Lilith sat down on one of the high stools by the bar, "You seem to be enjoying yourself."

 

Ryan was cleaning one of the glasses, "A servant's life seems to fit me, don't you think?"

Lilith sighed as she shook her head slightly, "How disappointing."

Ryan grinned, "Glad I can live down to your expectations."

Lilith looked a touch sad, "Actually, I have rather high expectations of you. You have so much potential. You are intelligent. You have wisdom beyond your years. You have great power and yet you seem to revel in being-" She cut herself off, "No. No... I think actually it's deeper than that." She leaned in closer, "I think you just don't like my kind."

"Your kind?" Ryan snorted, "I am half human, you know. Being racist against you also involves hating myself."

She shook her head, "I'm not talking your race. I'm talking about being of noble blood. You hate us, don't you?"

Ryan stopped cleaning his glass. He just stared at her and said nothing.

"That's it, isn't it? You just hate nobles. Which I don't understand, because you seem to truly like the king. Is it because of your father? Is it because of what all the other nobles at school did? Is it something else? You said you were a solider in another world. Isn't military rank just like being a noble? You have the officers and the enlisted men. We have nobles and commoners. Did you hate the military as much as you hate the government here?"

Ryan put the glass down on the counter a little too hard, "I loved my time in the military."

She raised both her eyebrows, "Then what's the difference? It's basically the same thing. In a way, a kingdom is just a military structure for an entire country."

Ryan rubbed the bridge of his nose, "You want the truth? Fine." He moved the stool he was sitting on closer to Lilith, "I started out enlisted and worked my way up to officer." He stabbed a finger at the table, "Here? There is no way for ninety nine percent of the commoners to become noble, and very few ways for nobles who shouldn't BE noble to be demoted into commoners."

 

Ryan started to gesture with his hands, "There is no mobility. There is no reward for merit. You might be the greatest potential king ever, but you could be stuck a ditch digger because of an accident of birth." Lilith snorted, "No one born a ditch digger could be a king." Ryan shook his head, "I said potential. Or maybe he'd be a good merchant. Or maybe he'd be a good farmer. We don't know. We'll never know."

 

He gestured over his shoulder, "In the other world, at least there was a chance. Not a great one, but it existed. Here? Being a noble depends on the color of your eyes, not the content of your character." He leaned in to whisper, "And I know for a fact that eyes can change." Lilith straightened up and her face darkened at that particular piece of trivia. Ryan continued, "So, you'll forgive me if I don't happened to like a group that excludes people based on something so trivial as an accident of birth, my sorceress."

Lilith narrowed her eyes, "What did you call me?"

"You heard me. You are the villainess of this little... play. Not the Sorcerer, but the sorceress."

"And what is the difference?"

"They both have a love of power. It is the single most important part of their lives. Power is more important than anything else. However, the sorcerer goes after tangible power, whereas the sorceress goes after control of others."

 

Ryan held up his hands and aimed them at some imaginary target, "People think all there is to magic is wiggle your fingers, chant and invoke your mana, but true magic comes from communication. We talk to one another and ideas spread, infecting minds and changing them. True power has never been in what we believe, but in how our words change what others think." He paused and thought for a moment, as if he was trying to remember a quote once heard and only half-remembered,  "While I am not at fault for what you take away from what I say, I am to blame for what I give. This applies to you as well."

 

Ryan turned to slowly pan his gaze across the festivities and revelers, "Here you are at a party, moving your way through the crowd, trying to gain control. Placing ideas in the minds of others, picking up knowledge so you can fine tune your words. You wish to be the one in control of all the others. We all do, in a way. We have a wish to be loved, or feared, or admired, or envied. The method and particulars change, but we are all social beasts. Positive or negative, we crave connection... and that's why you hate me."

Lilith looked amused, "I hate you? I didn't know I cared enough to hate you. Please, Illuminate me."

"You hate me, because I have nothing but apathy for you." He shrugged, "You have no hold over me because I just. Don't. Care."

 

Ryan picked up a rag and started buffing the table, "You have nothing to offer me. You have nothing I want. You are unimportant to me and because of this, I am your worst nightmare. I am the bull in the china shop. The crashing bore. The one who knows the truth."

Lilith's nostrils narrowed in annoyance, "And what truth is That?"

"The truth that violence, and the threat of violence, has solved more conflicts than any other single action in the history of this world or any other. However, because violence is so random, we hedge our bets and give that power to governments." Ryan stared at a nearby crowd, "As long as we all follow the rules, no matter how the rules might screw us, at the end of the day, we get to live if we play by them."

 

He pointed a finger into the crowd. Specifically, at the third prince who was in the center of it, "The sorcerer is a villain who seeks power so he can control the world by breaking the rules. He seeks a return to the most fundamental of truths, that might makes right." He hooked a thumb at Lilith, "The sorceress is a villainess who seeks control so she can have power by using the rules we have established. Without society, the sorceress has no power and anything that threatens society is a threat to her." He tapped the side if his head, "In the end, control, in any form, is ultimately an illusion. The only true power you have lies within you. Your own mind is the only power that truly matters."

 

He straightened up to gesture around the party, "We can never control anything outside ourselves. We can influence others, but in the end, we each answer to ourselves." He tapped the side of his head, "No matter what you do you cannot control what happens up here." He pointed at the same spot on Lilith's head, "Only in there."

 

Ryan shrugged, "In the end, if you want to truly be happy, you have to let go of the illusion of control and accept that everything is a crap shoot. You roll the dice and hope that you win, but there is always a chance you will fail. You never know. No matter how much power or control you have, you will never have absolute control over anything outside yourself. In truth, the best we can hope for is influence."

 

He leaned in closer to stage whisper into her ear, "This is why you are a sorceress. You put control and power at the top of your list of that which you desire most. Alas, in the end, your power comes from a web of infectious thoughts. You prey upon those still caught in the illusion."

 

He turned and made a sweeping gesture with an arm to indicate the majority of the party, "All these people believe that they can control the world, when the best they can hope for is to weigh the dice. They murmur and cluck. They make comments and form rumors, but because I don't care, they have no power. They have nothing I desire. They have nothing to force me to play their pointless games. This is why you have to hate me. If too many people realize it just doesn't matter, the whole system comes crashing down."

Lilith narrowed her eyes slightly, "Do you know what I see?"

Ryan smirked, "Illuminate me."

"I see a sorcerer." Lilith spoke softly, yet with crisp words, "I see a sorcerer who preys only upon those who forgo the protection of society."

 

Lilith lifted her chin just a touch, "You might think you are a danger to my world, but you are the wolf that bays outside the walls. You are the monster under the criminal's bed. You are what makes people sleep with a candle burning unseen throughout the night. You inspire people to pray to gods they only remember in their darkest hour."

 

Lilith narrowed her eyes as she went in for the kill, "They pray to be delivered from you." She tilted her head oh-so slightly to the side, "And when the gods forget them..."

"They."

"Come."

"To."

"Me."

 

There was a moment where the background din dropped away and a silence not unlike the world holding its breath came to Ryan and Lilith. A silence soon filled by Lilith's acidic words.

 

"Why would a sorceress hate the very thing that drives everyone to her doorstep?"

 

Ryan said nothing. It was difficult to read his reaction. If one was to pick a word, it would be, inscrutable. In the end, the two just stared at each other in silence until the shifting crowd moved to engulf them.

 

 

 

Whereupon the ebb and flow of society pulled them apart and sent them down different paths.