inaclovenpine | (no subject)

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[After this ill-fated conversation with Andrew Wells.]

The Caribbean inlet outside is having a storm.

Which is kind of weird, because the rest of the lake is just kind of cloudy and cold. The sky over the inlet is heavy with clouds and rain, though, and lightning flashes back and forth from cloud to cloud.

WHY ARE MORTALS LIKE THAT.

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"But when he did release thee, thou did'st not seek to return unto imprisonment," she insists.

"Well, I kinda thought he'd dumped me."

"But still, thou sought'st him not!"

She throws up her hands, and the rain intensifies for a moment.

Matt pauses, thoughtful.

"Maybe we are different." He's quiet a moment longer. "But I still think--

I mean, some mortals do like authority. And some of us like to play with the idea of masters and servants without swearing real oaths. But something like Andrew has going, that started with violence and fear--I have a really hard time thinking anything that comes out of that is real."

Ariel's turn to hesitate.

"Even his wants, now?" she asks, uncertain.

His lips quirk.

"Yeah. Those tend to get away from us at the best of times."

"But it was wrong of him to try and hurt thee."

Matt frowns.

"Yes."

"He--"

She breaks off, searching for words.

"I frightened him," she says finally, annoyed. "I think -- no, I know not, I do not know if it was right or wrong."

His brow furrows, but he doesn't look surprised.

"What happened?" he asks. "What led up to you scaring him?"

"He had heard tell of Prospero, and me. He told me of his master and his bonds; he asked about my master and our--"

She breaks off.

"I think -- he thought us 'like."

"Huh," Matt murmurs. In his experience, Andrew actively resisted comparisons.

"Yeah, uh--I can see how that could've been unsettling."

"I am not like him."

She looks at Matt, flickering and full of rain.

"My master is not -- my Prospero is not like that."

"Well," Matt says mildly, "what you're like and what Prospero's like are two different things."

"No -- no, our masters, too, are not alike," she says, a little desperate. "Prospero is not cruel, seeks no more slaves, would not use those he has to such bad ends. My master would not."

She wraps the image of her arms around herself.

"If in other worlds, some other Prospero is so, I'd -- no. But now I speak of things I do not know, have only heard, have never seen, nor will."

Matt frowns.

The words that spring to mind, effortless as if they've always been there, are, If he's so great, why don't you sound convinced?

"I have to admit ... I think it's cruel to keep slaves at all."

She shakes her head.

But when she speaks, it's only to say quietly, "I wot that I have railed against it, too."

He rakes a hand through his hair.

"But you ... that's what I was trying to say. How he is isn't a reflection on you. And it doesn't make you like Andrew."

"Mayhap."

The storm is starting to break apart, the clouds dissipating everywhere except directly over them.

"But I -- I'd serve my master well. I'd please him, do his bidding, when it's just. I do not like my bonds, but I could not--"

She lifts her shoulders.

"I met a demon here that said that it had helped another me o'erthrow Prospero's spell. But in exchange, for magic always costs, it took my place as servant to the Duke. And he ran mad," she says, miserable, "ambitious, murd'rous, vile. And so the demon killed him."

Matt frowns.

"I'm sorry."

And he is. He doesn't like Prospero at all, but everything about that other world sounds completely terrible.

"'Tis none of thine," she murmurs, shrugging.

"I don't think I totally understand, though," he says. "What part of that upsets you? Or like, reminds you of what's going on with Andrew?"

Even in the midst of an existential crisis, or whatever this is, apparently Ariel can spare a moment to look at Matt Jamison like he's dumb. But only a moment.

"I do not think that I could do the same. I could not kill him, if it came to that. And when I heard what he'd done there, still, still, I went back meek and did whate'er he bade. No need to leash me: I heel'd on my own. Would Andrew not do so, had he the chance?"

That look is sort of comforting; despite himself, he smiles in a small flicker.

Then he frowns.

"But you went back to your own Prospero. Not that one."

"Dost thou, Matt, think my master so much better?"