181

[impure_tale]

Do you know I never fancied ships in my youth? I had in my delusions, as a prisoner given to an obsession with numbers, once predicted that the letters I was receiving included secret 'signals' that I would be exiled to Barbados the following fortnight. This sent me into such a passion that I wrote probably some of the most unkind letters to my wife that I had ever penned -- not of course because I loathed sunshine, just the seas and all vessels that floated upon them.

I'm tempted to suggest this one does not count. Perhaps it is the absence of any real water.

Lucius Malfoy, I am making quick work of your file. I expect that we should meet very soon, but until I have committed this information to memory, we shall have to settle for conversation here. Have you any pressing quesetions?

Comments

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

Your file? It disappeared when you graduated, of course.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

Good.

I don't know how to do this, Marquis. Tell me how.

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

You must control the situation without burning any bridges, naturally. I trust one of your initial worries will be what will probably involve a desire by him to question your credentials. The man did what you're doing, for a living, among lunatics. It will not be easy.

If he seeks to derail discussions by bringing up your past indiscretions or your fitness to be a Warden, you must control the course of the conversation. Remind him once that this is not the topic under discussion at present and bring him back to the subject. For every attempt to change the subject after that, continue without comment. Do not open yourself up to have your past actions questioned and scrutinized, even in fair quid pro quo exchange, until you feel confident you can fully command the discussion. If by chance you discover the Admiral has gone and slipped him your file, you will do yourself no good by denying.

You MUST prove your resolve is stronger than his, because you are in the right here. He is not.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

Do you think me capable of this, Marquis? Did I make the right choice?

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

Of course, Iago. As I have often told you, the right choice is regrettably almost never the easy choice.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

Well, I wish it was in this situation.

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

Do you think I envisioned you an easy undertaking, when the Admiral first assigned us?

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

I don't exactly know. I didn't care at the time and I didn't ask after.

What did you envision?

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

I thought of casting you as a tree in my play so that I could giggle myself to sleep over the irony.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

You are very a wicked man, Marquis.

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

In the end I did not, as you well remember.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

And I appreciate that.

Private

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

I thought that you might.