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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:33 pm
Arkady beamed at her. “We all do, I think – it’s amazing, really. As children, we know not to accept sweets from strange men or to wander off from our guardians. And then as soon as we grow up, suddenly some people think all the old rules don’t apply anymore, because you’re an adult and you know better. But just because you don’t believe in the monsters under the bed anymore doesn’t mean you can always recognize the real kind.” Arkady knew better, of course. He was one of the monsters.
He was toying now with the chain between the cuffs, one link between his fingers, turning it over and over again so that it clinked softly. “Both. That’s a new one. All right, let’s see... The answer that makes sense. I loved her. I was in deep with dangerous people – Dust lords, criminals, killers – and I was backed in a corner, and the woman I wanted rejected me. Crime of passion, that’s what they call it, right? When you just go blind and mad with it?”
He let it hang in the air for a moment, those last few words, and then he added, “The true answer is that I have no sharding idea.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:34 pm
"We learn from adults. Once we've grown up, I suppose it's difficult to believe we can learn from them." She smiled faintly, though his words stirred up more questions then they answered. The murderer had a brain that begged to be poked at and studied. He needed to be quantified somehow. ... Leevi, she suspected, would not mind profiling this one.
"And you believe yourself to be one of the real ones?" Her thumb tapped to the meat of her palm with each clink of the chain, a quiet echo of his own captivity. She sounded as if they were discussing weather rather than a girls life at a mans hands - a man without a motive, no less. "Did you feel anything when you killed her? It's alright if you didn't. There is no wrong answer."
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:27 pm
“Oh, there’s far worse things than me out there. I have standards.” And he did! He wasn’t Special Pop. He didn’t do unspeakable things to people. He didn’t start a family and then turn around and murder them all. There were lots worse things than Arkady in the world.
Her question brought a puzzled frown from Arkady. “Sure I did. I mean, I felt things. I had reasons. It’s more that… It was turns and turns ago. And the further away I get from it, the less they feel like motives and the more they feel like justifications. Other people telling me ‘oh you must have done it because of this’, and yeah, sure, that’s logical. It could have been any of those things. Like I said before, about people wanting answers that make sense.”
He half-shrugged. “Maybe I used to know. There’s a lot of solitary in between the person you’re talking to and the person who killed her.” The simple answer was that he'd wanted to. He wanted to kill her, and he did. Motives were for mindhealers and people with greater capacity for self-reflection.
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:54 am
He had a point. Jessan grew up with far worse things. The only emotions she ever saw in Machi were anger and upset over losing his toys. If he felt lust she never saw it; unhealthy attachment or not, both sides made it clear that...no. just no. "I've seen far worse. You've at least walked through the Unstable block. "
She had. Machi's eyes followed her through it all, desperate for escape, arms in that jacket. She'd ask for Leevi to see him soon. Maybe he would give leave for Machi to go outside.
Jess opened her mouth to open another question and then sighed, rubbing at her eyes. "Goodness, it must have been a long day. I was supposed to tell you that these things are confidential, between you and I. Leevi and I don't even discuss patients unless given permission. Only time it's disclosed is if you attempt to to kill me or someone else. I apologize. My manners are gone today."
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:48 pm
“That’s true,” agreed Arkady cheerfully. “Look! We can have a nice reasonable conversation where no one is drooling or screaming or threatening to murder anyone.”
Yep. Arkady was definitely super sane. Look how sane he is. Calmly chatting away with Jessan as if they were simply a harper and a healer who’d met to have a little chat about the nature of human psychology. And in another place, in another time, perhaps that might have even been possible. The chains were forgotten as anything except for an obligatory restraint on his more grandiose gestures.
He smiled at her: a genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes, not the terrifying flat kind that were meant solely to show teeth in an animal gesture. “That’s very kind of you; thank you for letting me know. But I really don’t mind all that much who you share the information with. I don’t plan on killing you or anyone, but around here, people knowing you’ve killed in the past isn't as much a hindrance as a useful defense mechanism. It keeps the stupid ones at bay.”
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