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[impure_tale]

Though it is always a breach, that one in particular always gives me some pause. It's always the same person that I become, always later in his existence on the Barge. It's given me reason to think of him at times, even worry.

I know myself to be a stubborn man no matter what my form. It shouldn't surprise me he lasts as long as he does, but it's always so frightening to find himself so...out of control of myself.

This time, he was better, and I'm overjoyed to look back and realize that. Without a Warden on his back, he had friends. He was not lonely. He was...approaching something more normal again. It reminded me much of the weeks in Charenton before the doctor came.

What still troubled me -- his door was unlocked, and he couldn't step outside. He didn't believe he could open it.

I remember being that way, in my first weeks here. Romana took such time and care coaxing me out of my room, showing me there were no bars on it. No chains.

And I look at myself now and realize that while I know there's been no lock on my door, I've still been reclusive.

I didn't come this far just to make myself a prisoner again.

Comments

[tentacruelest]

I don't wish to dwell on it.

[impure_tale]

Of course not. Should you ever wish to talk, however, I've an ear to listen. Two, in fact.

[tentacruelest]

Talk of something else. Anything else. But not of the past.

[impure_tale]

Difficult task, that. I'm dead; 'tis almost all I have, but I can try. Are you at all fond of books, Captain? Stories?

[tentacruelest]

Books don't last long on th' Dutchman. And I was never a very..literal-minded sort of creature.

[impure_tale]

But surely sailors tell just as many tales by word of mouth, oui?

[tentacruelest]

I've a fair number of piratical tales I was part and party to, in my day. Legends I saw sprout, grow old, and die....or just sprout and die, as th' case may be for some.

[impure_tale]

Does no one simply make them up as they go along?

[tentacruelest]

Exaggerate? Oh, aye. They're fond of that.

[impure_tale]

I meant more beginning with a fictional base and going wherever their hearts lead them.

[tentacruelest]

Each one has tales from their homelands. Aye.

[impure_tale]

And what of you?

[tentacruelest]

I am no exception. But I find no point in them.

[impure_tale]

What entertains you, then?

[tentacruelest]

Music. The occasional bargain with less clever men than I. The suffering of those who willingly expose their hearts to pain.

[impure_tale]

For some the only way in which they may arrive at pleasure is to begin with pain, but I'm certain that is not what you meant.

I, too, am particularly fond of music but lament that I am neither gifted with so fine a voice nor so dextrous of the fingers that I could perform any that might be deemed satisfying.

Perhaps we might find a middle ground. Have you availed yourself to any poetry at all?

[tentacruelest]

It is not.

But it is...similar, in nature. Satisfaction gained.

And I find it hard to believe a man of your wealth, tastes and experiences has not been taught at least one instrument.

No. I know no poems except those in songs.

[impure_tale]

My preferred poetry, especially when I am out of sorts, is unfortunately not so musical as one would like, but its passages soothe for whatever reason just the same.

...And Harpsicord, just a smidgeon of training. I believe the polite term when describing one's skill is to say you play "a little" and having spent the last thirty years of my life in poverty or in prison, and having had few opportunities to take it up again, it is safe to say I play "very little." I'm more of a theatrical sort myself, have been since I was quite young.

[tentacruelest]

Music soothes me more than words. Words lie. They twist into unfulfilled promises and bargains not intended to be kept.

Did they not have harpsichords in prison? Imagine.

[impure_tale]

Words for a long time were my only music, Captain, and if you were wasting away in silence I imagine you might welcome the sound of a pretty lie over nothing at all.

[tentacruelest]

No, I would not. Unlike you, I am not theatrical, and I like silence. Noise does not travel well at the bottom of the sea.

[impure_tale]

Yes, I remember. [He spent an entire flood as a rather elegant angler-fish creature] But so much that it doesn't travel; it just travels differently. You feel it, like vibrations. [He sounds almost husky when he muses of that.] I can see why you might like the right sort of music in that environment.

[He sobers.] It's not the theatrics I missed. It was the people. I am a lonely man by nature and in my youth a very passionate one as well.

[tentacruelest]

We are all of us lonely by nature. Some of us only grow to enjoy the loneliness more than the disappointment you find in other people.

[impure_tale]

I find the best solution to avoiding disappointment, generally, is to never stop seeking to know people and to make as few assumptions as possible.

If you know a person's nature they cannot disappoint you with it, only impress you when they defy it.

[tentacruelest]

People will always disappoint you.