milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Steward of Gondor is in the bar tonight, doing what one generally does in a bar:

Drink.

He seems... curiously blank tonight. Neither in a good mood or a bad. Simply... somewhat detatched. Deep in thought. Daydreamy.

Security badge is, as usual, clipped to his belt and in plain view.

Lost in thought he may be, but he always welcomes company.

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"The name I do not know," he says with a note of sincere regret: for he is of the belief that all good people are worth knowing, and if a friend of his says a man is good, he believes it. "But I trust the medical practices of your world are of the highest standard. I shall offer my hopes to him."

"Thank you," she says sincerely. "He's very much a fighter and I believe he'll pull through. I just wish I could be there with the rest of my team, rather than kept here. But Bar has her reasons, whatever they might be."

"In matters of non-malicious magics -- and Bar is many things, but malicious is not one -- it is best to trust to what the Fates have for us, and do what we can in the meantime. However difficult it may seem." He smiles. "You seem to be making active use of yourself, certainly. What are you looking at through that instrument now?"

"It's a microscopic form of life called a paramecium. If you'd like to look at it, you're more than welcome to." She moves out of the way.

[ooc: Ahh, memories of AP Biology coloring sheets for homework.... eight trillion tiny dots....]

Faramor leans over the eye-piece almost gleefully. Her science fascinates him as much as do the histories of his world: it is a new kind of knowing, spellbinding. When he backs away, his eyes are wide.

"Is that alive?"

[ooc: Ah yes. Icestrain, criticisms from underpaid TAs that could never spell the words correctly. Those were the days. :D]

"That particular specimen? No, I'm afraid not. But there are others of it's kind living all around."

"Amazing. Amazing!" the prince breathes. "Where? To what purpose do you study this one?" Not that knowledge needs a purpose, but you know... it's all eventually good for SOMETHING.

[Mun disclaimer: The following explanation has been pulled completely from nowhere and should not be taken as actual science. ;)]

"Well, parameciums are most often found in fresh water. Species and variations will be found depending on the individual aspects of the different kinds of fresh water. By knowing the species, I would be able to know whether a body found near a lake had actually been in the lake prior to death, or other things like that."

[ooc: Mun has taken four -- FOUR -- years of biology in high school and went on to be an art student. Scientific explanations may be liberally falsified for the amusement of all at any rate. :D ]

"And was it?" Faramir asks of the specimine in question. "In the lake?" Because clearly this is important.

"A river, actually, located a short distance from the lake in question. And the individual had been dunked in the river, then dropped by the lake, for reasons we were never able to determine."

Blink blink.

Bliiiiink.

"A river is running water. Perhaps there was something on or in him that the murderer wished to see washed away. Perhaps it was a purely ceremonial gesture -- a crime of personal significance, revenge."

"Excellent theories," she says with a pleased grin. Most police cadets wouldn't think that far ahead. "As far as we could determine, based on all the evidence at hand, the death of the individual was accidental, and the perpetrator feared he would be blamed, and so tried to cover it up. If he'd reported what had truly happened, he would have faced no consequences. People can be idiots."

"Well that makes no sense," Faramir says. "An accident is not a thing one needs to hide; even should it result in a man's death, such a thing is not a crime, though one does take some responsibility for such things. But why move him from a river to a lake?"

"Like I said, we never got an explanation for that. Sometimes we can't answer all questions that are raised."

Faramir shrugs the matter off.

"Humanity," he muses, "is a puzzle beyond all others. More fascinating soul by soul."

She thinks back to the serial killer they had dealt with only a few weeks prior.

"That is one way of looking at it."

"How do you look at it?"

"Humanity is definitely a puzzle, but oftentimes I find myself more horrified at the depths to which we can fall, than I am fascinated."

Faramir bows his head briefly.

"I have ever wondered at the heights, and perhaps blinded myself to the depths. My father used to tell me I projected into men a nobility that they lacked. Yet I cannot believe men are inherently base and ignoble things. We come from high blood; such greatness and wisdom is attainable again. And perhaps it is true I have been blinded. Yet I have seen war. Are there any abysses deeper than that?"

She looks down for a time, closing her case of slides.

"I have seen children murdered by their own caregivers or used as intimate toys. Husbands have beaten their wives to death with their own hands over false infidelities. Doctors have denied care to people based on their own religious beliefs and refusing to uphold their sworn oaths as healers. Humanity has fallen far, in many instances." Her voice is rough, dark with memory and familiarity.

"My father would beat my mother," she says then, voice distant as though in a dream. "And one day, he hit her one too many times and she killed him in front of me. I was twelve. And that was when I learned that such actions were not normal."

His grey eyes darken at her descriptions, and his face seems to fall into a kind of shadow as she tells of her own life. With only a little hesitation, he puts his hand on hers again, his touch warm and strong, supportive but not invasive or presumptuous.

"Such deeds are beyond my experience," he admits. "I am sorry, Sara, about your mother. My own mother died when I was five years old. Some... say it was my father's doing. He had a heavy hand, but he never raised it to her. It was a sickness of the heart that drove her to her death. Perhaps... there is more than one kind of violence."

He will not make direct accusations against his father. With the loyalty of a son and the somewhat convoluted complex of a victim of emotional abuse, he loves his father dearly.

"Madness took him in the end. War, hopelessness." His voice is carefully detatched. "He died by his own hand, and only the valient actions of a few prevented him from taking me with him in the end."

And that was not so long ago.

Not so long ago at all.

"I could never blame her," she says roughly. "She was imprisoned for his murder. I found it strange, as I grew older, that only his death had been sufficient for those meant to protect us to take notice. It was apparently easier to ignore the bruises and screaming."

She finishes closing the microscope in its case.

"My mother was denied her own justice. I believe that is why I have my career--so others like her will not languish in silence and fear."

A minor hesitation before she mirrors his comforting touch.

"I am sorry about your father, and your own experience, Faramir."

"We all have our burdens." He smiles sadly. "It is an honorable thing you do, to seek justice for those who cannot seek it themselves. I wish my own life had so noble a purpose. But my path is less a matter of my choice. It is upon the shoulders of men and women such as you that the world finds its greatness. And everything has its reasons."

"Don't sell yourself short," she says quietly. "You have your demons, as do I, and you've not given into them or allowed them power over your life. That strength of heart is rare."

"And yet they do have power," he says, disapproving as his father was of any shortcoming in himself. Though with understandable double-standard, he sees this as no shortcoming in anybody ELSE.