driftfleet | commiseration [closed]

Entry tags:

commiseration [closed]

Who: Felix and Tyrion
Broadcast: Nope
Action: SS Starstruck
When: Whenever time suits

[Felix sat back against the cool wall of his room as he sat on his bed, feeling the pleasant warmth settle into his limbs. They're through at least one bottle of what might charitably be called wine sitting empty on the footlocker that's now serving as a side table, along with the leftover bits of the small meal he'd put together for the sake of playing a good host. It's much easier to pretend he isn't a bit bothered by the fact that it's partly made of protein gel when he's drunk, but at least the lemon flavor makes passable lemon bars on their own. It's also easier to pretend he's not second-guessing the offer he'd made to Tyrion, but most of the time Felix keeps the promises he makes. Or makes an effort to, at least.

They've mostly exhausted the usual pleasantries by now, and all that's left is the reason the two of them are sitting alone in his room. Usually this kind of audience leads to something else, but in a way what Tyrion was asking was far more intimate, in a way. The fact that there was a closed door between them and the rest of the ship said that they both understood that fact.

He idly refill his own glass and silently offers to do the same for his guest, considering the level of the liquid and the spares bottles as of yet unopened and how intoxicated he really has to be for this. There's a mysterious green liquid he acquired on one of the planets, but that one is only for an emergency. Depending on what secret decides to come tumbling out of his mouth, it very well might be. And that's the horrible truth of all of this - whatever story he ends up telling will likely shed light on a lie.]

Well, then...I believe since this was your idea, it should be you who begins. Your choice as to where.

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[Naturally Tyrion holds out his glass for more - if they were going to tell dreadful tales of each other's lives then it would be best if they were both heavily sauced to do so. It made the tongues looser, and the holds on the invisible secrecy all that much easier. He sighed, softly, for he had asked first - so it was only fair. Felix had given him a glass, a meal, and a private place.

So, he leaned up his small body, cupping the glass between his hands.] When I was thirteen, my brother and I were out riding along the coastal road. We came across a young woman being harassed by bandits - Jamie wanted to call the guard, but I rushed head-long in, tiny little boy that I was, to rescue the fair damsel. Thank the Seven Jamie followed me - I may have frightened them but he was the one who was a holy terror with a sword. Still, it was me the girl clung to, and it was me the girl finally calmed for. It was I that she came to trust, and to love. Her name was Tysha -- and she was ... well. Brown as a nut, with a smile that lit up the entire room. She smiled just for me.

We were married, shortly thereafter, and we lived together in a small cottage, where she sewed and I did scribe work. For a very short time ... I was the happiest little man alive.

[He exhaled, looking down at his hands, and took another drink.] My brother came to me, then, with a full armored guard from my father and dragged us both back to my father's keep. There, my father and brother told me that Tysha was a whore, who had just married me to get to Lannister gold. I did not believe my father ... but I would always believe my brother. The marriage was annulled -- but to teach me a lesson about trusting whores, my father gave Tysha to the guards, and bade them all to give her a silver piece. He made me go after all of them, and give gold, for a Lannister always had to be above his betters...

[He drained the glass, pain and rage flashing through his mis-matched eyes.] Years passed, my father's hatred of me remained, so much that he and my sister conspired to put me away for my nephew's murder. As you can see - the Lannisters are a family of gold, but not much love. Jaime, dear, sweet Jaime ... snuck into the dungeon to save me. There, he told me a horrible truth - that Tysha was, and always had been - just a miller's daughter. My father's pride would not let his noble son, even a noble son he hated, marry a common woman.

[Something bright came into his eyes, and he blinked back the tears.] ...I aim to find her, one day, my Tysha. Throw myself down upon my knees before her and hope she slits my throat, ear to ear. I owe her that much - and a Lannister always pays his debts.

[He gazed into the depths of his wine as the story sunk in one terrible word at a time. Political backbiting and manipulation wasn't uncommon among the noble houses in Marathat either, and it was strangely comforting to hear that that quality seemed to be endemic to that class. That at least some of Tyrion's wounds were inflicted by his own family, however, was far more surprising. True, the origin of his fate rested with his mother, but he had never believed her choices to be made with that kind of purposeful malice.]

Is that really your debt to pay? You said yourself that it was your father that manipulated that chain of events.

[Tyrion mulled over that question, before he sighed and shook his head.] My father was a monster, true, and my brother a liar -- but I still committed the crime, and allowed that crime to be re-visited more times than I thought it would be possible for anyone to survive.

I was young, and I believed foolishly. I never questioned, not for a moment. I owe her better than that. I owe myself better - to be the kind of man I wish to be instead of the one my father tried to craft me to be through his lies.

[It's chilling really, how those last words sound like thoughts that have run through his own mind on more than one occasion, and the pang he feels through his chest is as much sympathy as it is the instinctual fear of seeing his own ghosts brought to light]

Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference. [He half mumbles that, though clear enough for Tyrion to hear, before downing half of his own glass]

[The words to his own tale are bubbling beneath the surface, but there's more he wants - even needs - to know before he returns in kind. Pensively, Felix turns his wine glass back and forth.]

Young people believe a lot of things. I'm curious...did you do it because he bid you, or because you truly thought you'd been betrayed? If she had loved you, would her profession have mattered?

[Tyrion's gaze turns sharply towards him - because those mumbled words are those of someone who already has lived through such mistakes himself.]

True enough ... but when you do, you owe a debt to the one you have wronged. I should know - people are indebted to me three times over. [His lips twist into a wry smirk.]

[He thinks about that.] Both. I would always do what my father told me, even as a man, until the last moments of his life. And ... if I believed then that she truly loved me, had not been after the coin? Absolutely not. She loved me, she accepted me for the twisted little monster I was - how could I deny her the same?

[He made a sound of dark amusement at that. He'd felt that love before, but in his case, had been historically deficient in returning in the way most people expected. ] Well...it is rare when you happen across the real thing, isn't it? Love... [Even the word seemed to catch on his tongue a little]

Some people don't value it. Some people qualify it...like your father did. It's not an uncommon point of view for people of his station, I've found.

[He reached out for the wine bottle again]

[Tyrion took another drink of his wine, before taking another long sip. Then he sighed.] Absolutely the rarest thing there is ... [More than valyarian steel, more than gold.]

The richer you are, the less you value what matters, just what people can give you.

[He handed the bottle over without another word.]

[He took it, taking a moment to fill his glass nearly to the brim, watching the dark liquid swirls and froth contemplatively before setting the bottle aside]

You come from a rich family, yet you seem to have been able to hold onto at least some of your sense.

[Tyrion pressed his lips together, his mouth twisting into a wry smile.]

I came from an obnoxiously rich family, and it has taught me to hold on with as much of my sense as I possibly could.

[Felix smiled back with similar, largely muted, enthusiasm.]

One might argue it takes quite a bit of sense to recognize that in the first place. I wasn't always rich, and yet what little sense I have was far more hard-won that I would have liked.

[While his life has indeed been a string of misfortune, he could not honestly attribute all of it to luck. His own disastrous choices were also to blame for the all the pain he'd endured; fate and poor judgement weaving together into a tapestry that was his life.

There were quite a lot of things he could mention, especially on the theme of loves lost. But those stories were tangled or complicated by other facts, and on the heel of that last vague truth, the one that comes tumbling out of his mouth is one of the threads at the start of it all.]

I...was a prostitute when I was younger. My mother had been one too, though the connection is more coincidence that causality... [Skipping over his years as a kept-thief, but that was unnecessary to the tale. In any case, he carefully doesn't look directly at Tyrion when he says it, because that fact exposes him as a fraud to the man. The first person he's introduced himself to as a Lord in years. He can't help but be a little afraid of what the reaction to that will be.]

Until the man who would become my Master discovered me there, when I was fifteen. His name was Malkar Gennadion, or at least that was his name that decade. Brinvillier Strych to some, the murderer of the last Lord Protector's wife. He was a blood wizard, but I didn't know enough in the beginning to know that. Not until he bought me, took me out of the city, tutored me in magic, convinced me that he loved me, taught me to be what I am now, taught me to lie...through force, mostly. [Which was only surface to the monster that Malkar had been]

He took me back to the city and introduced me to the court of the Mirador - our palace and stronghold - and through his lies got me inducted. By then I thought I'd seen all of his cruelty. I broke away, found a new tutor, found a new lover, and got myself installed in the council. I thought I was free...[His already distant expression grows dark and pained, not just because of what comes next, but because of how much of a fool he'd been]

I did not know it until later, but I should never have been surprised at the depths of his manipulation, when he fed the truth of my identity to one of my enemies, who in turn gladly exposed me...in front of the entire court, no less. [He regrets a lot of things, but not that Robert eventually got what was coming to him, but again, that was a different story.]

In the face of that...after everyone I once regarded as friends and colleagues turned their back on me...I crawled right back to Malkar like a dog. Just as he'd planned. [His expression darkens further - a flash of anger in his eyes. It seemed he was never out of hate to spare for even the memory of that man.]

I knew it was foolish, but even in that despair I had thought it was simply done to spite me and only me. And that was the most foolish thing of all. He used me and my connection to the Mirador to break the Virtu - the keystone of all our defensive wards - and my mind along with it. It wasn't terribly difficult for him to surrender me to the court as the culprit, liar that I was.

[It's now that he finally glances towards Tyrion, haunted and uncertain] Does it bother you to know that?

[Tyrion listened to the whole tale with an odd sense of 'why yes, I understand exactly how all of this could have happened, because it all happened to me'. Love betrayed, friends turning from him, put in the sort of situation where he could be broken for the ambition of another.

He sighed as the other man finished his tale, sipping his wine again before putting his glass down.] My dear Lord Felix -- I have known men who have done much more terrible things, with the full rights of nobility behind them. I have always found that being born of the blood does not mean you are worthy of it.

[After all that, having Tyrion intentionally uses the title he'd won and lost more than once is the one thing that hits him the hardest, though the wine assuredly plays its part. He swallows emptily and cracks a fragile smile]

Thank you for saying so...though I would not sit here and pretend I have been completely blameless. That I have not pushed the limits of my position. It is enough to say I was not quite as much a monster as he? I don't know.

[He rested his hands, glass still clutched between his fingers, contemplatively between his knees, and blinked away the tears that were threatening.]

What is it though...about that notion? Why does being born of nobility or money imply one is meant to be of better character than anyone else, when that rarely seems to be the case?

[He motioned vaguely in the other man's direction]

This is part of why we did away with kings in Marathat.

[He looked into his own goblet at Felix's words, before he spoke softly.]

Perhaps that is all we can ever hope to be. Lesser monsters than those who have created us.

[Mis-matched eyes look up, pensive and thoughtful at the question.]

Perhaps because it is within the thought that if you can afford the finer things, you must be a finer person. A ridiculous concept, but so many cultures share it.

[A faint smirk.]

Do you have a democracy, then? I have heard of such things.

[Grateful for the slight shift in conversation, Felix makes a sound of amusement, and again locked eyes with Tyrion, saying what his words would not, at this moment. Another set of mis-matched eyes full of understanding, that somehow they were both misfits in societies that would have cast them out under any other circumstance - but Tyrion had money and Felix had power, and either was enough to earn at least bare tolerance. And now they were both here.]

Hardly. We simply have a monarchy with a more limited scope. The Lord Protector has advisory councils - the Cabinet and the Curia - to whom he must consult and delegate certain matters to. Each limits the grasp of the other.

Edited (whoops html) 2016-01-25 22:41 (UTC)

[He looked back at Felix, and yes, it was a measure of respect there. As well as understanding between one another. Neither one of them would truly belong where they came from - so they had to make the world fit them. Which sometimes led to them destroying themselves in a spectacular way.]

[He smiled into his cup.] Now that sounds more feasible than democracy.

[He'd broken himself into so many pieces, exposed secrets to so many people and then buried and forgotten them, that he couldn't be sure what was the truth.]

Feasible...perhaps, but maybe not ideal. I imagine we spent so much time curtailing our own power...managing our our affairs...that it made it harder to manage the affairs of the people we were meant to be ruling.

[He couldn't entirely blame the failings of the Marathine goverment to his own mistakes, but it didn't stop him, either.]

Then again...I've seen attempts at democracy in other places, and I can say that it could absolutely have been worse.

[The truth was, as far as Tyrion could see, the truth was subjective to whomever was telling it.]

So what happened in this world of yours? Is it falling down or has it managed to crawl back to it's feet again, like a drunken sailor?

[As were most things, but frankly he's far too drunk to be that philosophical about it. He responded with a lopsided shrug.]

I can't speak for the entirety of the world. Marathat has been limping along quite successfully for the last two hundred years, unless the Kekropians succeed at pushing us over. Not for lack of trying, of course.

[Tyrion smirked before letting his head loll back. It had been some time, since he had been this drunk. He was going to enjoy it.]

When you say limp ... do you mean that literally or figuratively?

Figuratively. I'm not sure how an entire country could literally limp. I suppose I meant we haven't destroyed each other yet, though that's part of why the Cabal was created in the first place.

[And as most things that involve wizards go, it worked as well as could be hoped for.]

But what about your world?

I am not entirely sure how it could either, but I am certain it would give it a try.

[His lips twitch, as he shakes his head.] Currently? We have one King, two other possible kings, and a possible Queen. Of all of them, only two have a truly strong claim.

This is what I meant. Monarchs are trouble...

[He settled his back against the wall again, casting a contemplative glance at the wine left in the bottle]

So, what is it? Is that simply how things are done in your world, or could your king not keep it in his trousers?

Oh, like you would not believe. Twice as much when you have the wrong one.

[He smirked faintly, before he sighed quietly.]

No, we have seemed to have found a new way to make politics as bloody as possible. Although Robert was quite fond of spreading his seed as far as it would go.

[He made a sound of amusement that was just shy of a snort]

As hobbies a king could have would go, a love of fucking is hardly the worst one.

But that's the benefit of this place [He gestures vaguely at Tyrion and the ship as a whole] As much as you might hate it, you can always think about home and think 'at least I get a break from that insanity'.

Only when it is all he does.

[Is Tyrion's dry response.]

...and that is true. Honestly, my home is something close to insanity's favorite festival.

Well...at least festivals usually come with food and drink.

[Speaking of which...yes, he will go ahead and reach over for that other bottle. If he's lucky he'll forget what he told Tyrion about himself tomorrow]

Hmmm ... then you had best pour me more wine then.

[Was the very sensible reply, and he held his glass out with a faint smirk.]

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commiseration [closed]

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