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[mattersverymuch]

[It's been so many years since the marquis was young that he'd almost forgotten what it was like. He had been so small, ill-fed and underweight, and so easily broken. Which, really, explains a lot about what he's become - none of which he particularly wanted explained to the Barge as a whole.]

[To distract himself somewhat from this unfortunate reality, he has begun work on a compendium of stories, as he has nothing else to do with his time. Much of his work is done in the library, but much is also done in the CES, which becomes, variously, an abandoned city in a mishmash of styles, a thick, temperate, and foggy hardwood forest, and a riverside. He works mostly from memory and attempts comprehensiveness, though his writings as late veer toward tales of the trickster.]

Comments

[deadly_ned]

I know. But you would have eventually figured out my true purpose for showing up and then it would have just been worse.


...



You were pointlessly adorable.

[mattersverymuch]

I was just small. Not the same.

[deadly_ned]

Small things are adorable. It's a fact of life. Like gravity.

[mattersverymuch]

You were also small, and not adorable. Only obnoxious.

[deadly_ned]

It was the haircut. I can't make excuses for it.

[mattersverymuch]

No, it was all of you.

[deadly_ned]

I'm sorry.

[mattersverymuch]

Yes, good, how dare you.

[deadly_ned]

Mr....Marquis. Sir.

I don't know what you want from me. But I am trying.

[mattersverymuch]

It was a joke.

[How dare you not understand his every bizarre and capricious mood!]

[deadly_ned]

Oh.


In my defense, you're very hard to read. You're an enigma.

[mattersverymuch]

Yes. I know. That is, in general, the point.

[deadly_ned]

It's a way to prevent more hurt.

[mattersverymuch]

[To which he says - nothing. Just focuses his unblinking gaze intently on the Piemaker, waiting for him to go on, or not.]

[deadly_ned]

Someone who wants to hurt you - really, really hurt you - needs to know you. They need to have intimate, personal details about your life.

So you make the information harder and harder to get to. Your conversations are a maze and insights into what you're really thinking are all dead ends. You don't even have a name. I don't...know if that's on purpose or by accident. You have a title. That creates distance.

So there's this, um. This wall between you and anything that's trying to hurt you. And after a while it just becomes natural, something you've always had, something you'd feel naked without.

So no one can really understand you, which is the way you want it to be. It's a win-lose situation unless you're very...very comfortable on your own.

Or you make sure you're next to people like Dean and me who give support when and where it's needed but are less clever than you so if we ever tried to hurt you, you'd see it coming.



...Or is that...wrong?

[mattersverymuch]

Mm.

[Which is the only response for a moment. Then he waves his hand back and forth, like - almost. Nearly. In the same hemisphere, certainly.]

You're remarkably close. But you're still giving me too much of your type of credit.

[deadly_ned]

You...don't care as much as I'm making it out that you do.

[mattersverymuch]

I care.

About me.

[deadly_ned]

This is going to sound wretched and callous and mean.


Why?

[mattersverymuch]

Because I am better and cleverer than anyone else.

I'm sorry, what were you expecting?

[deadly_ned]

I don't really see the point in being better and cleverer than anyone else if there's no one else who wants to share it with you.

[mattersverymuch]

You ascribe your own outlook on other people, disregarding the fact that they might not share it. That's why it's a good thing, really, that you're not my warden. You're not nearly ruthless enough.

. . . I find myself somewhat surprised that I don't think I'm going to try to have you eliminated in some creative way. For all of this.

[deadly_ned]

I know. It's a bad habit.

...Thanks. I like you too.

[mattersverymuch]

It's a habit that's going to get you killed. [Just not by him, not today. Which, hey, Ned. Those are fighting words.]

Less that, more - again. You're not ruthless enough. So there's no point. [But it's totally that, though.]

[deadly_ned]

You died. I'm still alive.


...Sorry. Couldn't...not point that out.