“I’ve known many a troubled child to act out because they themselves have suffered in the past. Bullies were often bullied when they were themselves smaller and weaker.” Merry talks without looking at me, leaning his back against the wall.

“The truth of a human mind and soul is a complex thing, and I do not have the courage to claim complete understanding, but I know many who have acted in such a way. Even as mature as we think ourselves to be, sometimes we will act out in the same way as children. We lash out, imitating the people that have hurt us in the past, even if we’re only hurting other innocents by doing so.”

“Was Lysis the same?”

“Lysis?” Merry turns his attention back to me. “Why do you ask?”

“He died saving me, just a few weeks after fighting for the chance to do terrible things to me,” I explain. “Was his flaw the same?”

Merry lifts his head in thought, his eyes shimmering with grief as he thinks of the dead man.

“He would not begrudge me sharing, so I do not mind answering your question,” Merry smiles sadly, but meets my eyes to ensure that I understand he intends to keep my own words much more carefully. “His issues were different.

“He described his behaviour as a childish tantrum. He was raised unwanted by his entire family, his entire village, and he turned to animalistic pleasures to distract himself, sometimes even finding a small amount of acceptance when sharing his… outlets.

“Not often was it rape, I should also tell you, in case you were under false ideas. He was a royal, and would most often get whatever he wanted without having to be forceful about it.”

“What did you do to change him?”

Merry shakes his head at my suspicions.

“We offered him a family. We offered him acceptance, and that was enough to break him down and help him to rebuild himself. He was a broken child deep inside, and we gave him a chance to realize that truth, and grow into someone that he’d rather be.”

“The truth…” I grumble, the concept still so strange to me when relating to their strange religious beliefs and magics. “What if the truth is that I’m different from him? What if the truth is that I’m evil, and want to be that way?”

A question, almost an admission, that should weigh heavy on my chest is light as a feather. This all feels now like an exercise in scholarly duty, something intriguing from a logical view, but otherwise meaningless. I am as I am, and I’ve accepted even the aspects of myself that others would consider evil.

I do not need to act on them, but there are times when a leader must be cruel and cold. This aspect of me is not something that I will reject, but instead something to be controlled.

“I would fight you when you decide to take action that goes against my true values,” he answers easily. “I would try to convince you to change, first. I would stop you with any and every tool that wouldn’t contradict my selfish values.”

“Selfish?”

“We all wish to push ourselves onto the world around us. Even wanting to save someone can be a selfish thing sometimes. To want to be adored, or remembered, or to be seen as a hero. It is a selfish thing, but it isn’t something bad or wrong.

“Understanding what makes us, gives us power over ourselves.”

“But changing me, would be acceptable? Wouldn’t it be forcing a lie?” I ask.

“No, change is a part of reality,” he explains, finding new words to explain concepts still alien to me.

I suspect that his thoughts and feelings will forever lie beyond my comprehension, it is good that I am not here to delve into this man’s psyche but to investigate my own.

Setting this distraction aside, I face his initial suggestion.

“You think that my cruelty comes from being killed, and watching my family being tortured to death? Or, at least you think that it’s a likely cause for my new desires?” I ask, allowing a small frown as I consider the merits of the idea.

The concept itself is disgusting. As if I’m trying to relive my past, or even to force others into the same situation so that I’m not suffering alone… yet, haven’t these exact feelings crossed my mind in the past?

I showed my true self to Belle when she asked to hunt with me, and there was a terrible satisfaction in her seeing me torture that criminal to death. It almost seems an obvious conclusion now that I’ve been given the answer.

To press my own suffering onto others… it is not a noble thing.

“If this holds true for you, then know that it’s not something to be ashamed of. I’ve seen the same before, it’s a common malady of the mind, but you don’t need to be controlled by it. Especially now that you’re aware of it, you can decide for yourself whether you wish to continue acting out in this way.”

“Merry,” I stop him before he can continue. “Thank you, but I would like to move on. Your perspective is refreshing, but the revelation is not nearly so moving as it would have been a week ago. I am in control of myself, and I am in control of these errant emotions, I simply wished to understand them more clearly, and you have helped greatly in that.

“More importantly, I would like to ask for your continued help in certain matters. I feel that I must be honest with you in my intentions and plans, however, as you are not the same as the noble brats around me.”

He nods, inviting me to continue, so I do.

I explain to him how my plans have adjusted, the various political actions that I know I can pursue and those that I’m struggling with. My greatest goal, for now, is to protect the people marching from this city, and see that they are given the safety of a new home, which he is in agreement with.

He is less than fond of the lies and deceptions I use to pull coins from the rich and the nobles, but he doesn’t lecture me on it, and the only reason I can even tell is that I’m looking for the slight changes in his expression.

“You tell me how you’ve lied to all these people, and you expect me to believe you?” He asks, his voice light with a hint of amusement.

“You would only ever trust me if I am honest with you.”

He chuckles, wiping at a bit of drool escaping his twisted lips.

“And you want to give up on hunting Aldramodore?” He asks. “You don’t want to pursue the royal family and uncover all of their lies? You don’t want to save this city from them?”

“I simply understand the truth. We are not up for that task.” I meet his gaze and he nods slowly in agreement, his smile turning into a more difficult frown.

“You talk about how we could change you, but I think you’d be welcome here as family to the Paladins, without ever needing to change,” he says. “We do welcome those of any faith, though I am less learned in the other gods and their concepts so you’ll have to forgive me my ignorance.”

“You know?” I ask. “I don’t recall ever saying anything about my own divine magics.”

“I can feel it.” Merry needs not say any more given my own burning response to faith. It isn’t surprising that he has developed a similar sense.

“I still do not think that I’d belong here,” I reply easily. “I only share faith with Shialla because I believe in giving peace to a broken soul. She does not begrudge me the act of breaking them myself, perhaps she understands as I do that the world demands such things of us. Still, it would be improper of me to use this magic for any other purpose than this, and I refuse to even try to twist it in such a way.”

He smiles even wider, not outwardly demanding anything of me, though his curiosity is certainly loud enough without any words to declare it. Considering it fair, for sharing his own perspective with me, I detail to him the particulars of my faith, and what it means to me. The man is not afraid to admit to what he doesn’t know and holds me here for longer than I intended.

Upon leaving, I take a moment to listen in on Belle, she’s happily training with some of the newer members of their strange little faction. New doesn’t necessarily mean young, either, as people from all walks of life gather here, a random selection pulled in from the street.

“To me, truth means accepting myself for what I am and accepting all the bad parts of the world as they are. Understanding these two things, I can know what I have to do,” Belle explains, holding the older lady’s hand. “So, what about you? Why are you here with us?”

“I’m tired,” The old lady whispers, her voice a husk of the life that she once would have had. “This city has taken so much from us all. It’s taken so much of my family. The others are running away, trying to make a life somewhere new, but I’d just slow them all down. I just want to do something good with the last years I have left. You folk are doing good things, so I came to help.”

A few others mumble their agreement, their own paths described by her words. Others take a chance to discuss their situations, those too weak to leave, those who want to fight to save what this city could be, and those that just don’t think that the world outside will be any better for them.

I am not the only one trying to make this world a better place, and while any one of them is too weak to achieve anything, when arranged as a group that changes.

“My lady.” Therina holds out her hand, guiding me up into the carriage that has been waiting for me. “You seem happy, did something good happen?”

“No, everything is, in fact, rather terrible,” I admit, smiling as I calmly breathe in the air flavoured with sweet perfumes. I’m tempted to try blending perfumes with blood in some way, but that might just incite my bloodlust in inopportune moments. “Tell me again, what is your ideal image of me?”

“A proper noble, caring for the people that you lead,” she explains. “You’ll make this world a better place for everyone that puts their faith in you.”

“You believe that I can live up to that ideal?” I ask, closing my eyes and listening closely.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” I answer her. “It is a shame, but I have so few people who genuinely follow me. Titles are meaningless things, in the end, and ironically it seems that only my noble peers have any respect for these games now. So, in the end, all the work that I’ve been doing is for people that do not even consider me their leader.”

“Maybe that will change, after you’ve saved them,” Therina says, smiling eagerly at me.

Merry and his people gave me no more respect than they would have done for the filthy beggars that live in the faeces-stained street. I am not their leader. I do not represent them, and they expect nothing from me. To think that as a Countess I have so very few that actually trust me as their leader. Even most of my servants only serve for the sake of the gold that I offer them.

Gold stolen from the very people that I’ve failed to serve.

Loud shouts, precede our carriage coming to a sudden halt nearly throwing me from my seat. The guards draw their weapons and shout as they repel some form of attack, a guttural roar gives me only a moment’s warning before the side of the carriage falls in on us.

I cover Therina’s body with my own as splinters shower over us, I shove her back with one hand, lifting my dagger to meet the attacker before he can recover but I am too slow. A middle-aged man pushes inside, lifting his axe as he kicks through, swinging once again.

Henry is behind him, ready to strike him down, but it’ll be a moment slow to stop the momentum behind the coming attack. Forcing magic through my eyes, I cause the crazed axeman to shudder for a moment, his swing becoming wild, but even so, the forces are enough to push my dagger back slipping under my shoulder and tearing off my arm as I just barely keep from losing more.

My guard thrusts a sword into the axeman’s back, but it’s not enough to stop him.

A flick of telekinetics brings my dagger flying back to hand, as I draw upon my healing to repair my lost arm. Closing the distance as he tries to free his axe from the seat of the carriage, I thrust my frost through my dagger and into the man’s shoulder. He tries to shove me back, but I summon clinging shadows to twist his other arm around and deflect his attack.

Henry takes out a dagger of his own and slashes across the man’s throat, painting me in the sour blood of a man too deranged to know fear.

As he collapses, not dead but dying, I step out of the carriage and take in the scene around me. My guards are busy finishing the rest of the bandits, leaving us standing alone in a hauntingly quiet street.

The guards and horses huff deep, but the wounds I can count are minor enough that I need not worry for their safety. The horses, bred with an affinity for strengthening themselves, stand tall and fearless, waiting for the coachman to guide them onwards. It may take some time, the axeman’s initial blow was serious enough to warp the axles on the carriage.

He had to have been close to having visible æther veins, nearly a knight-quality foe, beaten because of his arrogance in showing Henry his back. I return to the dying man, lifting him up and drawing upon his blood. There is no point to hiding here where only my guards can see me, and letting even sour blood waste would be poor manners.

“He jumped from the rooftops, we couldn’t stop him fast enough,” Henry says, ready to jump at any new threat, but glancing worriedly back at Therina who’s still cleaning herself up.

“When we return, I’ll want you to consider a plan for how to prevent such an attack in the future,” I say, and he salutes. “Could you have a few of your soldiers run to get a reeve for us? I would rather we deal with this properly. There are some things that I’d like to ask the lawmen, as well.”

He sends two men out, the two are both large humans unharmed from the battle. I suppose that the non-humans would garner less respect from some, so it only makes sense, even if it speaks of our city’s inefficiencies that we must expend effort in working around this.

Then again, I thought of norkit as wild animals that needed to be tamed right up until my death. I was no better, fed ignorance and lies that I easily swallowed.

There are only a few people near us, all cowering in their homes and pretending that they do not exist. In a proper city or town, they would be rushing out here to see how we are and assist us in our moment of need. I would want such treatment for anyone who has suffered an attack such as this.

Why are they not? The answer is obvious.

More importantly, what must be changed to build that ideal city? What can I do for these people, so that they can feel confident and safe in coming to my aid in the future?

We are long past due for a change.

It is time to kill those that need killing and save those that need saving. It is time for us all to live with proper dignity.