impure_tale

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105

If that experience has taught me anything, it is that even if I had been a virtuous man, I would still have been the victim of the same injustices, and why? There is always at least one person with power who cares nothing for law, cares nothing for honesty, or equality, or lawfulness, and only about silence and control.

My keepers in Charenton cared nothing for helping or healing me. They only wished to hide me.

[Private to Prefect]

I won't trouble you in person. I realize you were not the same man, just as I was not the same man, in terms of how we each arrived here. But there was still a core of truth in my identity, as I'm sure there must have been in you.

My point -- thank you. There are few that I could credit with saving what sanity I had, and I can say that one of them was most definitely you.

Merci, Prefect.

[Private to Iago]

We shall have this conversation here or in person.

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I do not wish to speak with you.

That's not one of your options.

Then I would rather stay here.

That is a side of me you should never have seen in the flesh, Iago. I showed my file to you in the hopes that reading would have been enough.

...

I'm glad to hear that you remained sane, Comrade.

The file should have been enough. But, the Barge has other plans. I came through it unscathed. I need no explanations from you.

I'm somewhat glad you did see it. What I was subjected to -- that is the manner of wardening I would shield you from, Iago. I have lived my whole life surrounded by hypocrites in power -- a King who would throw my ilk to the wolves while he sends spies into the bedrooms of the aristocracy when his own becomes quiet and unmoving, priests defiling women on their altars of worship -- many others. They do not relish being told the truth, and they certainly appreciate it less when the truth is brought out in public. If they are powerful enough, they will do anything to silence those that would speak.

If you are to do well here, then your Warden must act to help you, and not just will you to silence and stillness. Surely you must understand that is all I wish to do for you.

You are a good deal more valiant than I credited you.

I understand.

Is that all?

No.

The man that I was then was not your Warden. You were not my Inmate. As such, I want you to know that I would never harm you in the manner that I threatened then, and I have never been tempted to.

Comrade, I am very glad that he helped you, but I am not him. I don't want to be him. The core of truth that he had... it wasn't the same as mine.

I never thought you had been tempted to do so, Marquis.

Loneliness has driven me to terrible things in the past and that is but one example of what it has done to me when I have been at my worst. It is something I have not had to confront since before I graduated. That is all I meant to keep from you, before this happened.

In doing so, I betrayed a trust that I have worked meticulously to build with you, and for that I apologize.

It is still there, you know. You just aim it in another direction.

Fine. You apologize and I accept that. I do not wish to speak of this any longer.

Why? You demanded my honesty before -- it must go both ways.

I promise you it isn't.

Why are you afraid of me, Prefect?

Keep your secrets next time. I do not want to talk about it.

What did you do after it happened?

Nothing!

Iago.

I killed West...

...You what?

...I'm not afraid of you so much as...

I don't know, wary.

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Prefect has, by this point, worked out, that EVERYONE LOVED FLOOD HIM :C

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