thecapitol | perfer et obdura [CLOSED]

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perfer et obdura [CLOSED]

Who| Merlyn and the Signless
What| Merlyn drops by to be a friend in need.
Where| District 12 suite
When| After the Celebrus publication
Warnings/Notes| TBD, nothing expected

Merlyn didn't know the Initiate, and his dismay at the troll's Avoxing was purely academic. True, it was a grievous crime in his mind, no matter who the victim, and he had appreciated the Initiate's principles and willingness to rebel, if nothing else. But while he was genuinely upset by the outcome, there was no personal aspect to it. It was merely an expansion of the visceral, thorough hatred he had harboured for the Capitol's methods since day one, and although he did a great deal of grumbling and by-our-lady-ing, and a great deal more angry knitting and glaring from corners, his grief was general and impersonal.

That couldn't be said for everyone. He knew that very well, and had been keeping an eye on the situation. Although he was grumpy and short-tempered with them, he felt a certain responsibility to his fellow Tributes, and in his own way, he wanted to be a comfort. He had been considering visiting the Signless, who he knew by rumour to have been hit particularly hard by the rebellion's consequences, for quite some time. The ridiculous magazine article had been the last straw.

He still preferred the stairs to the elevators. They were hard on the knees, but for a man used to living in the woods, he was already feeling the lack of exercise, and a little hard work was no bad thing. So, with a crocheted bag slung over one shoulder and his robes hitched to the calf, he headed up the ten flights of stairs to the twelfth floor. He'd spent very little time there, all told, preferring to either keep his own company in the District 2 suite or to people-watch in the common areas. He had to ask which suite was the Signless', but having found that out, he wasted no time in heading over to it, rapping sharply three times before opening the door.

"Ah, good," he said dryly, looking inside. "I was starting to think you might have perished quietly while nobody was looking. May I come in?"

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"Of course."

It's been just long enough that Signless is starting to feel like a person again instead of a bundle of rage and grief. He's still emotionally wrung-out but at least he no longer feels like he's a danger to himself. Like everything else about Panem that's ever hurt him, he's managed to box up his rage and tuck it away in the back of mind where it will be easily accessible once the inevitable war starts and he'll have real need of it.

For now he's curled up on his bed, his three tribbles nestled against his cheek. The tiny crab creature the Capitol gave him is mercifully asleep in its nest in the closet. He looks tired, but not dead walking like he might have a few days ago.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I had heard," Merlyn says, closing the door behind him, "that you were rather affected by recent events. I thought you might appreciate a distraction." Digging in his garishly-coloured woollen bag, he pulls out some books and crosses the room to hold them out. "They're tripe, of course. Sheer balderdash and bawdlerised mockery of the heights human literature can achieve. But the best I could source, I'm afraid."

Sitting down by the bed, he smooths his robes out, looking at the Signless rather expectantly. "I don't suppose you want to talk about it. But, well, if you should be seized by the desire for a discussion of any topic, I am right here. Discourse does the mind good, you know. Nothing better as a pick-me-up, no matter what those by-our-lady doctors may say."

See, now someone is speaking his language. Signless sits up and takes the books when offered, glancing over the covers (in-line with much of the other books littered around his room: Capitol trash, the kind he's shamefully fond of) before setting them on the bedside table.

"A distraction is always appreciated. Discourse even more so." Though he can't imagine there's much to talk about -- at least, not much that won't get them in trouble. Something not to do with Panem, then. Something he's honestly been wanting to ask for a while now.

"Who is your lady?"

"Who is...?" Merlyn repeats, and then laughs, a low chuckle deep in his throat. "Do you know, I've never given it all that much consideration. The Blessed Virgin, I suppose. Although why I swear to her, I couldn't possibly say, as I've never been the least disposed to prayer. I suppose one does pick up queer turns of phrase, when one has been around as long as I have. And then one thoroughly forgets, you see, where one picked them up. But by then, it's quite late to put them back down again."

Reaching into his bag again, he pulls out his needles and yarn and starts to cast on stitches. "I don't suppose you have any such virgin in the tales of your world, do you?"

"As far as I know there isn't one in the gospel of the Mirthful Church, though I'm not as familiar as... some." He shrugs off the thought as best he can. He'll never learn more about the Church than he knows now, because the only troll in Panem familiar with the scripture is a tongueless slave.

Then a thought strikes him, a thought he doesn't entirely know what to do with. Now that it's in his head he has to ask or he knows it will bother him, so it's with only the slightest hesitation that he says:

"Is she from the same stories as your Jesus?"

"Yes, as it happens." Merlyn looks pleasantly surprised. "The Virgin Mary, or Maryam, if you adhere more closely to the original Greek. Jesus' mother, and a highly-respected saint in her own right, I might add. I am surprised to hear that you know of Jesus' stories in the first place." He smiles, looking back down at his knitting. "Although I suppose, in a place like this, it must be hard to avoid learning some other worlds' religions. Quite an interesting opportunity in that respect, I suppose.

"And this Mirthful Church of yours, you are not a patron of it?" If he isn't familiar with the gospel, that is.

It's all so ridiculous. His chest shakes and a breathy whuff sound escapes him, the closest he can get right now to a laugh. Maryam. Jesus's mother. Of course.

"Oh, no, though I once knew a troll who was. Its doors weren't open to a troll like me for a whole host of reasons I won't bore you with. I always considered myself more of a philosopher than a religious man anyway, though others often called me a preacher."

He takes a deep breath. The best way to approach this is to be straightforward, and it's something that's weighed on him as a quiet niggling thing for so very long now. It might finally be time to speak about it with someone who seems like he might be level-headed about the whole thing. At the very least it will distract them both.

"My mother's name was Porrim Maryam. Like your Jesus I spoke against the injustices of the culture that raised me and like your Jesus I was murdered for it. After my time a cult will rise up around my name and my teachings. I know. I've met some of them here."

There's a particular note in his voice that says this was not an entirely welcome discovery.

Edited 2015-06-01 10:38 (UTC)

Merlyn's bushy eyebrows rise, and rise a little further, and he laughs aloud. "My goodness," he says, lowering his knitting and looking the Signless up and down. Then, "My goodness," he says again, and shakes his head. "Of all the people I might have expected to meet here, I can't say I ever imagined that one of them might be a prophet. How remarkable."

It really is remarkable. Like the Signless, Merlyn doesn't consider himself a religious man, but one doesn't have to in order to be fascinated by something like this. He's so interested, in fact, that he puts his knitting away altogether in favour of focusing on the troll, his forehead creasing into an attentive frown. "I've always supposed it to be a rather overembellished story of a philosopher doing as philosophers will. Though I never doubted the part about murder, I'm afraid. It's truly shocking, the lengths people will go to in silencing the lone voice against a comfortable status quo." He reaches over, patting the Signless' hand. "I've often thought it would be quite hard, to be a prophet. Difficult enough to be a voice of reason, without having a following to nag at your heels over it. Am I wrong?"

"No, you're not." He closes his eyes, thinks back to what it was like on Alternia. It feels like such a long time ago, almost like looking at a past life -- and he knows what that feels like.

"It was hardest once I had a following. They all meant well and they were all so honestly desperate for a better life. They believed so strongly that it could happen if they wanted it badly enough. I don't blame them. They needed that hope."

It's hard to forget the faces of lowbloods who had been enslaved and abused all their lives experiencing true kindness and compassion for the first time, coming to the realization that they too were people worthy of that kind of regard, coming to the realization that they were people at all. It was amazing how that could light a troll up.

"It's just that that hope led to rebellion and rebellion led to retaliation and retaliation led to outrage and outrage led to a revolution. I couldn't hold them back and I couldn't abandon them when they all looked to me for guidance. I wish it had gone differently, I really do."

"So does every man and woman I've ever known who's started a revolution," Merlyn says, his voice gentle, and shakes his head. "And I've known more than a few of them, in my time. They all start in hope and need, and end in fire and brimstone. But quite often, when the smoke clears, the world's a better place. I hope that was the case with yours."

Reaching back into his crocheted bag, he pulls out a Thermos and unscrews the top, pouring himself out some tea. "It doesn't often end happily," he says at length, "for the people involved, of course. Take my dear pupil's case. Hope and Right restored, England united, the bullheaded thugs who used to run amok driven hither and yon... but dash it all if it didn't end with him suffering awfully for it. A more bitter man than I might start to wonder whether that isn't the balance of it all, for one person to take on the suffering of all the others. Maybe that's what a hero is, in the end. Tea?"

"Yes, thank you," he says as he mulls over the rest of it. A hero? He's never thought of himself as a hero, nevermind what his followers decided to call him. What he was wasn't the point of it.

"I'm afraid it didn't work out so neatly for me. The world was still as violent and hateful as it ever was after my death, and even those who carried on my message in secret became violent and hateful in the end. You cannot stop the genocide of a people with a genocide of your own, even if it seems like the only option left."

There was a time he would have felt directly responsible for that -- the Summoner was using his name, his words, to justify that genocide. Now he just feels disappointed.

Pulling a mug out of the bag, Merlyn pours out a generous mugful of tea and holds it out. His smile is almost distracted, but not quite, as though his mind isn't entirely on the conversation but maybe another conversation running parallel and just a few inches to the left. Then he shakes his head, sipping at his own tea, and that moment's vagueness is gone.

"Might cannot make Right," he agrees, "although there are times when Might is called upon to defend it. But the only reason for that to be necessary is that mankind's baser instincts - and do correct me if this rings untrue for trollkind, won't you? - that mankind's baser instincts sometimes require channeling into a more defensible use, to prevent them from resurrecting the status quo of violence in the service of one's own pleasures and powers. There is certainly no justification for violence against the helpless and the innocent. That way lies chaos and tyranny."

"Mm," he says, sitting up and taking the mug. It's pleasantly warm in his hands and unconsciously he holds it close against himself. Any source of comfort is one he'll take.

"I wouldn't say it rings untrue for my species, though the dominant way of thinking is that violence and tyranny are good things. Violence against the helpless and innocent is a way to show one's strength and to enforce the legitimacy of one's social status. It isn't uncommon for those higher on the social ladder to kill those below them simply as proof that they can."

He takes a sip of the tea, his expression subdued and contemplative.

"In a lot of ways it's better here. Much of the killing that takes place in arenas is done out of necessity. That I understand."

"That sounds a great deal like mankind, honestly," Merlyn said, with a disapproving click of his tongue. "Kill and hurt those below them to buoy up their own bloated egos and megalomania. A source of constant grief to me, I must say, and I suppose I can see your point in that regard. Or could, if it were remotely true."

He takes a long draught of his tea, closing his eyes and inhaling the fragrant steam. "Unfortunately," he says quietly, "it isn't. They kill passively here, that's all, through starvation and oppression. Nothing here is one iota changed from the dunderheaded knights and lords of my own time, except instead of bashing one another with lances and swords, they've dragged us here to do it for them. In the Arenas would be all well and good, if they had any kind of balance outside them. But they don't."

He trails off, looking thoughtfully up at the corner of the ceiling. "I suppose I oughtn't to say that out loud and drag you into my sedition. Ah, well. I'm sorry."

He shakes his head minutely. Acknowledging that it's sedition makes it twice as likely that someone is going to be punished for it. For your own sake, that shake of the head says, don't.

"I can't agree with what you're saying, but I admire your dedication to saying it. Often all we have here that's our own is is our ideals. That you're willing to die for yours is admirable."

He was the same two years ago, but now he knows it wouldn't be him who'd be doing the dying should he decide to speak his mind truthfully. He's told Merlyn this before in a place where he could speak much more freely. His stance hasn't changed.

"He who can be forced," Merlyn says gravely, "has not learnt how to die. To quote my friend Seneca. But you're right, this is a silly topic of conversation for the situation. I spend altogether too much time bemoaning this place, when I could be taking advantage of its opportunities. After all, how often does one get to meet an alien messiah, in the ordinary run of things?"

He wasn't being entirely dishonest, either. True, he did believe that he should keep right on bemoaning the situation he was in - it was the duty of a man to make his discontent known in an unjust society - but that hadn't been his intention in coming up here, and he oughtn't to have let himself slide back onto that track. Sighing, he shakes his head and takes a little sip of tea.

"So, tell me about your world?" he suggests after a moment, with a little smile.

It's as good a change of subject as any and Signless is grateful for it. He chooses to interpret the question as excluding politics (or else, of course, they'd wind up right back where they started), and that leaves a very different Alternia: the Alternia he grew up in.

"My world is a planet with two moons and one sun so bright that it can burn and blind a troll who goes outside during the day. Much of it is desert -- that's where I grew up. My mother and I would travel from cave to cave at night, sometimes stopping in villages and oases when we passed by them. There are forests, too, with trees taller than anything I've seen in the Capitol, and a vast ocean where the seadwelling trolls and the beast Gl'bgolyb live. No matter where you go the terrain is unforgiving and the wild creatures are dangerous, so learning to survive early is incredibly vital."

You'd think relaying this kind of information would come with a bleak tone as a nod to how difficult Alternian life was, but the Signless is smiling. His home was difficult to live in but it was still his home, even more so because the wilds of Alternia were a place trolls were not supposed to survive.

"It's a wonderful, wild place and so much of it is still untouched by trolls. That's where I was most comfortable. Much as the Capitol is luxurious and I'm never left wanting for food or shelter, I miss that. I miss the stars I know and the noises of the desert at night and the smell of sea salt."

It almost hasn't occurred to him until right this very moment exactly how homesick he is, still, after so long in Panem.

Merlyn listens attentively, looking away only to top up his tea. He sees the Signless' smile, and recognises it for what it is; a tie to the land that Merlyn, even with all his years, has never really felt. That recognition comes with some sympathy. Merlyn misses his cottage in the woods, but it is no more home than the Castle Sauvage, or Arthur's palace, or the cave where he waited out the centuries. What he misses is a stopping-place. What the Signless misses is a home. That has to be harder to deal with.

"It sounds beautiful," he says, when the Signless has fallen silent and the quiet has been allowed to settle for a moment. "A queer kind of beauty, to be sure, but beautiful nonetheless. Wild places so often are."

Though even the England he left - the England which still has dark forests and hidden places, the England of giants and dragons and fairy folk, the England which has yet to be paved and partitioned and civilised - has barely a shade of the wildness the Signless is describing. In an odd kind of way, that makes Merlyn long to see that desert, and the vast forests and open ocean. Call it scientific curiosity. True wildness is one of the few things Merlyn has never seen.

"Mmm," he says with a nod. Merlyn has about the shape of it, both with the things he says and the things he doesn't.

"I'm sure it sounds awful, but in some ways the arenas felt more like home than this tower ever has. At least in most of them there were open spaces and plants and rivers and things that were familiar. Once they even gave me a desert. For someone who spent so much of his life running and hiding to stay alive, it was familiar. It was a life I knew how to live, even if it wasn't one that was entirely enjoyable. Does that make any sense?"

"It does." Merlyn nods, sipping his tea with a little frown. "And it doesn't sound awful, not in the slightest. People - no matter their species - are comfortable in what they know, even if what they know is suffering." He could so easily continue that thought, observe that such comfort in familiarity is the biggest block to human progress, but he's steering clear of politics for now, so he bites it back. "Besides, well-furnished and comfortable as this tower undoubtedly is - and, my goodness, the joy of being back on the electric and water, after centuries of draughty castles and caves! - it isn't precisely homely, is it? Too big, too many people, altogether not enough mess. I doubt many people can feel at home in places like this."

"It's taken me two human years to think of this place as home -- and it is home, in its own way. I don't intend to ever go back to Alternia, even if the Capitol offers me the choice."

Not that he ever thinks they will -- if any of them want to go home without dying for it, they'll have to do it without the Capitol's help. He just can't very well say that out loud.

"But it isn't homey, no." He smiles, a little lopsided. "What I wouldn't give for a cave. I'd gladly trade with you if that were an option."

"I found it lost its savour after a couple of centuries," Merlyn says, with a little chuckle. "One grows accustomed to running water, sunlight, food that is not brought to one by moles... Charming fellows, but the menu was limited, to say the least." He had no real objection to eating earthworms and beetles, at least no more so than to any other kind of meat, but it did start to grow tiresome quite quickly. "And then one finally steps out into the light, and of course they haven't yet invented the by-our-lady water board. If there's one thing I will say for this place, it's that one can turn a tap and get hot water, none of this larking about with buckets and wells and kettles over the fireplace..."

"A good point," he admits. "After only ever bathing in streams, warm water was quite a luxury. I don't want to seem as though I'm ungrateful."

Now that he's used to it it doesn't seem so incredible, but when he first arrived in Panem the little wall of buttons in the shower was the most magical thing he'd ever seen. He'd spent every morning (every morning! Imagine bathing that often!) deciding what he wanted to smell like that day.

"Centuries, you said? I didn't know humans could live that long."

"Most don't," Merlyn says, finishing off his tea and pouring himself another cup. "I, however, am not most humans. In fact, I am only moderately sure that I am human at all. I've certainly never tested the fact."

If he is a human, he's a profoundly unusual one. Aside from the magic and the living backwards in time, he's survived an awful lot of things that most humans would be utterly destroyed by. Unusually for a man so prone to contemplation, though, he's never given it much thought. It just hasn't seemed all that relevant.

For some reason Signless finds that funny. It might be the emotionally vulnerable and raw state he's in tweaking his reactions to things, but the fact remains that this is probably one of the first things in a long while that has him really genuinely laughing.

"I'm sure there's someone in the Capitol who could tell you, if you felt like asking." He snorts into his tea. "But I'm guessing you don't. There's some things one's better off not knowing. I have no idea how long I have to live. I'd always assumed someone would cull me before I had the chance to find out."

"I am fairly sure," Merlyn says solemnly, "that asking the Capitol how long my life is would be an invitation to shorten it." It's almost a joke, but not quite, even allowing for his always-dry delivery. Either way, he shakes his head a little, smiling, and drops that darker side of the subject. "Life loses some of its savour, I think, if you spend all of it waiting for it to end. Nihilism never has sat very well with me."

"Mmmm," he hums. "I've found, if anything, that knowing I could die at any time has pushed me to do as much as I can with the time I have. When you grow up in a world that wants to kill you for existing, it seems to me that the correct response is to exist as much as possible."

This really is helping. These are all things he already knew but to be able to re-confirm them with himself is doing wonders for his mental state.

Merlyn considers that for a moment, then breaks into a little smile, one unusually lacking in either sarcasm or self-righteousness. There's something in his eyes that speaks of his encouragement, too.

"Poetically put," is all he says, finishing his tea and picking his knitting back up. Then, after a moment, still with that curiously soft smile, he adds, "You do have a certain gift for rhetoric. I can see why people would follow you."

"It comes from a life of practice," he says with a similarly small smile. "It's served me well here, at least. I can't philosophize or debate like I used to but a good turn of phrase can get me far enough at parties and in interviews. If I can use it to benefit my tributes then it's being put to good use."

Another laugh, still quiet but genuine.

"I once tried to convince them I was just a human in a costume. I've found that if you give them ridiculous answers to their ridiculous questions, they don't bother to try to twist your words quite as much. They didn't run any of that interview or I would have tried to keep the joke going."

Merlyn chuckles, shaking his head. "I," he says gravely, "have managed to go a remarkable number of centuries without anyone ever questioning that I am just a human in a costume. I'm surprised you didn't succeed." He's joking, of course, and for a moment, some of the sternness lifts away from his face and the gentle humour shines through. Leaning over, he tops up Signless' tea, then takes a sip of his own.

"People," he says at length, "see what they want to see. Regardless of species, I've found. I imagine a gift for rhetoric goes a long way in helping that out. Everyone likes to see an articulate, intelligent man who agrees with them in all aspects. It makes them comfortable."

"Incredibly so," he agrees. "And in a lot of ways, what the Capitol values is easy to agree with. Unity under a single purpose. Everyone in their proper place and working toward the good of the whole." It really does sound very nice in theory. The problem comes when you see it in practice.

"And they like to see me acting civilized. Trolls are sub-human, you know. It makes me seem less threatening, being soft-spoken and reasonable and most of all agreeable."

"Respectability politics," Merlyn opines, with a little huff. But he's on his best behaviour, so he won't go into it. Instead, he just shrugs a little. "As for what you're saying, I can't pretend to disagree. I think most of us can see that unity, progress, and social support networks are hallmarks of a successful society." Not that he thinks the Capitol has much progress or social support going. But, again, best behaviour. "It reminds me rather of Communism, in my own world. A strong focus on social unity and the tight division of labour." And a total failure to work out well in practice.

"Social support networks especially," he says, tipping his tea in Merlyn's direction as a way to silently acknowledge that that's exactly what's going on here.

"I wouldn't have lasted two years here without the connections I've made and all the tea that's been shoved into my hands."

Merlyn returns the little tip of the mug with one of his own, a minor salute. "I am glad," he says solemnly, "to have been of some service in that regard. Not to mention seeing you in slightly better form than I had feared."

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perfer et obdura [CLOSED]

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there are times when this icon is 100% ic and this is one of them

yes perf

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this can probably end soon too I think

Fade out here?