Chapter Text
When you asked for a favour, it was necessary to show your humility.
Those foolish enough to beseech the Head for mercy could find it at any given time. The path to power was not difficult, she mused, but merely one that people rarely chose to follow.
But those who chose to beg for scraps would often fall to their knees.
They would grab and tear at their hair; they would plead for mercy, or cry, or vomit.
And those that didn't...
It was a room that had been paved over numerous times.
And it was a room that might as well have been built on bones.
Yet the woman with her mane of burnished brown hair didn't seem to notice.
No; she noticed just fine, but it didn't seem to register.
She didn't care.
Garion felt her eyes narrowing as the interloper, just another beggar, smiled at her.
It was a warm, friendly, all-loving smile.
It was a peaceful, cheeky, mischievous smile.
It was a smile as red as blood, darkened against an open wound.
it was the smile of a predator.
Her eyes narrowed further, and Garion said nothing.
The duty of an arbiter was to judge; those found worthy of aid might receive it...
For a price.
And the Head knew all things; it was the mission of the Head to know all things, always, forever.
But the lesser contractors and functionaries present were a necessary banality. In this moment, they were significantly more important than she, and she bore them no ill will. Just as it was the role of an arbiter to judge, it was their role to ensure that things went as planned. Should that fail, their duty was to die rectifying their mistakes.
The woman was giving a pitch for something. (They always did.)
She talked constantly of human happiness, of human advancement, of the joy her discoveries would bring.
Garion already knew that there would be no acceptance for her, here. The Head had an interest in those things, yes, but only from a certain point of view. Morality as a price for morality was difficult to explain, as classical morality had died – a casualty of the Wings' Wars, or perhaps something long before that.
Her fingers clenched at her side, and Garion realised that the woman was staring at her.
Still smiling. She had never stopped smiling.
“Yes..?”
“I was just wondering what you think about it. Ahaha, it's definitely something that would benefit the current order of things, and since you seem a little important, I'm asking you!”
She said it it with something a little like innocence, but nothing like it at all.
Garion was no stranger to these little games. She'd earned and thrown away hearts that no longer had any use to her, won followers and friends and lovers, and accepted them as they departed, in the end.
But this wasn't a game.
Her expression, her words – the lady scientist was entirely serious.
Or – or something, like that...
“Mmn. I think you will find that appealing to a sense of justice will not award you the backing you seek. This... Inner Fire proposal you're discussing seems to produce no tangible benefit. Nor does it seem dangerous – “
which meant that it was
“ – but the Head cannot waste resources on unproven projects that return no reward on investment.”
That should have been the end of it. With anyone else, it would've.
Her subordinates looked nervous; everyone in the room felt it.
A shift, terribly subtle, in the balance of power.
“Oh, but I wasn't asking the Head. He isn't even here, right?”
She smiled, laughed.
Adjusted her ponytail.
“I'm asking you.”
That was the only time Garion met Carmen.
It was only once, a brief moment, one that went a great deal of time before orders were passed from above to eliminate a project that had continued without sanction.
Even now, with so many memories having been lost and devoured by time...
She could recall perfectly the way that Carmen walked peacefully over the bones of the dead, those whose names she could remember having put under the cold and passionless earth. The way she stopped, as if she recognised them, too.
How she turned her head back, over her shoulder – her lips just visible.
And how she smiled.