milliways_bar | (no subject)

Ramon looks up and sees him, and is immediately on his feet. He wants to be angry at him...but it's just pointless. And this is hurting too much for any other emotion to get thrown into the mix.

So he just walks over, carrying a couple of bottles of tequila and sits down wordlessly.

"Ramon."

He says quietly, with a nod, and does not even glance at the bottles. The drug lord would not be the first s'Ffalenn to attempt to drown themselves in alcohol.

'It's like hell.' He throws a shot back. 'Hell couldn't be worse.'

"Sithaer, on my worlds, is defined as the halls of Dharkaron Avenger; whom is the anthropomorphized representation of guilt."

There is a faint sigh, and a quirked smile,

"The gift of the curse; the other side of the coin, is the ability to know what words will ease pain and suffering. That is why we were given it; that one royal family be always attuned to easing suffering wherever we might find it."

He listens properly for perhaps the first time, and tries to understand. 'So you ease suffering as well as feel it like this?' Does it help?'

"It does. Sometimes I may go hours at a stretch without thinking of pain, feeling pain. I once had,"

He speaks like a man talking about his first vacation, or first girlfriend, wistful fondness and the knowledge that he can never go back;

"an entire month spent in the bars and inns of a city, doing nothing but playing music. I remember that there was only a dull ache for most of that month."

Even in this state he can't imagne himself as one that would ease the suffering of others. But then, he knew that this would be over - it never ended for Ariton. If he was in his position, he'd probably do it too.

'And you're all like this from birth? How do you stop yourselves going crazy?'

He reaches blindly for the bottle, demonstrating perfectly how he would handle it.

"Suicide is the second most common method of death for s'Ffalenn blood."

He says it shamelessly, how could you have shame over a choice of death instead of the crushing guilt?

"The first, mind, is death by s'Ilessid warships."

'Warships? High mortality rate on them?' He lets his face fall into his hands. 'Point me to one...'

He's quiet for a moment or two, and then he says quietly, 'You don't know the things I've done Arithon. You should have warned me. You grew up with this, I didn't know...' he breaks off, knowing its pointless.

And its about the closest he's ever come to an admission of weakness, but he's in no state to worry about it.

"I did."

He says with dark compassion,

"I told you, when we met, that I am at the mercy of the stings of grief and guilt; that it drives me. That I can not hold revenge, nor seek others pain. There is no way to understand the s'Ffalenn except to be s'Ffalenn...and you, as whom you truly are, do not have the capacity to begin to understand. This is a taste of my life; and know this. It costs me to have given you such a taste. More than, even now, you comprehend. You are not, and can not be, a sorcerer. There are rules."

'If it costs you, then why did you do it? Are you trying to teach me some kind of lesson here?' He stops again. Lesson or not, he'll see it through. He wont ask for it to be reversed, even if it could be.

'I know that I can't be a sorcerer, I never asked to be one. And as I truly am...you dont know that I couldn't understand. We haven't talked that much.'

He hates the way he's saying this but he needs a distraction. Alcohol isn't helping much so far.

"As a lesson? No. It is not my place to do so. To give you insight, yes. So that you will understand, in the future, what you say when you speak to me. I do not expect this to change you, you are whom you are and to expect you to change is a fool's hope. I am many things, but rarely a fool.

It costs me because I am s'Ffalenn, blood and bone, and I have caused the suffering you currently feel."

Unspoken, but so terribly and starkly obvious: Arithon has assumed the burden of Ramon's suffering along with him. The older man does not suffer alone, and when Ramon has ceased to feel the guilt Arithon will still have it to strike his nights. Another grace note of exquisite torture to add to the melody of suffering and screams that wake the little man up in the night.

"You did not understand how a single death, or ten thousand, could be anything but a joy. A joy in use of power to destroy. That alone suggests that you lack the ability to understand the s'Ffalenn."

He hates the way it all makes sense when Arithon says it, because he can't argue against it without looking like a fool.

He can't argue against insight either, he's certainly getting that. And - yes, he sees what the man says. 'Then I'm sorry I've caused you more pain Arithon, because there are few people I would wish this thing on.'

He rubs his face with a tired hand. 'Yes you're right - death isn't something that worries me or scares me, so I dont see why it should anyone else. Maybe you're right - but I understand better now, I promise you.'