[ Handing them off? Maybe that's why he had so many, but Silco couldn't imagine not raising his daughter. She had been his, after... everything that had happened. Every loss had led him to her. Everything. ]
Are you forced to continue your work in their name here?
[ He would hate it. Working for someone else, subservience. Though...
I tried not to be. I was the cause of their misfortune, after all.
[The key word is "tried". In the end, he failed. He always fails. In the end, a monster can have a bleeding heart that still aches with guilt.]
Mm. Well, they aren't breathing down my necks. I suppose I still have some insights to share with my subordinates in my role as guide. [But....] ...I'm...glad you understand.
You were the cause? Because of what happened? Or before...
[ before the great gem-ening? Was he truly the cause? Did he blame himself? Did he know that even in this, Silco understood him? ]
Vergilius, of everything, I do understand that. A contract? To get them back? [ He had done just that. More than just the one with Sebastian, really. Over and over, and over. He would do it as many times as he had to. ] There is no choice, is there?
[A long, long pause. And then, he recites his truth dully. His terrible truth.]
In the line of my work, I have killed many people. Those people were not simply...standalone evildoers. Many had families. Some...left behind children.
[...]
I, who sliced their parent's throats, ripped them away whatever life they had, brought them to the orphanage and gave them my care. As if that could...make up for anything. As if that could repay a lifetime of sin.
[And now, another haggard sigh, but its pained - this is his bleeding heart, exposed, the very thing that drowns in its own misery. Why did he, a killer, have this much regret? This much guilt? He shouldn't. And yet he does.]
In the end...there is no choice. I will do what has to be done. Come hell, or high water.
Silco shakes a little bit on his end, because it's almost funny. It's almost painfully, heinously funny. Of all the people, of all the things to hear, it's this? ]
There is no such thing as a standalone evildoer, neither is there such a thing as a true saint. If you hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would your hand be the only one on the blade, or was yours the better option? If not for the parents, then for their children? Did they resent you for it? It sounds like they did not.
[ He sees his guilt for what it is. (Silco no...) It nestles in his heart, a killer's heart, and it makes him feel bad for doing what was necessary. How much does he punish himself for this? How much should he punish himself for it? What good was guilt in a cruel world that took no matter who twisted the blade?
And does he know? Does he know just how similar this is? That... ]
Have I told you how she became my daughter? [ The soft chuff of his laugh is bitter. This is not a funny matter, but... If he didn't laugh, what was there left? ] It's soaked in as much blood as each of yours.
...They didn't know. To them, I was simply...me. They should've known.
[And yet he, coward, kept on his little precious life with them even as his own internal axe constantly asked for his own head for it. In one of those visions of another version of their world he had back then, one of those "dots", Lapis had stabbed him in the back. And he had welcomed it.]
[Silco laughs, and it comes from a bitter, sunken place. He draws towards it instinctively, so wondering of more similarities.]
[Its like Silco is fated to slot with him like a puzzle piece no matter what.]
[ It's a bit too... direct, perhaps. Though he knew that children were... irrational little creatures as a whole. (Silco, your daughter is Jinx.) How much did he feel guilt for something that was inevitable? Could he teach him to stop this? To learn to love the spark of violence that lurks in the hearts of all men? Could he help him slough it off, to be the monster that he should be? He wants to.
More than that, he wants to tell him this secret, something so few knew about β a deep, sharp little thing. That thing under his skin, the secret drowned at the bottom of the river β would he listen? Would he hate him for it like he had been before? Could he be understood? Could there be a beast as cruel as he was? That could understand him, his desperate clawing?
Does he want to be?
He opens his mouth, to continue. His eyes snap to the shadows.
He cannot hear anything in his rooms. The shadows are too long. They are too dark. He could turn on his lights, but then the shadows will be harder to find. Conceal what's still there. What if he's still here? He didn't doubt the power of β ]
[Would it? Could it? Maybe it's just his selfish wish. His own crucifixion that he deserves, by their hands. The children would realize, and would spit on him, act in revenge. He wouldn't move a muscle. A fitting end for him, at the hands of those lives he ruined.]
...I don't know.
[He doesn't know. A part of him has been too afraid to say otherwise. Selfish, so selfish. He's his own judge, jury, and executioner, but he has yet to give himself a proper sentence.]
[Silco falls silent on the other end. He blinks, waiting for a reply, and-]
[A knock.]
[He stands to answer the door, and there he is. The man himself.]
Hah? [Yeah, this is a bit unexpected.] Silco. What are you doing here?
[ He's just a bit off, in the doorway. Small, without the large coat, and more casual clothes. A little too harried, his eyes look both directions, like he's trying to make sure that he isn't seen in the hallway, or maybe looking for danger. It's hard to say, it's so quick.
He gestured down the hallway. ]
Doesn't it feel stupid having a conversation when you're just a few doors down?
[ In a room where he's sure the demon is still infesting. Trying to find something important. He could do it, he could watch. Silco knew he had the tricks up his sleeve, the little ways he can hear and see everything. He knew where Silco stayed, now, and he knew he wouldn't capitulate. He had his life, but that didn't mean that he was safe.
[He is off. This feels wrong from the get-go - Silco always carried himself with a certainty even in the face of larger threats. Here, he's smaller, more aware of himself in a strange way. No, this feels different than a man simply led into bittersweet reminiscence. There's something restless, here, and Vergilius actually moves his head forward to cast his gaze down the hallway, as if expecting some shadow to be tacked onto the wall.]
....Mm.
[And now, he's looking back at the man, eyebrows twisting down with a confused frown.]
It may be stupid, yes. [A beat.] What's wrong, Silco?
[ He does not know fear anymore β he does not fear anything β but he does not dare utter something that could be used against him right now where he thinks there could be a...remnant of the demon left. He'd encompassed his room, he'd swallowed all the light, was it so foolish to think that he would leave something behind, to make sure he held to the letter of a spoken-contract?
He straightened and looked him in the eye. A tip of his head, a twitch of his lips. Fear could only do so much to stifle Silco. ]
[Maybe he didn't see an actual shadow, but looks like he wasn't far off on his guess. Shadows may listen. Whatever happened with Sebastian somehow pierced to his core. He has no idea what the butler is, but...]
[This is a man who was pushed to a corner if he ever saw one.]
[He sighs as if reluctant, but he is moving back at the same time, to give the man space to move.]
....Fine. No shadows here.
[When he does enter, he will find....a rather unimpressive room. Bluntly normal, with disheveled sheets, scattered belongings. Nothing personal here. A room lived in, but it isn't alive.]
You can take a seat.
[He gestures to the bed. He has a chair, but its as plain as it gets. Probably more comfortable for that first choice.]
[ It's... about as spartan as Silco's is, really. Minus the drama of the medications and drugs, his was no more personable than Silco's is. Though, he's been here longer, hasn't he?
Once the door is closed, he relaxed slightly, that cantankerous old arrogance suffusing back into him, like the spark of paranoia can be buried back underneath. It's more vulnerable than he'd like. He won't admit it, and certainly won't voice how truly powerless he is; the stark reminder doing more to harden it into his soul, when a world before, he'd thought he could do anything. He could. Now... well.
He sat. Though...
His eyes focused on him for a long moment. Maybe because he's thinking about how to start the conversation again; or maybe...
[He waits, patiently, for Silco to begin. He himself leans against the wall, arms folded, waiting. His gaze holds steady, red as anything.]
[That line brings no reaction. No horror, no shock, no disgust.]
And why would you do something like that?
[His tone is almost bordering on casual - after all, he himself just confessed to killing many before. Fathers, mothers, parents. All have ended by his hand.]
[One father by Silco's hand pales to it, by quantity alone.]
[ Well, he didn't expect that to shock him, frankly. Though he seemed to feel guilt for his own murders, he's suspected that the man understood that this was the way of things. That murders happened. In the undercity, after all, it was just. It was normal. Routine.
Nothing. ]
Why? [ There it was. He looked at him, that unblinking eye still boring into him.]
I planned it. I spent years orchestrating it so I could stab him with the knife I stole from him the day he gave me this. [ He tapped it, two fingers to the scar on his face, below the eye. ]
There's nothing more dangerous than someone who knows you best, after all. It's a lesson I had to learn, and one I was happy to teach in return.
[ As if the thought of Silco being close to anyone was likely. ]
I see. The sordid path of revenge. An eye for an eye.
[So, it seems Silco had a man to blame, and hunted that man to sate sweet vengeance. It makes sense. Silco was that type of man - he can see him tending to his grudges like pets, or plants in a garden. He wouldn't let them simply slide by.]
[He tilts his head, staring into that wide, unblinking eye.
Why did he give you that in the first place?
[What was the sin that catalyzed this whole chain reaction to occur?]
[ That bitter little laugh again. A chuff of it. Why? When he'd been younger, when it was fresh and new, he'd asked that over and over again. Why had it happened? Why had he been the one to bear the stains of their guilt? Why did he also have to die? Why had he finally had to let go of everything he was, to leave it to drift to the bottom of the river? Why had he been discarded like yesterday's refuse?
It had never been fair. Wasn't that what their lots in life were?]
Oh, that's where it gets interesting.
We got her parents killed. [ Were his hands stained with blood? Or was he just drowning in it? ]
My plan, of course. My fault.
[ So he was to blame, clearly. He had never blamed himself in full -- but he'd never had the opportunity to. Guilt couldn't roost where betrayal had dug a bigger hole for hatred and fury to be settle. ] Supposedly.
Come now, Vergilius. Your kids were in an orphanage, weren't they? Is it a stretch to think that someone would swoop in and take responsibility, if they felt enough guilt to kill someone they'd called brother?
[ Tried to kill, anyway. ]
I knew it had been a possibility. I was foolish, perhaps, thinking that a pack of Trenchers would be little more than an annoyance to swat down. [ A tip of his head. ]
So you can feel a spot of regret in that blackened coal heart of yours. Who knew.
[Not even said judgmentally, but almost matter-of-factly. Here is Silco. Even at the end of everything, he's as human as the rest of them. For better and for worse.]
[A little sigh, a shift of his head causing his bangs to fall in front of those unnatural gem-like eyes of his.]
And how did she come to you, after your bloody deed was done? Did you swoop in and take responsibility?
[ His put upon sigh rattles through a smoker's lungs. ]
A shame, isn't it? That I'm not nearly as reprehensible as one may think? Everything I've done has been for either that dream, or Jinx.
[ But what would happen if he had to choose? ]
Did you know, his entire pack of children came to save him? All but her. They had left her behind, because she was... [ Well... ] Her namesake.
They're dead. [ He held up a finger. ] Before you blame me, understand, I had no interest in the children. I took him only.
[ But Zaunites were built different. ]
I found her afterward. Crying by his body. She'd blown them up. All of them except her sister, who tossed her aside for trying to do what she thought would help.
[ There's that bitter little laugh again. Like father, like daughter. In every way possible. ]
[Jinx, he says. Like her namesake, he says. It seems children are named after what they are, what they will be. A gem of a boy becomes a hardened jewel. A girl named after disaster provides as such.]
[He takes it in, doesn't answer for a good long moment.]
Blown them up....how? What was she trying to do, Silco, that ended in such tragedy?
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[ Handing them off? Maybe that's why he had so many, but Silco couldn't imagine not raising his daughter. She had been his, after... everything that had happened. Every loss had led him to her. Everything. ]
Are you forced to continue your work in their name here?
[ He would hate it. Working for someone else, subservience. Though...
If it was required? ]
I would do the same if I had to.
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[The key word is "tried". In the end, he failed. He always fails. In the end, a monster can have a bleeding heart that still aches with guilt.]
Mm. Well, they aren't breathing down my necks. I suppose I still have some insights to share with my subordinates in my role as guide. [But....] ...I'm...glad you understand.
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[ before the great gem-ening? Was he truly the cause? Did he blame himself? Did he know that even in this, Silco understood him? ]
Vergilius, of everything, I do understand that. A contract? To get them back? [ He had done just that. More than just the one with Sebastian, really. Over and over, and over. He would do it as many times as he had to. ] There is no choice, is there?
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[A long, long pause. And then, he recites his truth dully. His terrible truth.]
In the line of my work, I have killed many people. Those people were not simply...standalone evildoers. Many had families. Some...left behind children.
[...]
I, who sliced their parent's throats, ripped them away whatever life they had, brought them to the orphanage and gave them my care. As if that could...make up for anything. As if that could repay a lifetime of sin.
[And now, another haggard sigh, but its pained - this is his bleeding heart, exposed, the very thing that drowns in its own misery. Why did he, a killer, have this much regret? This much guilt? He shouldn't. And yet he does.]
In the end...there is no choice. I will do what has to be done. Come hell, or high water.
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Silco shakes a little bit on his end, because it's almost funny. It's almost painfully, heinously funny. Of all the people, of all the things to hear, it's this? ]
There is no such thing as a standalone evildoer, neither is there such a thing as a true saint. If you hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would your hand be the only one on the blade, or was yours the better option? If not for the parents, then for their children? Did they resent you for it? It sounds like they did not.
[ He sees his guilt for what it is. (Silco no...) It nestles in his heart, a killer's heart, and it makes him feel bad for doing what was necessary. How much does he punish himself for this? How much should he punish himself for it? What good was guilt in a cruel world that took no matter who twisted the blade?
And does he know? Does he know just how similar this is? That... ]
Have I told you how she became my daughter? [ The soft chuff of his laugh is bitter. This is not a funny matter, but... If he didn't laugh, what was there left? ] It's soaked in as much blood as each of yours.
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[And yet he, coward, kept on his little precious life with them even as his own internal axe constantly asked for his own head for it. In one of those visions of another version of their world he had back then, one of those "dots", Lapis had stabbed him in the back. And he had welcomed it.]
[Silco laughs, and it comes from a bitter, sunken place. He draws towards it instinctively, so wondering of more similarities.]
[Its like Silco is fated to slot with him like a puzzle piece no matter what.]
No. You didn't.
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[ It's a bit too... direct, perhaps. Though he knew that children were... irrational little creatures as a whole. (Silco, your daughter is Jinx.) How much did he feel guilt for something that was inevitable? Could he teach him to stop this? To learn to love the spark of violence that lurks in the hearts of all men? Could he help him slough it off, to be the monster that he should be? He wants to.
More than that, he wants to tell him this secret, something so few knew about β a deep, sharp little thing. That thing under his skin, the secret drowned at the bottom of the river β would he listen? Would he hate him for it like he had been before? Could he be understood? Could there be a beast as cruel as he was? That could understand him, his desperate clawing?
Does he want to be?
He opens his mouth, to continue. His eyes snap to the shadows.
He cannot hear anything in his rooms. The shadows are too long. They are too dark. He could turn on his lights, but then the shadows will be harder to find. Conceal what's still there. What if he's still here? He didn't doubt the power of β ]
Hm. This isn't...
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...I don't know.
[He doesn't know. A part of him has been too afraid to say otherwise. Selfish, so selfish. He's his own judge, jury, and executioner, but he has yet to give himself a proper sentence.]
[Silco falls silent on the other end. He blinks, waiting for a reply, and-]
[A knock.]
[He stands to answer the door, and there he is. The man himself.]
Hah? [Yeah, this is a bit unexpected.] Silco. What are you doing here?
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He gestured down the hallway. ]
Doesn't it feel stupid having a conversation when you're just a few doors down?
[ In a room where he's sure the demon is still infesting. Trying to find something important. He could do it, he could watch. Silco knew he had the tricks up his sleeve, the little ways he can hear and see everything. He knew where Silco stayed, now, and he knew he wouldn't capitulate. He had his life, but that didn't mean that he was safe.
He knew better. ]
Especially if we're talking about...
[ Their kids. ]
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....Mm.
[And now, he's looking back at the man, eyebrows twisting down with a confused frown.]
It may be stupid, yes. [A beat.] What's wrong, Silco?
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Perhaps this was stupid. (It was.) Finally: ]
I don't trust that the shadows are not listening.
[ He does not know fear anymore β he does not fear anything β but he does not dare utter something that could be used against him right now where he thinks there could be a...remnant of the demon left. He'd encompassed his room, he'd swallowed all the light, was it so foolish to think that he would leave something behind, to make sure he held to the letter of a spoken-contract?
He straightened and looked him in the eye. A tip of his head, a twitch of his lips. Fear could only do so much to stifle Silco. ]
Are you going to let me in, or not?
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[Maybe he didn't see an actual shadow, but looks like he wasn't far off on his guess. Shadows may listen. Whatever happened with Sebastian somehow pierced to his core. He has no idea what the butler is, but...]
[This is a man who was pushed to a corner if he ever saw one.]
[He sighs as if reluctant, but he is moving back at the same time, to give the man space to move.]
....Fine. No shadows here.
[When he does enter, he will find....a rather unimpressive room. Bluntly normal, with disheveled sheets, scattered belongings. Nothing personal here. A room lived in, but it isn't alive.]
You can take a seat.
[He gestures to the bed. He has a chair, but its as plain as it gets. Probably more comfortable for that first choice.]
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Once the door is closed, he relaxed slightly, that cantankerous old arrogance suffusing back into him, like the spark of paranoia can be buried back underneath. It's more vulnerable than he'd like. He won't admit it, and certainly won't voice how truly powerless he is; the stark reminder doing more to harden it into his soul, when a world before, he'd thought he could do anything. He could. Now... well.
He sat. Though...
His eyes focused on him for a long moment. Maybe because he's thinking about how to start the conversation again; or maybe...
Finally: ]
I killed him, you know. Her father.
[ The opening line to that horrible tale. ]
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[That line brings no reaction. No horror, no shock, no disgust.]
And why would you do something like that?
[His tone is almost bordering on casual - after all, he himself just confessed to killing many before. Fathers, mothers, parents. All have ended by his hand.]
[One father by Silco's hand pales to it, by quantity alone.]
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Nothing. ]
Why? [ There it was. He looked at him, that unblinking eye still boring into him.]
I planned it. I spent years orchestrating it so I could stab him with the knife I stole from him the day he gave me this. [ He tapped it, two fingers to the scar on his face, below the eye. ]
There's nothing more dangerous than someone who knows you best, after all. It's a lesson I had to learn, and one I was happy to teach in return.
[ As if the thought of Silco being close to anyone was likely. ]
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[So, it seems Silco had a man to blame, and hunted that man to sate sweet vengeance. It makes sense. Silco was that type of man - he can see him tending to his grudges like pets, or plants in a garden. He wouldn't let them simply slide by.]
[He tilts his head, staring into that wide, unblinking eye.
Why did he give you that in the first place?
[What was the sin that catalyzed this whole chain reaction to occur?]
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It had never been fair. Wasn't that what their lots in life were?]
Oh, that's where it gets interesting.
We got her parents killed. [ Were his hands stained with blood? Or was he just drowning in it? ]
My plan, of course. My fault.
[ So he was to blame, clearly. He had never blamed himself in full -- but he'd never had the opportunity to. Guilt couldn't roost where betrayal had dug a bigger hole for hatred and fury to be settle. ] Supposedly.
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[Confused, he dips his head a little, eyebrows furrowing.]
I guess your plan didn't plan for that. Did it?
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[ Tried to kill, anyway. ]
I knew it had been a possibility. I was foolish, perhaps, thinking that a pack of Trenchers would be little more than an annoyance to swat down. [ A tip of his head. ]
A mistake I intended not to repeat.
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[Not even said judgmentally, but almost matter-of-factly. Here is Silco. Even at the end of everything, he's as human as the rest of them. For better and for worse.]
[A little sigh, a shift of his head causing his bangs to fall in front of those unnatural gem-like eyes of his.]
And how did she come to you, after your bloody deed was done? Did you swoop in and take responsibility?
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A shame, isn't it? That I'm not nearly as reprehensible as one may think? Everything I've done has been for either that dream, or Jinx.
[ But what would happen if he had to choose? ]
Did you know, his entire pack of children came to save him? All but her. They had left her behind, because she was... [ Well... ] Her namesake.
They're dead. [ He held up a finger. ] Before you blame me, understand, I had no interest in the children. I took him only.
[ But Zaunites were built different. ]
I found her afterward. Crying by his body. She'd blown them up. All of them except her sister, who tossed her aside for trying to do what she thought would help.
[ There's that bitter little laugh again. Like father, like daughter. In every way possible. ]
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[Jinx, he says. Like her namesake, he says. It seems children are named after what they are, what they will be. A gem of a boy becomes a hardened jewel. A girl named after disaster provides as such.]
[He takes it in, doesn't answer for a good long moment.]
Blown them up....how? What was she trying to do, Silco, that ended in such tragedy?
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[ He can't help it, there's pride in his voice. Say what you will About Silco's abysmal parenting skills, but he was proud of his daughter. ]
She torched my entire factory with it.
She was always brilliant, even as a child.
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[Trying to save them all with the very thing that took away their lives.]
[He can't even begin to imagine what a child like that would feel. And now, that brings him to the question:]
Did you tell her...what you did?
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normal...........................
so Normal
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π
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