”Off-hand? On what do you base this?” the bard said when Remi had finished, his voice no less gentle than Remi’s, a deliberate echo of the soft-voiced manipulation after the boy had demanded confrontation instead of letting him depart. ”I have never offered you advice with less than a sincere desire to help you, thought-through and based on the information you yourself have given me – about yourself and the circumstances you were in at the time. Nor have I seen you take a suggestion even once without immediately discarding it, much less considering it… how do you phrase it? Gospel? An odd turn of phrase for someone from a world without religion.” His lips almost quirked in a tired smile. ”That is, whether you want to admit it or not, the definition of doing what you want, regardless of advice.” He shook his head, grimacing slightly at the mention of the barrier.
”I saw you keep the Ascended from leaving when all others had either turned against him or turned away from him… and then you used the trust he seemed to hold in you to send him towards the barrier in full daylight, when you had to know he would be weakened. You even asked him to touch it, knowing how it affected all other living things, and having just watched it affect magical ones. When common sense alone would have told you that if Ascended could pass the barrier safely, they would have done so generations ago, instead of avoiding it like everyone and everything else. Yet still you urged him to this. What am I to view those actions as? Stubborn pride that refused to back down? Childish ignorance that didn’t think through the consequences? In truth I didn’t know if you were subtly punishing him for upsetting Vervain, or if you were genuinely that negligently cruel. From what I know of you now, I suspect the latter. Your intentions are fine things, Remi, but you don’t know when to stop or listen to anyone. Not merely allow them to speak in your presence without interruption. The two are not the same.” He rubbed at his temples again, trying to think through the pounding pain. ”And then you went and put that damn mask on, despite universal protest from everyone gathered, forcing them into a damn selfish position. No one who cared for you could leave your side, and yet you intended to force the people who loved you to also attack you if the mask caused you to lose control – something you knew full well could happen. What sort of choice was that? You lashed the hearts of everyone there who cared about you with that choice, and forced them to watch you play god. It certainly looked like you were seeking attention – if not praise, then at the very least attention. Awe, perhaps, at your new toy.”
Jigano took a deep breath, calming the faint tremors in his voice. He had been worried about the boy as well, no less shocked and dismayed by Remi’s callous disregard for what he put his friends and family through that day. He looked Remi in the eyes, his own expression tightening. ”And yes, you damn well do deflect and try and pretend like it’s not your fault. When you hauled that walking opera house reject back from where he’d collapsed you had the nerve to tell him that you hadn’t told him to touch the barrier – making it his fault he was hurt – when everyone there heard you say “try to touch the barrier” not a full minute before. Just as it would have been the fault of anyone who chose to stay if you’d lashed out with the mask on and hurt them. As if people trusting you is their fault and no problem of yours.” He wished he could tuck his hands into his sleeves to stop his shivering, but he didn’t want to set his lantern down, taking a strange comfort in the cold metal. It was something hard and real to hold on to, and to use as a focus away from his headache.
”As you are doing here and now. I gave you advice, I suggested something temporary, that could be easily removed if it did not turn out the way Sam wanted. Something that could, perhaps, be a gift to other Ascended as well. If it did work then a more permanent solution could have been pursued… but you were impatient, impetuous, and too stubbornly attached to your first idea. You didn’t want my suggestions, Remi. You just wanted me to agree with your invention and praise it, and when I did not you disregarded my words and went ahead with it anyways. I criticize you for that. Do not pretend like I condoned the permanent ‘patch’ you wanted to make when I specifically suggested against it. You were the one who ended the conversation when I pointed out that he might want different things – different senses, different definitions of ‘normal’ – depending on who he was with.”
He glanced to the entrance to the underground, glaring at the hole as if it were the tunnel’s fault he was forced to stand here in the snow and cold and argue with a young man who seemed oblivious to the harm he caused. As the adult, he should have walked away a long time ago… but, hell, Remi was acting like it was the first time someone had held up his messes to his nose before, and the bard felt like he had to at least try to knock some sense into that young head, figuratively speaking. He took a breath, though, calming his voice back to gentler tones. ”I did not mean to criticize you about Sam not coming here sooner. It was meant as an observation – and, yes, a bitter one that neither of us had thought of it beforehand. When I realized you had taken it poorly I tried to soften it, at least, recognizing that it hurt you. I am sorry for that misunderstanding, and my poor word choice.” A grim apology as he considered how rarely he’d heard such words from Remi in any meaningful way. A thousand empty apologies, it felt like, for things that did not matter or were untrue, and not one for his actions leading to others getting hurt. Was he not already distancing himself from the patch for Sam, in case things went wrong, so the Ascended would not place the blame on him?
And of course, Remi had laid out all his rebuttals in that too-soft voice, acting as pure as any martyr and deliberately goading a strong man’s pride. Jigano had to smile inwardly, a grim little humor, though he kept his face outwardly composed – or as composed as he could be with the insistent pain in his temples and moving in quite rudely behind his right eye. He was a great many things, and proud not the least, but he had no illusions as to his own strength. So he met sadness with sadness, and was frustrated to find it all too genuine. ”Twice, you told me, Ludo nearly lured you to your death. You did not learn the lesson the first time. Nor, it appears, the second. You put the mask on and you started to go straight back to the barrier, heedless of the danger - if not for the lightning witch pulling you back. And despite someone recently getting quite messily killed at the spire, I saw you had another notice up that you intended to go right up to it in bird-form and wanted friends to join you in being extra fodder for any winged predators that might be waiting. Of course I think you fling yourself at trouble, when you act like that.” He exhaled, giving a small shake of his own head – and a wince. ”Consciously or unconsciously, Remi, you go around looking like a kicked puppy at the slightest hint of criticism, all downcast eyes and fluttering lashes and trembling lip. You have made it clear that you do not want guidance or help – not unless it is simply to support what you already want to do.”
”I have told you some of why I am so jaded, but you don’t have the inclination to listen,” the bard said at last, feeling the weariness of defeat in his bones. ”And gods least fortunate! No one said anything about ‘staying away’ from anyone, though if you keep putting words in my mouth I might change my mind! You've made your dislike clear as crystal with that, but all I’ve been asking you to do all this time is to grow up and use a little caution. Be a little less stubborn behind that mild shell you hide behind. And consider, for once, that someone else might have a better idea than you sometimes. Not always – but sometimes.”
”I saw you keep the Ascended from leaving when all others had either turned against him or turned away from him… and then you used the trust he seemed to hold in you to send him towards the barrier in full daylight, when you had to know he would be weakened. You even asked him to touch it, knowing how it affected all other living things, and having just watched it affect magical ones. When common sense alone would have told you that if Ascended could pass the barrier safely, they would have done so generations ago, instead of avoiding it like everyone and everything else. Yet still you urged him to this. What am I to view those actions as? Stubborn pride that refused to back down? Childish ignorance that didn’t think through the consequences? In truth I didn’t know if you were subtly punishing him for upsetting Vervain, or if you were genuinely that negligently cruel. From what I know of you now, I suspect the latter. Your intentions are fine things, Remi, but you don’t know when to stop or listen to anyone. Not merely allow them to speak in your presence without interruption. The two are not the same.” He rubbed at his temples again, trying to think through the pounding pain. ”And then you went and put that damn mask on, despite universal protest from everyone gathered, forcing them into a damn selfish position. No one who cared for you could leave your side, and yet you intended to force the people who loved you to also attack you if the mask caused you to lose control – something you knew full well could happen. What sort of choice was that? You lashed the hearts of everyone there who cared about you with that choice, and forced them to watch you play god. It certainly looked like you were seeking attention – if not praise, then at the very least attention. Awe, perhaps, at your new toy.”
Jigano took a deep breath, calming the faint tremors in his voice. He had been worried about the boy as well, no less shocked and dismayed by Remi’s callous disregard for what he put his friends and family through that day. He looked Remi in the eyes, his own expression tightening. ”And yes, you damn well do deflect and try and pretend like it’s not your fault. When you hauled that walking opera house reject back from where he’d collapsed you had the nerve to tell him that you hadn’t told him to touch the barrier – making it his fault he was hurt – when everyone there heard you say “try to touch the barrier” not a full minute before. Just as it would have been the fault of anyone who chose to stay if you’d lashed out with the mask on and hurt them. As if people trusting you is their fault and no problem of yours.” He wished he could tuck his hands into his sleeves to stop his shivering, but he didn’t want to set his lantern down, taking a strange comfort in the cold metal. It was something hard and real to hold on to, and to use as a focus away from his headache.
”As you are doing here and now. I gave you advice, I suggested something temporary, that could be easily removed if it did not turn out the way Sam wanted. Something that could, perhaps, be a gift to other Ascended as well. If it did work then a more permanent solution could have been pursued… but you were impatient, impetuous, and too stubbornly attached to your first idea. You didn’t want my suggestions, Remi. You just wanted me to agree with your invention and praise it, and when I did not you disregarded my words and went ahead with it anyways. I criticize you for that. Do not pretend like I condoned the permanent ‘patch’ you wanted to make when I specifically suggested against it. You were the one who ended the conversation when I pointed out that he might want different things – different senses, different definitions of ‘normal’ – depending on who he was with.”
He glanced to the entrance to the underground, glaring at the hole as if it were the tunnel’s fault he was forced to stand here in the snow and cold and argue with a young man who seemed oblivious to the harm he caused. As the adult, he should have walked away a long time ago… but, hell, Remi was acting like it was the first time someone had held up his messes to his nose before, and the bard felt like he had to at least try to knock some sense into that young head, figuratively speaking. He took a breath, though, calming his voice back to gentler tones. ”I did not mean to criticize you about Sam not coming here sooner. It was meant as an observation – and, yes, a bitter one that neither of us had thought of it beforehand. When I realized you had taken it poorly I tried to soften it, at least, recognizing that it hurt you. I am sorry for that misunderstanding, and my poor word choice.” A grim apology as he considered how rarely he’d heard such words from Remi in any meaningful way. A thousand empty apologies, it felt like, for things that did not matter or were untrue, and not one for his actions leading to others getting hurt. Was he not already distancing himself from the patch for Sam, in case things went wrong, so the Ascended would not place the blame on him?
And of course, Remi had laid out all his rebuttals in that too-soft voice, acting as pure as any martyr and deliberately goading a strong man’s pride. Jigano had to smile inwardly, a grim little humor, though he kept his face outwardly composed – or as composed as he could be with the insistent pain in his temples and moving in quite rudely behind his right eye. He was a great many things, and proud not the least, but he had no illusions as to his own strength. So he met sadness with sadness, and was frustrated to find it all too genuine. ”Twice, you told me, Ludo nearly lured you to your death. You did not learn the lesson the first time. Nor, it appears, the second. You put the mask on and you started to go straight back to the barrier, heedless of the danger - if not for the lightning witch pulling you back. And despite someone recently getting quite messily killed at the spire, I saw you had another notice up that you intended to go right up to it in bird-form and wanted friends to join you in being extra fodder for any winged predators that might be waiting. Of course I think you fling yourself at trouble, when you act like that.” He exhaled, giving a small shake of his own head – and a wince. ”Consciously or unconsciously, Remi, you go around looking like a kicked puppy at the slightest hint of criticism, all downcast eyes and fluttering lashes and trembling lip. You have made it clear that you do not want guidance or help – not unless it is simply to support what you already want to do.”
”I have told you some of why I am so jaded, but you don’t have the inclination to listen,” the bard said at last, feeling the weariness of defeat in his bones. ”And gods least fortunate! No one said anything about ‘staying away’ from anyone, though if you keep putting words in my mouth I might change my mind! You've made your dislike clear as crystal with that, but all I’ve been asking you to do all this time is to grow up and use a little caution. Be a little less stubborn behind that mild shell you hide behind. And consider, for once, that someone else might have a better idea than you sometimes. Not always – but sometimes.”
