There is a smear of red lipstick on his cheek that he has been trying to wipe off for forty minutes. This is his life now.]

I can't remember the last —week and a half? Two weeks?— very well. But I know that I caused some trouble as a, uh, glowing horse. With eight legs.

[Eli looks away from the camera, mouth pressed into a thin line.]

I'm sorry, and if you want me to pay or help fix anything please contact me. I don't know how else to make up for all the garden destruction.

[...]

And how do you fix cravings from being a horse? I walked by a flower shop and the roses looked really appetising.

Comments

[exceptionalthief]

Hope is a vague longing. It's the antithesis of action. It's something you do when you can't do anything else.

[vanto]

I think that depends on the individual, hope doesn't lend itself to inertia, it also gives way to goals.

[exceptionalthief]

Hope is not a strategy. Hope as a mentality is nefarious precisely because it looks towards the future at the expense of the present, it banks on things changing for the better down the line, and for a lot of people things never change.

[vanto]

That's a grim outlook and not necessarily true.

[exceptionalthief]

It's a practical outlook based on logic and more often true than not.

[vanto]

It's most certainly grim, and given the number of worlds and galaxies we have here — I'd like to think the odds are in hope's favour.

[exceptionalthief]

In other words, you hope they are.

[vanto]

Not just hope but possibility. There's no fact to contradict what I believe.

[exceptionalthief]

Because it's abstract idealism based on emotion, not because you're right or wrong.

[vanto]

It's probability, not emotion. Fine, the hypothesis may be based on my idealism but using mathematics is sound.

[Woo, first time Eli uses some maths outside work since getting here lmao. Thank you, Hans.]

[exceptionalthief]

[N'uh uh.]

You're seriously making a mathematical argument for how relevant hope is to change?

[vanto]

Sure, why not? Are we even busy today?

[exceptionalthief]

I'd say it's about time to make it a point to be.

[vanto]

Am I boring you?

[exceptionalthief]

Not as such. But then there's the probability of exasperation becoming a factor.

[vanto]

Can you give me some percentages or?

[exceptionalthief]

I'd say about 35% at the moment.

[vanto]

I thought you were going to pin it at about 70% and yell at me to shut up.

[exceptionalthief]

You sound as though that might be a common occurrence for you.

[vanto]

Navy hierarchy is delightful that way.

[exceptionalthief]

Which navy would that be?

[vanto]

Imperial Navy, back where I'm from.

[exceptionalthief]

Ah, would that be the infamous Empire from another galaxy?

[vanto]

Yes, I confess. I'm part of those guys who are always fighting here.

[exceptionalthief]

I'm surprised no one has locked the lot of you in a room yet.