#justanotherthing

“What?” He asked irritably as he looked over to her. He noticed that she (not something she liked to be called anymore though) looked considerably less…bountiful in the upper region. Specifically her rack wasn’t as awesome, but that didn’t trouble him. It was her…his…its…body and heherit was completely able to do whatever they pleased. Pronouns were very tricky, and inventing a new one just to use for Bast was plenty troubling. So was the little yellow creature he held in his hand, which happened to be a baby duck. He decided that he’d go with Ber and Bee to refer to ber, more in his mind.

“Humans Hast, do you think you’re more savvy now?” Bast asked with mild annoyance, not particularly liking how bee had to repeat berself.

“Oh. Yeah I guess so. But this thing has got me all wound up. It’s yellow now, but later on, it because OTHER colours. Other ones! Ones that aren’t yellow! It just…loses the yellow, and then it changes to something else.” He explained as he turned his attention back to the duck, who had now taken to nestling somewhat on his open palm and looking at them sleepily. The duck of course didn’t care about Hast’s predicament as it was merely a duck and more concerned with whether or not the fellow holding him had more of the delicious crumbly food that he’d used to lure it here.

“That’s puberty for you, one minute you’re yellow, the next minute, brown with a bit of shiny purple, or grey, purple, and blue.” Bee had hoped of course that by this time Hast had gone out and learnt quite a bit about humans, time, and the passage thereof, but it was apparent that he still had a long ways to go. Wondrous how he was called the Mad God whereas his brother was the Blind Idiot God. Bee’d take an Azathoth over a Hastur any day now.

“Such amazing things that time does to things.  Anyways yes, I am very much savvy on humans!” He told her cheerfully as he put down the baby duck and patted it on the head, watching it as it waddled off back to the nearby pond. For some reason that waddled always amused him to no end, they did it no matter what age they were! Some things they didn’t grow out of, unlike the yellow of their soft fluff.

“Are you now? Completely savvy?” Bast asked him curiously before he nodded in affirmation.

“Absolutely! I’ve done a bit of studying, I’ve even looked into this morality thing of theirs. Funny how it works, but not bad! Go ahead, ask me something morality like.” He encouraged as he turned on the grass to face ber, definitely focused finally on their conversation.

“Okay…Say I have a red button here, and I tell you that if you press it, someone in the world will die, someone you don’t know, but you’ll get a million dollars. Do you press the button?” Bee posited to him, which made his face grow troubled and confused.

“I guess I don’t, I have no need for money after all.”

“Pretend you did.”

“But for what?” Bast had to roll ber eyes and sigh, one elegant hand going to the bridge of ber nose and trying to rub the impending headache away.

“Someone made a robe of pure yellow spectrum light and it costs a million dollars.” It was one of the few things that would get Hastur interested, and the look on his face said he definitely was.

“Okay…one button, one person, a million dollars, and I don’t know them?” He asked her, ensuring that he understood the question.

“Yes. Think like a human though, I know they don’t mean much to you, but this is a human morality question.” That shut him up quickly though, and he just looked rather pensive as he stared suddenly downwards at the grass. He was muttering to himself, a few times it sounded to ber like he was getting into character in a way, talking about being born, growing up, and going through the stages of life. It was rather amazing to hear him speak quietly to himself, at least what bee could hear that is. Soon however he looked up and nodded his head.

“I’d push the button.” He said definitively, which made her wonder just what he had been talking to himself about.

“Alright, explain why.” Bee asked him with genuine curiosity to see what his thought process was like.

“I grew up in a rather nice neighbourhood in America, my mother and father had good jobs, I had a sibling and was the youngest. I liked math for a while, but mostly I was creative. Anyway, I got to go to College, and University, and I learnt some things there. I read a lot of philosophy, but also a lot of science. I’m a human, everyone else is a human, and in the grand scheme of things… I am stardust, made from things a billion years dead, and soon I’ll be dead and other things will be me. I learnt things, good things about the world, and bad things about the world. One point seven people die each second, just like that. I don’t know exactly how a point seven person dies, but I know that by pushing that button, I will suddenly have money I didn’t have before. There’s no bad outcome, I know all of my friends, and I know their parents, so they are safe, I may even know some of their aunts and uncles. No on in my family will die, no one in their immediate family will probably die, and that means their heartache will almost be natural, maybe a grandparent dies, but that was going to happen anyway. I push the button, and the one point seven people becomes maybe for that second one point nine or however numbers works. The point is, someone who wasn’t going to die did die, but I’ve got a lot more money than I did before, and in the statistical scheme of things it was just a tiny change that really doesn’t throw anything off. Is it bleak? Probably, but I’m driven by base instincts that translate into modern equivalency, I have a need to be powerful, to be the ruler of my tribe, of my people, and to do so I need money. Money buys me power, food, clothes, society, luxuries, status, just what my base instincts deep down want me to have.” His entire spiel was terrible and impressive at the same time. Bast had to take a moment to consider if there were any people on Earth that actually thought like that. It was such a cold way of looking at things, and it was a little expected of him though.

“What about morality, good and evil? You killed someone for money.” Basted accused him, which just made him shrug and lay back on the grass.

“I pushed a button, I didn’t do anything like kill a person. I didn’t STOP anyone from dying, but with afterlife uncertainty  would it matter? People are dying all the time, and there’s tons of people that can stop that but they don’t. Am I supposed to save all the people then? Is that what I’m meant to do? Because I’ll need money for that, and oh hey look I have a million I can smartly invest. See! Easy, push the button, make money, save the world. Heck, I could push the button probably like nine more times that day without really throwing off the statistic.” It was cold hard logic and from a being like Hastur it was incredibly scary to Bastet. Bee decided it was probably best not to ask any more questions like that of him, considering how dangerous this was.

“I think I prefer it Hast when you talk of ducks and clouds and other harmless things.” Bast admitted as bee sprawled out on the grass beside him. He smiled over at her and nodded his head.

“I know, but you asked the question and wanted to see what I learnt. Some paths you take lead you down enlightenment, while others take you toward madness. You always have the choice of which path to take, but sometimes they’re just not clearly marked and you get lost and end up going mad anyway until you see the light once more and then there’s a spirit wolf and he tells you what you learned but he also steals your shoe because apparently wolves of the ectoplasmic variety have a need for shoes.”