It's more than reasonable as a question, but it takes Fenris a long few seconds before he can answer it. He's too caught up in staring at his charge: his hands fisted so tightly his knuckles shine white in the darkness, his sweet voice roughened in a way that Fenris has never heard before. Not the whining, sulking tone he gets when he misses a party, nor the frustrated growl that comes out being thwarted, no. This is rage. This is the kind of anger that almost makes you sick for how potent it is, bile in your belly and a thundering in your ears . . .
And he doesn't understand why.
Because of a moment of kindness? A cold cloth on a sore cheek? No, it can't be that. The lesson? Fenris' mind whirs, though some part of him knows he's stalling out. But it makes no sense to him, not when he has long since learned the world is nothing but a struggle— and nobles nothing but cruel. Petulant and petty and so wealthy they never develop morals or good sense— that's how they are. That's how they all are and always have been, from Danarius and his friends to the guffawing group at that party, they all of them—
Why aren't you?]
What would you have me say?
[It's low, his voice rougher than it had been before. And it isn't that he hasn't thought about this— oh, of course he has. As the years went by and he saw snatches of how ordinary people lived . . . oh, Danarius couldn't erase everything. Of course he's resented it, raged and sobbed and panicked in the quiet darkness of his room, but what good had it ever done him? Not when he was a teenager, and not now.]
It is my life. If I run, even if I am not caught, that debt goes to my family— and if I am caught, at best I will only add to my debt. At worst I will go back to the man who owned me before, and his punishments will not cease, not for years on end. That this position— you— is the first thing that has been good in my life, for I never once thought he would sell me. I am still owned and it is an improvement— and if I make a single mistake, it will all come crashing down.
I despise it. I loathe it. The reality of it would suffocate me if I lingered upon it for too long, and so I cannot, for there is no future in that. What good would it do me to rage? It is what it is— and focusing on survival is what has led me to see my three hundredth year, not the inherent injustices of my existence.
I do not— I cannot— dream of freedom. Not the way you know it. A life like this . . . it has to be enough.
no subject
(Why is he?)
It's more than reasonable as a question, but it takes Fenris a long few seconds before he can answer it. He's too caught up in staring at his charge: his hands fisted so tightly his knuckles shine white in the darkness, his sweet voice roughened in a way that Fenris has never heard before. Not the whining, sulking tone he gets when he misses a party, nor the frustrated growl that comes out being thwarted, no. This is rage. This is the kind of anger that almost makes you sick for how potent it is, bile in your belly and a thundering in your ears . . .
And he doesn't understand why.
Because of a moment of kindness? A cold cloth on a sore cheek? No, it can't be that. The lesson? Fenris' mind whirs, though some part of him knows he's stalling out. But it makes no sense to him, not when he has long since learned the world is nothing but a struggle— and nobles nothing but cruel. Petulant and petty and so wealthy they never develop morals or good sense— that's how they are. That's how they all are and always have been, from Danarius and his friends to the guffawing group at that party, they all of them—
Why aren't you?]
What would you have me say?
[It's low, his voice rougher than it had been before. And it isn't that he hasn't thought about this— oh, of course he has. As the years went by and he saw snatches of how ordinary people lived . . . oh, Danarius couldn't erase everything. Of course he's resented it, raged and sobbed and panicked in the quiet darkness of his room, but what good had it ever done him? Not when he was a teenager, and not now.]
It is my life. If I run, even if I am not caught, that debt goes to my family— and if I am caught, at best I will only add to my debt. At worst I will go back to the man who owned me before, and his punishments will not cease, not for years on end. That this position— you— is the first thing that has been good in my life, for I never once thought he would sell me. I am still owned and it is an improvement— and if I make a single mistake, it will all come crashing down.
I despise it. I loathe it. The reality of it would suffocate me if I lingered upon it for too long, and so I cannot, for there is no future in that. What good would it do me to rage? It is what it is— and focusing on survival is what has led me to see my three hundredth year, not the inherent injustices of my existence.
I do not— I cannot— dream of freedom. Not the way you know it. A life like this . . . it has to be enough.