"Compassion draws no distinction between the weak or the mighty, Good and Evil, the chosen or the damned. It asks only that you care for everyone. Your family, your friends, the many unnamed faces that you have never met in lands far, far away. Murderers, rapists, the man whose throat you just slit. Animals, insects, everything else that lives. Even the people that you loathe. Even those who have done you great wrongs. It is the easiest virtue to understand, but the hardest virtue to uphold."
— Excerpt from chapter 1 of 17, Faces of Virtue, Taylor
"Evening. We got a new acquaintance." I turned the knob and the purple door creaked open.
I could tell something was wrong the moment my boot sunk into the red carpet in the parlour.
Songbird and Esme sat on opposing leather chairs. Esme's posture was stiff. She was almost like a mannequin. Songbird was the complete opposite. Loose, busy trimming her nails with a curved dagger and humming an off-beat merry tune.
Vengeance against those who have done me wrong. Vengeance against Songbird.
The tension was so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
"What happened?" I asked, breathing out smoke as the rest of my retinue approached from behind.
Songbird looked up and stared across at Esme, then turned her gaze back towards me.
Esme swallowed.
"Songbird laid a knife against my person and then threatened to kill me," she stated.
I turned my gaze from the black haired troublemaker to the red haired troublemaker and raised an eyebrow.
"S'pose that's one way to say I warned her not to betray you again." Songbird yawned.
I swear I've got three kids and Yvette is the most responsible one. No, not just the most responsible. She's my little angel in comparison to these two. I'm not the best mother either, but… if I'm trouble personified, then they're my three children.
I should have felt angry about the entire situation. Instead, I felt weary, resigned. A part of me had always known that something like this would happen. I'd suspected that Esme would betray us despite Songbird's reassurances. The betrayal was obviously not major else Esme would be nothing more than a mess on the floor but…
That didn't excuse whatever happened at all. If I'd actually believed that Esme wouldn't betray us, then maybe it would have hurt.
The only question that remained was who was at fault. I was leaning towards Esme, but Songbird might also have gone too far.
"Details," I demanded.
"She went to the Circle of Thorns to take up their offer and tried to spill all our secrets in the process," Songbird stood up, stretched and put her knife away.
"We don't have any secrets."
Not that it made me happy about what she had allegedly done.
"S'not the point. S'about what she tried to do, not how effective it was."
"You stand at the threshold, sister," the voice resonated through me.
"Right, sorry." I moved forward out of the doorway and allowed the others to enter the room.
Pascal's robes brushed against my own as he passed. He gave everyone a warm smile as he moved into the room. Everyone else followed behind him.
"I'm going to my room," Yvette took one look at the room's occupants and decided to leave, her previous good mood evaporating.
I don't blame you at all.
Blaise and Michel followed along with Yvette's decision, leaving the four of us inside.
"Forgive me if I am intruding on what appears to be a delicate matter, but did I mishear or did this youth attempt to betray your trust?"
"She did," I stated.
"It cannot be betrayal if I never truly joined my ship to Taylor's fleet in the first place," the haughty voice interjected.
Pascal gave me an amused look. The corner of his lips twitched, almost as if he was asking me for an explanation.
"She's one of the damned. I've been trying to redeem her."
"I have informed Taylor in the past that I am a hero and not a villain. It is a failure on her part to insist otherwise."
"Y'know most people burned by the Light don't think of themselves as heroes," Songbird added.
"An admirable pursuit." Pascal hummed, then nodded. Some of his hair fell over the green of his eyes. "I trust you do not require me to intervene here, sister?"
"Some advice later." I suggested.
He would probably be better at this than I was. I wasn't about to turn down help, but I knew more about Esme to begin with.
"S'pose you're gonna bitch about both of us?" Songbird put her dainty hands on her hips, pouted and gave me a wink.
"Depends. I gave you rules," I turned my attention to Esme. "Talk."
And she began to do so. Pascal was quick to step out of the room. Esme talked about what she had done and why under the hostile glare of Songbird. Songbird was quick to add corrections whenever Esme attempted to let something slip. The discussion ended with Esme accusing Songbird of threatening her, which led to both of them breaking into a heated argument. Voices raised, shouting ensued.
Well, it was less an argument and more Songbird riling Esme up.
I rubbed my forehead in thought while I considered how to handle the matter. I could see why Songbird had threatened Esme. The threat did not upset me as much as it should have. Rachel had done much the same with me. I could understand why she did it, even if I did not agree with it. My main problem with her making the threat was the added complications. I was trying to pull Esme out of her downward spiral. This argument just gave me more work.
I cleared my throat.
Silence fell over the room.
"Songbird, help Pascal settle in. I'd like a moment alone with Esme."
I should have begun lancing this wound sooner, but I hadn't been confident in my approach. Esme was far more prickly than Lisa and not half as clever, which made talking to her as dangerous as swimming through a polluted bog.
"Y'know how you're gonna handle this?"
"I'm not planning to threaten her with something I don't intend to carry through," I snapped at her.
Songbird shrugged, then departed.
I sunk into the chair opposite to Esme and took a moment to think.
I didn't believe that I was able to de-escalate the conflict between Songbird and Esme in the short term. That risked Esme ultimately trying — and succeeding — at killing Songbird. Well, it risked it if Songbird was playing the Role of Coil.
The problem was the Circle of Thorns.
They complicated the story because I was not sure if they were Coil, or if Songbird was. Songbird could also be playing a whole host of other Roles. She could be Faultline or Cauldron. We'd started off with a story that I knew, but now I wasn't sure where the pieces fell.
The wisest choice would be to cut ties with Esme now. She'd had her chance and she'd burned it. The trouble was that she hadn't crossed enough lines for me to be anywhere near comfortable killing her, and that letting her loose on the streets risked her coming back to haunt us later.
I also still cared a smidgeon about her, even if that care was buried under a mountain of anger, exasperation, and irritation. I remembered what it was like to be a kid so far out of my league trying to do what I believed what right in a world that was so much bigger than I was. In many ways that was still true.
It was just that I now had a much better appreciation of exactly how insignificant I was.
"Do you intend to berate me tonight, or shall I return to my chambers?" Esme interrupted my thoughts.
"Thinking," I raised a hand to forestall her leaving.
"I am not the ghost of your lost friend come back to haunt you," she bit out.
It was true. She didn't share much in common with Lisa. Except for maybe the joy she exhibited in being the smartest person in the room. That might explain why she was always so morose.
Actually… that could work.
I let the Light flow through me, and the bird's-eye view of a city began to coalesce between the two of us. Esme visibly recoiled. I winced internally. The Light was actually bright, I just didn't notice it. I toned down the intensity.
Esme liked to be the smartest person in the room. So I'd let her be clever until she hopefully drew the conclusions I wanted.
"This was the city of my birth. Brockton Bay. In the year two thousand and eleven — according to the calendar we used — I went out onto the streets for the first time and tried to be a hero."
She studied the image, before turning her attention back to me.
"This digression holds little relevance to the earlier argument," her voice was thick with derision.
"It's a puzzle for you," I answered. I tried to give her an encouraging smile, but it took more effort than it was worth. My lips fell flat.
The moment that I reframed the map as a puzzle, her entire demeanour shifted.
I've got you pegged.
The image began to change. Lines appeared across it, splitting the map into territories.
"This is the docks," I pointed to a section that then changed in shade from the comforting white to a mix of red and green. "It was controlled by a group called the ABB. The details of what that stands for don't matter. Think of them as a small group of villains." The other ABB territories also changed colour. I'd do my best to make this challenge as fair as possible.
"What is the enigma that you wish for me to unravel?"
"Just give me a moment," I forestalled her. "Let me provide you with all the pieces."
"You wish for me to assemble an account of what events transpired," Esme surmised.
"Here is the Downtown," it switched to a mustard orange, "Control over it was contested by a villain called Coil and another group called the Empire." The rest of the map turned navy blue.
"How many individuals with Names were within the confines of this city?"
"North of fifty," I shrugged.
"You jest," she snorted, paused, then realized I was serious.
"It was different there. Don't compare the circumstances of my city of birth to anything on Calernia. It's an awful comparison. Just focus on the puzzle. The exercise that I want you to perform is… agnostic towards universal metaphysics."
"Your ship will sink at sea if the map you are charting course by is wrong," Esme warned.
"Treat it as a puzzle, don't think about the differences," I replied, exasperated.
Esme turned her attention back towards the map.
"Where were the heroes situated?" she asked, her brow creased in thought.
I continued to describe the scene. Where both the Protectorate and New Wave were based. What I knew of their patrol routes. I named all the heroes and villains, as well as their powers and affiliations — as best as I knew — leaving out the complications introduced by Cauldron. They were not a factor in the point that I was trying to make.
"Here is the puzzle I have for you. Young me goes out at night and plans to be a hero. She runs into Lung on her first night out in the docks. The fight takes a turn for the worse, but she's saved by the Undersiders, who run away when Armsmaster shows up. He incapacitates Lung and takes him away. What happens next?"
"The other players smell blood in the water and move in to capitalize on the ABB's new vulnerability," Esme replied. "The Empire has the largest roster. I would expect them to be the ones to risk expanding first." She paused and bit her lip, then continued, "Perhaps Victor would act as a scout for a forward vanguard in coordination with Cricket. Those were the two you labelled as having abilities suited towards the gathering of information."
That was not quite how I had described their abilities, but sure. If she wanted to interpret their abilities that way.
"Right. Turns out that the ABB's explosive wizard decided it would be a good idea to build up her own reputation based on fear. This is what happened next…"
We spent over an hour playing through a simulation of the life of Taylor Hebert, the aspiring hero. Esme would predict what she thought would happen. I would lay out what actually happened. Esme would argue about what I should have done instead, or criticize the actions of everyone involved. I would correct her misapprehensions about what people were capable of, or why they chose to act in a specific way. Some of it was based on speculation on my part, the rest was based on candid discussions I'd had with people like Clockblocker.
Information was added as needed. Statistics on parahumans, the role of the protectorate, the fact that people shied away from killing as a rule. None of it was important to the point that I was trying to make, but it did help Esme draw better conclusions.
Step by step, my past was played out.
I was about to reach the arrival of Leviathan when Esme spoke up.
"I have gleaned the purpose of this demonstration now," Esme did not sound pleased at whatever revelation she had come to.
"Explain." I was exhausted on the inside.
"This is an attempt on your part to illustrate a long term sequence of consequences as a direct result of the actions of a single individual. While it would be inaccurate to lay full responsibility for the chain of events at your feet, they would not have occurred as they did without your involvement," she stated.
"That's one lesson to take away from it," I agreed.
It was not the one that I wanted her to learn.
She tossed her black hair back and scowled. "No, that is not what you wished for me to intuit. You desired for me to draw parallels between the ill-informed decisions you made in the past and my own quest for vengeance."
"That's another lesson you could learn."
"You fail to recognize the inherent dissimilarity in our circumstances and not only in terms of the disparity of means," she argued.
"Oh?"
"The most significant conclusion I have drawn from that exercise is proper contextualization for your own poor decision-making. Your past colours every choice you make. How much better would your nation have been if the hero you named Eidolon had spent say a month doing nothing more than finding and executing every villain within the land of America? It is according to your own words that few could have withstood him had he chosen to do so. This is a much more accurate comparison to your present day circumstances. You fill the same Role as Eidolon would and are just as impotent."
And just when I thought I was getting somewhere with her.
"Pretend for a moment that you were me, and you took vengeance on every person that you believe deserves it. What happens next? How many of them had brothers and sisters just like you did? How many of them try to do the same to you?"
"Then they would find themselves sailing off the same cliff as their brethren for attempting to stay my judgement," she replied serenely.
"And where does all of this end? How many die? What does the Principate look like by the time you are done?"
"It ends when my thirst for vengeance is quenched."
"The difference between your conviction and mine is that people will actually follow me," I told Esme. "Most people don't care for vengeance. They want to have a good life, raise a family, and die of old age in the comforts of a home. I'm able to promise them all of that. That I will be there and take care of them. All you promise them is death at the end of a blade."
She looked like she was about to protest again. I didn't give her the chance.
"The best revenge is growing past your tormentors. I speak from experience. Do you want to belong to them? Because right now, you do. What does it mean if every decision you make is made based on their wishes? It means they own you." I emphasized.
"Like the Gods own you?" Esme sneered back.
I knew what she meant. I chose to respond as if I had misinterpreted what she said. It was a creative redefinition of the term ownership that my mother would have scolded me for. If Esme wanted to try to cut me with her words, then she could slide along the edge of her own blade.
"Yeah," I shrugged. "That was my choice. I'd rather belong to the people that I love and the Gods that I worship than belong to anyone else. Isn't the same true for you, or are you happy being owned by the Gods Below?" I paused for breath.
I felt my family hug me tighter as I spoke, and mentally returned the gesture.
"The Gods Below have no claim on me," Esme protested.
"Don't they? They empowered you, that gives them some claim. You're one of their champions. Belonging to someone else doesn't always have to be negative, provided it's your own choice. It's a choice we all make when we love someone. Loving someone means giving a part of yourselves to them that you will never get back."
My memories of everyone I cared about on Earth Bet hurt to think about in a good way now that they were fully returned to me.
And I knew that Esme's brother had taken a piece of her into the grave with him.
Esme stilled.
"When I told you that there was nothing you could say to me that would hurt me, I meant it. What would your brother want for you, Esme? Would he want you pursuing this endless quest for vengeance against the world, or would he want you to try to find peace?"
"Do not drag his memory into this discussion," Esme did her best to keep her voice steady, but I could hear the warble.
"What would he think about you now? Would he be happy that you have no friends and are attacking the only people who are trying to help you?"
Esme gripped her legs tight and her face had gone stiffer than stone.
Do I risk it?
Her quest for vengeance had not changed, and I doubted that it would any time soon. Songbird had been added to it, and everything had been complicated by that. I wasn't certain of how I would untangle the mess that had been made.
But…
It was evident to me that she wasn't going to be the one to reach out. I would have to be the one to push this.
So I got up and knelt down on the ground beside her chair. I made sure to keep my head below hers. It was a deliberate ploy to try to reassure her, give her a sense of control. I knew that she would be able to read through it, but it should be no less effective because of that.
Then I tried to give her a hug.
She flinched at the contact and pulled away.
"This is a blatant attempt to do me harm," she fumed.
I raised an eyebrow at her.
"You don't need to worry about me trying to harm you. I don't like hurting people. I'm not going to use anything you tell me against you, or share it with anyone else. Nothing we talk about leaves this room. I'm just trying to make you feel better. Promise."
"It could be a ploy to earn my trust and then backstab me later."
This girl is so paranoid.
"I've been tortured. Broken my spine. Lost my lower body once. Lost an arm more than once, been blind, died twice and spent over a week in a state of non-existence. I can guarantee you that it's all horrifying, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. I'd just kill you if the two of us ever came into serious conflict. There is no reason to torment anyone. Your death would be quick and painless. It would be over before you even blinked."
Esme did not look convinced.
"Nobody worth knowing is going to judge you for accepting a hug from me," I cajoled. "Unless you're trying to pad your reputation with something like 'too Evil to be hugged by a hero of Compassion.'"
She caved in and accepted the hug. It was awkward with the elevation difference, and it felt a bit like hugging a feral cat that wasn't sure if it was about to be attacked.
I sent a silent prayer of thanks to my Gods that Esme had accepted my attempt to comfort her.
It was so convenient that most of the time I was able to be able to be nice to people and have them just… take my words at face value. Granted, it was inconvenient when I needed people to consider me a threat. But having the reputation of a hero of Compassion was so useful when I was actually trying to help someone.
"You do not lie when you claim that I am one of the damned," she hissed as I let go.
The words sounded like acid on her lips.
A single tear worked its way down her right cheek.
Took you long enough.
"The Light burns you," I agreed.
"I would rather take justice into my own hands than not have justice at all."
"Tell you what," I offered her my palm. "Let's make a bet. I'll bet you that if you follow along with my advice and try to fit in with the others, you'll find that you don't actually want vengeance."
Esme looked at my hand as if it was a venomous snake. She reached forward hesitantly, paused, then clasped it with her own.
I win.
"I swore to myself that one day I would have vengeance. There is nothing you can do to sway me from that path. You are a kind-hearted fool, and when the time comes I shall take my leave from your company. I won't join my ship to a fleet which is destined to sink."
Esme continued to pontificate. I listened with one open ear. It was rude of me to do, but I was far too distracted. Her choice had me smiling to myself madly on the inside. I could do this. I could redeem Esme. It would take time. It would be an uphill battle. I was sure that redirecting her anger at Songbird would be a challenge on its own. But… I knew that in the long run if she just kept following this road then I had already won.
This was a story.
And she decided to take the hand that I offered when I had extended it to her.
I went searching for the others once our talk had concluded. Esme went to sleep. Yvette was in her room, Songbird was downstairs involved in some debauchery with Michel and Blaise, and Roland was still out on his current mission. Pascal had gone to sleep at the first moment he could. His trip on the road had allegedly been fatiguing. I was looking forward to talking more with him in the future.
I interrupted Songbird — pulled her off the lap of a man I didn't recognize — and dragged her upstairs. It may have been late in the evening, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about whatever plans she had.
It wasn't long until she was throwing knives at a target while we talked.
Thunk.
The beginnings of a dream had seeded itself within her. Her dream felt bubbly, almost flirtatious.
Tell a lie so big that the world itself believes it.
What surprised me was how much detail there was to it. She'd put some thought to it, planned it out. It had a lot of conditions to it, and one of them was that I approved of the lie that she told. I got the sense that it was more because she found the challenge of trying to tell a lie that I approved of more fun than that she actually cared about the rules that I'd laid down.
That was good enough for me.
Thunk.
It would be nice if people were good because they believed that they should be, but I knew that wouldn't be enough to motivate everyone. I'd be willing to live with other reasons for being good as an acceptable compromise.
"Y'really not willing to be an Angel?" she asked.
Thunk.
"Not if there's any other choice."
Thunk.
"What if it saves lives?" she pressed.
I stopped to think about it. The idea gnawed at me. I really did not like it.
"Why do you believe it's necessary now?"
"Pascal showed up. Now there are two priests. Either he's prob'ly gonna die, or one of you'll play a different Role."
"And he can't be an Angel," I surmised.
"S'not ideal, but we can't afford Role overlap here, except in stories that you'll not be happy with."
"Which ones?"
"The priest and the priestess get married and live happily ever after," she spoke in a creepy child's voice.
"He's not my type," I shuddered.
"I know," Songbird snickered.
"I'll consider the Role. Only if you can't think of anything else. Only if it becomes necessary to keep people alive," I sighed.
Both of us paused when we heard a rattling noise from the shutters. We turned towards them. Songbird readied a knife. Roland fell through them into the room with a grimace of pain on his face.
I was across the red carpet and beside him before I knew it and busy healing his wounds.
Both his leather jacket and hair were scorched. Pockets were torn, the silks he normally had draped over his shoulders were in tatters, and his eyebrows were missing. His face was a mess of yellow and purple bruising, and blood stained his trousers.
"What happened?" I demanded.
I didn't bother asking about his choice of entrance. He obviously believed that he could not afford to be seen. It would take some effort to repair his improvised door, but… it could be done.
"The security around the Starlit Cloister is far more alert than during my previous attempts at spiriting away their accounts. I was able to infiltrate the compound and follow Esme's instructions, however it appears that the contents of both the offices and the vaults were relocated elsewhere. I do not believe that I will be able to bypass the defences on my own another time without taking lives during the heist," Roland explained.
My attention drifted towards Songbird.
"S'not gonna be a problem."
She had sat down on the furthest chair, crossed her arms and folded her legs. She did not look concerned at all.
My blood started to boil. Less because of Roland's injuries — they were just a part of our line of work — and more because of Songbird's attitude towards them.
"This seems like a problem to me," I retorted.
"His injuries weren't expected and are an unpleasant surprise," she acceded. "The move's fine, though. Actually makes it easier to get what we want. I'd've been happy if he did grab the documents on this try, but I wasn't counting on it."
I stopped. Took a moment to breathe. Then considered what she might mean.
"It's easier to steal objects in transit than things under guard," I surmised.
"Knew that you'd get it. We needed them to have a reason to move those accounts. They prob'ly just shifted everything of value around after the last try, but now they know what we want."
"So you staged multiple robberies."
"It is a more convoluted scheme than I would have opted for on my own," Roland added, wincing. "The idea has merit. You provided them with a motivation to relocate their accounts by allowing them insight into what it was that I sought to obtain and demonstrating that I am capable of stealing it."
"We need to know where they're being moved to," I interjected.
The idea was only worthwhile if we could capitalize on it.
"Y'don't need to worry about that part," Songbird's smile could have sliced through steel. "I've come to an agreement with the Circle of Thorns. They helped me out as a courtesy. I know where those documents are being moved. There's only one more heist that needs doing, and we're gonna carry it out."
A part of me was glad that Songbird was not around when I was sixteen. If she could come up with plans like this and had been a part of my first team, there was no telling what trouble the two of us would have come up with.
The rest of me was just glad that it seemed like Songbird was sticking to her word after all.
