A reconciliation

[impure_tale]

Who: The Marquis, Iago
Where: Level Zero
When: Day Seven of Iago's Incarceration
What: The Marquis settles things -- as best as he can.

It was Sergeant Howie, of all people, that had turned the Marquis mind in the right direction after breaking rather forcefully with his Inmate. It was not a conversation in which he had come to find himself

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[inhumandog]

Iago walked to the bars casually and wrapped his hands around them. His injured hand had healed nicely, especially considering that he, at one point, had been certain it was broken. But the Marquis' demeanor didn't help him feel any better about this situation.

"What do you want? Have you come to foist me off on another warden so soon?" Resting his forehead against the bars, Iago just seemed...defeated.

[impure_tale]

The Marquis stepped forward, leaning on his cane. Hesitantly, he laid a hand over one of his Inmate's. "I'm not leaving you, Iago," he said quietly.

[inhumandog]

Iago looked up to him and narrowed his eyes a bit. "Why?" He didn't move his hand. But he didn't want to believe him, either. He had thought that the Marquis would leave him because of this and the idea had sickened him more than he cared to admit.

[impure_tale]

"This place is meant to show that no matter how far you fall you may find your way back," he replied. "If I leave you then all I am doing is saying that you cannot do that."

[inhumandog]

The soldier took a deep breath and watched him for a long moment, not really believing him.

"So you were wrong?" he challenged softly.

[impure_tale]

"We were both wrong, Iago," he returned, looking him sternly in the eye. "What you did broke my heart."

[inhumandog]

He actually flinched at that. Zero hadn't been the punishment for him. He could last in zero for much longer than seven days. There weren't many punishments that really got through to him, if any at all. But this...hurting the Marquis...was an effective one.

Iago saw the consequence in what he did, but, as usual, he fought against that realization out of pure instinct.

"I didn't do anything wrong. Crane's fine."

[impure_tale]

"He died, Iago. That is not fine. From someone who had their fair share of deaths after one. It changes you." He stepped away from him and sat down on the chair that had been left outside his cell six days ago. "I know it is hard for you to think of it that way because it is so temporary here, but if it happens to you, you don't think of it that way. No one who dies here just gets over it."

[inhumandog]

Iago considered that for a moment and then shrugged. He died so infrequently on the barge that it didn't really matter to him. But...when Rex died, he cared. When his other friends died, he had cared. It had mattered then.

He watched the Marquis again, still going silent. "Alright." It wasn't a dismissal of the issue. Rather, it was a genuine acceptance of what he was saying.

[impure_tale]

"As it is, you do nothing to shed light on the crimes he himself has committed here by attacking him without a motive," the Marquis added irritably. "The only thing you've succeeded in doing is making him look like a victim."

[inhumandog]

"It wasn't about his crimes," Iago said softly. "I hate Crane. I thought that, with the Wardens in an uproar, I could take advantage of the situation." He shrugged.

"You weren't supposed to take it personally."

[impure_tale]

"If you hate him so, I almost fail to care what else you could do. Heckle him in public. Glue his shoes to the floor. Put lice in his bath products -- it's not your right to take from him what you would never have him take from you."

[inhumandog]

"Taunting and childish pranks? That hardly sends an appropriate message, does it?" He moved back to sit down on his bed and folded his arms across his chest.

[impure_tale]

"If you wish to send him a message, try writing one, or ignore him altogether. The only thing he thinks of you now is that you're mad." The Marquis leaned forward, hands atop the handle of his cane, chin resting on his hands.

[inhumandog]

"I don't really care what he thinks of me," he said casually. "As long as he knows better than to come near me." The soldier rubbed at his hand casually.

"But..." He looked away and then back to the Marquis. Time to say what he couldn't actually express to Rex before. "Is it so terrible to think that what I did was wrong...because you took it personally? Instead of because of what Crane thinks?"

[impure_tale]

The Marquis sighed. "Iago, I cannot force you to care what every person in existence thinks, especially not those that you despise. That is not empathy; that's stupidity." He sat back in the chair. "If it troubles you that I hated it, then you might take some time to consider why I hate it. I hate the Master but were he here I would never deign to try to kill him just because I felt like letting him know."