damned_bulletin | (no subject)

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armand

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To All Residents,

I'm looking to find a particular sort of person for some ongoing work during the nights. What I am seeking are men and women who know how to handle themselves in a fight but are smart and resourceful as well. They must play well enough with others to consider looking after a less fighting-capable person. I have a few opportunities today to speak to anyone who is interested. This need not be a full time commitment, if you're interested, but I would need to know where you stood.

-Armand St. Just

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No one, no matter how good, should travel here alone at night. And there are others here who aren't capable of learning the kind of defense that would be needed.

I call bullshit. Everyone's capable. They're just weak.

No. You seem to think I'm seeking these people for my own benefit. I'm protecting the people I am asking to work for me. Even the strong are killed or hurt.

If they're killed then they don't need protecting.

If they're hurt, then they either stay strong enough to keep fighting or they die.

That is not how we operate. If they're killed, I failed in my work. What we meant to do is left undone. There are reasons to want to protect the weaker ones who are here. Didn't ancient hunters bring down great game by hunting in numbers? Are you saying that since they didn't hunt alone, they should have died for being weak?

When did numbers come into play here? You fight in a pack or you fight alone, either way you fight.

That or you die.

I am looking for people willing to fight and travel as the more capable in a pair.

Why not choose to become the more capable, though?

Some of the people in this Institute are children. Some are ordinary people, not soldiers or supermen. People like that take time to learn, pick up skills, but nobody needs to feel useless in the meantime.

Age is no excuse. It's not about ability but desire. Nothing wrong with being second best so long as the desire is strong, but to admit you need protecting? There's no desire there. Only fear.

You, sir, are worse than a monster. An attitude like that will only get you eaten or mauled.

Good. Now you know to be afraid of me.

Nothing wrong with getting eaten or mauled so long as you had fun in the process. You're not going to live for ever, might as well kill time with something to get the blood pumping.

Killing time is not my intention. My goals are not so selfish. I would rather my life be spent trying to help someone else.

Blah blah blah. So let me guess, you're the good guy and I'm the villain?

You're only a villain if you add yourself to the predators already trying to destroy us here. I merely call you selfish.

Everyone's selfish. I just don't lie about who and what I am.

And I don't lie. At all.

I cannot claim to be unselfish, but I know what I try to do. If I fail, that is my weakness, not what you've been saying.

It's okay to fail to something stronger than you, so long as you had fun doing it. You self-righteous types are all the same. You never lie to anyone but yourself.

I may be capable of lying to myself in thought, but I mean what I say about how truthful I am in speech and writing. I cannot lie. Make of that what you will.

What does fun have to do with anything?

Why can't you lie?

Fun has to do with everything. If you don't enjoy what you do, you're an idiot.

Something was done to me here.

Like what?

I was taken from my room during dinner one night to somewhere upstairs, the second floor. A woman, claiming to be a doctor, injected a liquid into me, perhaps a drug of some kind. Since then, I simply can't get the words out unless they are the truth so far as I know it to be. It is uncomfortable to try. Even answering to the false name the nurses give me here is a problem. Please don't ask me anymore personal questions.

What are you afraid of? There ain't nothing wrong with telling nothing but the truth. It makes you more yourself than most of the people in the world.

I am afraid of people asking awkward questions. There are some things a man would wish to keep private. My life has been far from perfect. I would rather people know and value me for what I am doing now. Not what I was.