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Javert had been planning to avoid the bar for a while, because of reasons. But when the door started showing up every time he tried to leave a room, he eventually just rolled his eyes and gave in.

If he happens to spend the entire day outside, well, he just prefers being outside. He exercises the young horse of Teja's people, he builds until he can longer lift another brick. When all work is done, he can be found sitting on the ground, his back against a large boulder (and if it happens to conceal him from view of the bar, that is a coincidence perhaps), idly sketching the lake.

And also possibly trying not fall asleep.

[OOC: Catchable anywhere! Open for a few days. <3

ETA: Time to crash for the night, though. Catch ya tomorrow.]

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"What did he do?" Father Harman asks.

He knows, but he wants to hear Javert's point of view.

He tries to remember that conversation in full, but so much has happened. After a moment, he shakes his head.

'Monseigneur Myriel gave Valjean the silver after he stole it. That is what I recall. I cannot remember what Valjean felt about it, other than his claim that it turned him to good. Except he also stole from a Savoyard, so I do not know what was going through his brain.'

He can accept that Valjean became good because he has seen the proof with his own eyes. The man's actual thoughts about why, and how he could accept such kindness, are still a mystery to Javert. He still cannot comprehend people choosing to commit crime on a physical level at all. Giving a reason for stealing is not the same as explaining how to follow through in action.

"Nobody can tell what goes through another person's brain," Father Harman says. "But it's obvious that Valjean is a good person. You can scratch him, and underneath is still a good person."

'It is not as simple as that. At least with regard others.'

With Valjean it probably is. Javert does try to think about him objectively, but it gets more difficult by the day.

'There are reasons for doing good things that may not be, in themselves, good. And bad things done with good intentions are still bad, I suppose, even if people are made better off by them.'

He looks more exhausted from thinking about this than he did when he was trying not to fall asleep against the rock.

'I do not know. I am not the person to ask about these things. Yes, Valjean is a good man. But how much of an example can be made from him I do not know, nor do I wish to at present.'

"You think bad intentions trump good deeds, and bad deeds trump good intention, so when in doubt, the bad outweighs the good?" Father Harman says.

'...no?'

Now he just looks confused.

'I think perhaps something that benefits all is more important than a bad thing done to one person. For example, if Valjean had not given himself up in Montreuil-'

He breaks off, his face contorts, and he shakes his head as though trying to dislodge a fly. When he speaks - mutters - it is clearly to himself.

'No no no, I do not mean that. It would be have better, but not just at all. He did not deserve it.'

It is probably quite clear that there is much he has yet to resolve with himself.

"Yes?"

'No. I do not know.'

He hates this, and it likely shows in his increased agitation. Things like this should be clear, and he has avoided thinking about them for more than a year now. Dragging it back up again serves no one.

'Whatever he did is not my business to tell. He is not a friend, Father. He is not anything I can name. If you wish to know of his affairs, you must ask him.'

"I don't want to know what he did," Father Harman says. "I simply want to know your opinion."

He already knows what Valjean did, better than Valjean himself, in some cases.

He gives him a pained look. It is not in his nature to refuse the request of an authority figure, let alone a priest. But he does not know what he thinks, and it hurts his head to consider it.

'I have no opinion, Father. I do not understand enough about it, or him. And I have no right to thoughts on these matters any longer; is it not enough I was wrong in my thoughts on him at the time?'

But he was also right, and he also did the right thing. But so did Valjean, and he still cannot reconcile that.

Different approach, then.

"Do you like Valjean?"

He is pulled up short at that.

'...like him?'

"Or do you dislike him?"

Javert stares at him once more.

He has never thought of Valjean in such terms before. The man is not there to be liked or disliked. He is simply Valjean. He is an ever-present thorn in his side. His personality hardly matters at all.

'I...do not think I know him well enough to say either, monsieur.'

Which is a very strange thought.

'If you mean him personally. I dislike many things he has done, if you were simply asking about that.'

Edited 2014-08-29 23:50 (UTC)

"Him personally," Father Harman says. "As a fellow human being."

No, it remains a strange thought.

'I have not considered.'

It has never occurred to him to consider.

'I did not like him in Toulon. I did not like him in Montreuil. I did not like him in Paris - all of these times, you understand, had nothing to do with his personality. And now? He hardly seems a real person. I do not know. I have no feeling either way on whether I like him.'

He has the vaguest of notions about something else, but that is different. And also nothing to do with his personality.

"You do realise now that he's a person, no more or less, created by God and imbued with a soul, no different from you?" Father Harman says.

Javert continues to stare.

And then he looks down.

'He is not a normal person,' he mutters, to the grass.

'And to say he is no more than I is ridiculous.'

"He probably has a unique story," Father Harman says, "but he's a normal person, also a good one who aims to be close to God, and often succeeds."

'He is not.'

No one normal does the things Valjean has done. Anyone else would have died long ago, in any one of the insane escapades he has undertaken.

'He is blessed, there is no other word for it.'

And he, Javert, feels damned more often than not. But he is not going to blame God for that. His own failings have brought it about.

"Can't a normal person not be blessed?" Father Harman says. "And isn't being close to God its own blessing?"

He lets out a breath, and once more rubs his hand down his face in frustration, drawing his nails through his whiskers.

'Being blessed means they are not normal by default. But perhaps saying so detracts from him. It is not by luck he has done the things he has. His abnormal strength has helped him, of course. He...I do not know Father, he is just what he is, and it is not my place to decide what he is to the world, or God. He defies explanation, but that is all very well. He will go to Heaven and be with God, there is no doubt of it. For my part, I will endure him until he leaves.'

He does not feel guilty about feeling small next to Valjean; partly because he is accustomed to the feeling with any superior, and partly because he rather thinks everyone pales in comparison to the man.

"It's possible to dehumanise somebody in a positive way," Father Harman says, slowly, "He's still a person, Javert. Created by God as you are."

Everybody is a person, until they're dead. Then, they're not.

'Then why does he not seem so?'

It is a quiet question, sincerely asked.

'He does not seem real at all.'

"That's your perception, not his reality," Father Harman says. "You've been after him for so long, he might seem more like an idea than an actual person to you."