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[Alec Cates]

It had been a few days since the... incident. Closer to a week than not, probably; Alec tended to lose track of things like individual days. However, that was what he had people like Captain Strofask for. A good-hearted man, the Captain always did things religiously by the book, cringing when Alec sought to do things the easy or sensible way instead. And where Alec had conscientiously ignored Jackson for the past few days, Strofask had gone out of his way to personally give the man assignments in easy areas like the marketplace and the upper city.

"When are you going to talk to him?" Strofask was leaning in the doorway of Alec's office, arms crossed. He'd dropped his normally formal tone. After being promised day after day that Alec would have a heart-to-heart with the idiot, the captain was beginning to realize that Alec had no intention of doing so.

"Tomorrow." It was the same answer he'd been giving for days. Right now, Alec was leaning back lazily in his chair, his feet propped on the paperwork cluttering up his desk. Strofask looked disapprovingly at the mud tracks left on some of the papers, but decided not to mention it. Alec supposed he had bigger fish to fry, and didn't want Alec to protest at being whine at about two separate things on the same day. Instead, he readjusted his crossed arms and gave his Commander a beady, unrelenting stare. "What?" Alec growled. He was answered by silence, and the same stare. He wasn't going to be getting out of it today. Snarling like a grumpy old man, he waved Strofask away from his door. "Alright, alright, I'll take him with me on the beat today. Gods almighty. Go tell him he's scheduled with me, and let one of those idiot lieutenants know."

A slight smile curved Strofask's lips. "Did that an hour ago, sir. I had a feeling you'd be making good on your promise today." He turned, ignoring Alec's glare.

"Smug bastard," the Commander muttered mutinously.

***

He was leaning against the exterior of the main watchhouse, just outside the door, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Waiting for the recruit who'd stabbed a man in the back. He supposed he ought to be grateful that there was someone on the watch who was so predisposed to making sure Alec Cates lived to see another day, but he was merely annoyed at the horrible mass of inconvenience and emotional uproar the incident had caused. The lad was too green to be playing with a damn sword. The irony was that trial work was supposed to be easy.

Snorting, Alec took another drag on his cigarette, eyes scanning the street. The lad would be arriving any second now.

[Alaric Jackson]

The lad arrived looking worn and drawn out. His uniform wasn’t on right, and his face was a pale mask. His shoulders were bunched in a nervous gesture, and he didn’t make eye-contact. Alaric hadn’t actually spoken to the commander since the incident at the court house, and now that he saw Alec Cates, he felt sick. He felt sick a lot lately. Food never stayed in its place, and the more he fought the urge to throw up, the more he felt his throat burn. It was unfair. He had only done his duty. He had only tried to stop the man from killing the Commander.

He had only just ruined a hundred lives in the process.

Alaric moved slowly, dragging himself along as he spotted the Commander standing with his characteristic cigarette. Nervous tension coursed through Alaric Jackson, and for a few seconds he seriously considered bolting. Running away, to Ashar, Kalen. This wasn’t right. Nothing was right. He averted his gaze as he approached the taller man. “Af-Afternoon, c-c-commander,” he said, cursing his nervous stammer. It was a relic from his childhood, and it managed to snake out in times of stress and nervousness. Times like the one he was now in.

He stood a few feet from Alec Cates, his posture bent. It was as if he were shying away from something. His gaze, however, met the Commander’s. Was the older man grateful? Was the older man thankful that Alaric might have saved his life? Alaric didn’t know. There was a lot Alaric didn’t know lately. He didn’t know death, or life, or the value of either. Everything was blurry, hazy. Even the incident itself was something of a blur. Had he really killed Zefir? Was it his sword that he saw explode through the man’s chest? It was. For all he wanted to dismiss it as a dream, Alaric knew what he’d done.

But was he wrong?

He felt wrong.

He felt sick.

[Alec Cates]

And there he was, the man of the hour. To be perfectly frank -- as Alec usually was -- he looked like a mobile pile of shit. He looked as though a cat had thrown him up and then a dog had kicked him around in the dirt a little, and then some stupid kid had picked him up and put human-colored paint on him and a wee little watchman's uniform. Alaric Jackson looked, in a word, awful. Just awful.

The lad was too green around the ears. Alec Cates had been forced to kill many a man in his day, so much so that although it always caused a twinge of regret in him, the feeling lessened each time it happened, and now he barely noticed it. Were they innocent? Interesting question. What made a man innocent? They were all criminals, although most of them had been driven to that road by something beyond their power, be it desperation, blackmail, or a simple love of a woman. The only thing they had in common was that they'd been stupid enough to get caught, and then stupid enough to fight back in a way that demanded a sword to the stomach. It wasn't an aspect of the job that was particularly pretty, but it came with it like bad things came with everything. It was the way it was, and all the guilt in the world couldn't take back a life thrown away.

And, looking at Jackson, Alec had a feeling the man was carrying a lot of guilt around. Green. The trial should have been a simple job.

"J-J-J-Jackson," Alec returned, faking a stammer and somehow managing to drawl it all at the same time. He took another drag of his cigarette before tossing it into the street, not bothering to stomp it out. "Nice of you to join me." Guilt. And for what? The boy had made a stupid mistake, and it would color the rest of his life, Alec was sure, but guilt could only take you so far into redemption. Eventually you had to grow up and get over it.

That was the trouble with some men. They seemed to think that destroying their own lives somehow made up for the one they took. Hapless incidents of manslaughter ended up becoming double-homicide, with the mere technicality that one of them was still breathing.

"We're taking the Stone Street beat." Alec pushed himself off the wall and took a few steps forward. He didn't look concerned about the lad, or disgusted with him, or really anything. For the most part, the Commander looked supremely disinterested in Alaric's discomfort and situation. He supposed it was a nice gesture on Alaric's part, trying to protect Alec from a soldier gone wild, and Alec might have felt grateful if it hadn't been utterly unnecessary. Zefir had undoubtedly been a good soldier, but Alec had had a lifetime's worth of experience, and the added benefit of a cool, level head. Killing him had been a foolish mistake; any other watchman in the courtroom would have simply disarmed the romance-addled idiot.

Alec might have been grateful for Alaric's interference had Zefir actually been a dangerous person. As it was, he felt pretty much nothing. A vague annoyance at having all the drama heaped onto his doorstep, certainly.

And a faint urge to be a good Commander and try to fix the spirit of the man who'd done something stupid in the line of duty.

It didn't erase the urge to snark. "Should I request that you leave your sword in the watch house, or can you keep it in your sheath for the duration of the afternoon?" he asked, his tone dry, as he began the walk towards Stone Street.

[Alaric Jackson]

He was being mocked. It was expected. Swallowing the bitter bile the built up in his throat, Alaric turned his face in the direction of Stone Street. Something close to nervous fear creased his features. Stone Street was a dangerous beat. It led deep into territory often associated with the Myridian Underground, and it was rumoured most Watchmen who lingered there too long were either corrupted, or killed off. Few lasted more than a couple of months, and those who did were probably elbow deep in the vices the place offered. It was safe to say Alaric Jackson didn’t want to go there; especially not with the commander.

A hint of a blush crept up across his cheeks at the mention of his sword. After the incident, Alaric had requested a new one; a request that had been obliged. He couldn’t look at the old sword without wanting to vomit. He couldn’t look at the blade without seeing the blood it had spilled. The blade told him he was a murderer; and not only that. The blade told him he was a coward and an idiot. It told him he elected to follow the most violent course of action when he could have done something else.

Anything else.

The sword that was strapped to his waist was new. It didn’t fit his hand perfectly, but it was better than the blade that has killed Zefir. Anything was better than that murderous sword. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “No, sir. I will be c-c-careful.”. Alaric would never kill another man, of this he was absolutely sure. He couldn’t kill again. The first time had been traumatic enough. How did men kill? How did men continue to go about their lives after they stole it? Was Alaric an anomaly amongst them? Was his guilt somehow more because he was a coward? The questions haunted him.

He fell into step next to Alec Cates, his gaze on the cobblestones. He struggled to remember something about Stone Street. He struggled to think back to a time before the trial. Something about an Earth Mage. Something about a man ripping Stone Street apart in his search for vengeance. The Watchmen spoke about it as they took their meals. Half a dozen Dragonsalt dens obliterated. Rifts the size of a man’s forearms criss-crossing the street. A platform of earth shooting into the sky.

Vengeance.

Alaric took a shaky breath. When would Zefir be avenged? How would Zefir be avenged? Where would the dagger come from?

Zefir Te’Elohin died a hero.

Alaric Jackson would die a rat…

[Alec Cates]

Alec rolled his eyes a little. He was too old and hardened and frayed around the edges to feel bad for his comment, but he did feel a sort of disgusted pity for the boy. "Jackson, if you don't grow yourself a sense of humor, you'll never survive this," he grunted, casting him a look from the corner of his eye. After all, the purpose of this little jaunt was to help ease Alaric's pain, or to discuss with him why shit happened and why you just had to deal with it and move on. Or whatever. Alec had a habit of losing his concentration a little when Strofask went on his little rants about duty and responsibility. What was the point of being Commander of an entire Watch if you couldn't do whatever the hell you wanted?

They eased onto Stone Street from one of the intersections. Some of the rifts still hadn't been healed, although a small team of earth mages had tried to right most of the street again so wagons could continue to run through it.

Rogue mages. See, this was why Commander Cates was so against the idea of magic. Certain emotions or ambitions could propel someone to believe that they were above the law, and then who was left to clean up the broken bits of homicide and reckless destruction of property? Cates and his jolly band of civil servants, of course. Not that they got thanked for it. Or it was some snide sort of gratitude: "Oh, thanks so much for allowing an Earth mage to ruthlessly kill a slew of people while your men got the best seats in the city to the destruction." People were quick to blame the watch for not being absolutely everywhere all the time, and even quicker to blame them for not subduing the right people at the right time. Hell, if they were a force capable of felling a grown earth mage, there wouldn't be any crime in this fucking city at all.

Of course, as Alec so often told the citizens who felt the need to make snide remarks, if they felt that they could do a better job, they were more than able to throw themselves in a mage's way in a feeble attempt to stop him. It would save Alec the trouble of dealing with the idiots.

"So. New blade?" His tone was light, as though he'd merely commented on Alaric's new hat or something. But the sarcasm was always lingering there under the oily veneer of manners. "Just as well, I suppose. A blade that jumps out of its sheath every couple of minutes and stabs everyone in range probably needs to be melted down for scrap."

[Alaric Jackson]

Grow a sense of humour.

Alaric wondered what was worse; seeing the incident in a humorous light, or seeing it with a growing sense of guilt and trepidation. Could he smile? He didn’t feeling like smiling. He didn’t feel like laughing. Maybe one day he would. Maybe one day, all this would seem funny. ‘Remember that one time you killed a good man and felt bad about it?’ Alaric felt sick, but he forced himself to smile. He had to smile. His commander wanted him to. For all Alaric cowered under the man’s gaze, the young watchman respected Alec Cates.

Why else would he have stepped in to help the man?

So he smiled a small, broken smile.

It faded when he saw the platform. Rising over two dozen feet from the street floor, the earthen pillar was a testament to the might of a mage gone rogue. Memories of conversations regarding the incidence filtered back. The mage was the Deputy. The mage was searching for something, for someone. Taking a deep breath, Alaric forced himself to look away. Someone had already begun to repair the streets, and already the pillar looked chipped and worn. It would take days before it was pushed back into the earth.

The conversation returned to his blade, and Alaric felt a touch of red warm his cheeks. Embarrassment rose in his chest as he realized the commander had noted the change. The sword was new. It wasn’t the same. Maybe Alec Cates understood. Maybe he didn’t care. That didn’t stop him from saying words which felt like prickly thorns. Alaric took a small breath and lifted his gaze to meet Alec Cates’. “I couldn’t look at it anymore without feeling sick, sir.” A pause. “I did wrong, didn’t I? He shouldn’t have died like that.”

What was he looking for? Justification? Understanding? Surely Alec Cates understood the intention behind Alaric’s misstep. Surely the Commander understood Alaric’s instinctive need to protect a superior officer.

[Alec Cates]

He sounded so damnably young. Uncomfortably, Alec was reminded of his own position on the force -- the duties that befell him as Commander. He could never forget them for long with Strofask dodging at his heels, like some external conscience, but then there were moments like this that served as a sharp reminder that Alec Cates wasn't merely a man. He was a symbol, and the young ones looked upwards towards him. Some of them aspired to be him. Some merely wanted to bask in the glow of his approval. When he'd first fought his way into the Commanding position, all he'd seen was an opportunity not to be told what to do, an opportunity to right the wrongs in the city his way. Unwittingly, he'd stepped right into a father-like position.

Sometimes, he was at home with the notion. Sometimes it felt like too much a burden, and he wished for simpler times, when he'd been a young man like Alaric; green around the ears with sharp eyes untouched by cynicism. There'd been a time when even Alec Cates had been young and idealistic. He wanted to join the Watch and stop the Bad People. He'd been unaware that the lines between bad and good people blurred into a murky gray. It was the sort of thing you only noticed as you aged.

Now he saw everything in shades of gray. There was no concrete bad. "Bad" was a viewpoint. Bad was a way of looking at something else, an attribute given to a person who did things contrary to what you liked. Everyone did something for a reason, and he wasn't as young as he used to be, and couldn't pretend that they were evil for the sake of evil anymore.

What mattered to him now was the multitude versus the sole entity. A man who trafficked drugs into the city was bringing ruin to hundreds of lives every day. Was the man bad? Alec could assume not. But it was his duty to protect the masses, not the trafficker.

"Lad," Alec sighed, wishing he could smoke. He wasn't supposed to, on the beat, and sometimes he did anyway. He wouldn't, today, because Jackson was too green and too young and too fresh, and he had enough cracks to endure in the looking glass without peeling away at the respect with which he held his Commander. "Wrong isn't something you can just pin to every action. To that girlfriend of his, or his sister, or to Sangre, yeah, perhaps it's just about the most wrong they've ever seen in the span of a few seconds. But to him--" Alec gestured lazily towards a man walking along the street, collar turned up against the cold. His eyes were straight ahead, blank. He was just a man trying to get home. "He doesn't care. It's a line in the Fiery Scroll to him, and he probably forgot about it twenty minutes after he read it."

Alec glanced around at some of the other people on the street. Lone people, living in the enclosed little bubbles of their lives. The happenings elsewhere were nothing but words, spoken, written, printed; there were no feelings imbued in the news they received. Often, not even a picture. They all lived tidy, self-contained lives, and for good reason. To take on the pains of an entire world was to condemn yourself to a life of despair.

"That isn't to mean I don't think it was stupid as hell," Alec added, his voice rough and the glance he sent towards Alaric sharp. "But we all do stupid things, things that hurt people. We don't mean it, but they happen. It already happened, Jackson. His family's mourning for him, and his spirit doesn't need you making yourself sick over it, too."

[Alaric Jackson]

People moved around them in currents and tides. A woman brushed past Alaric. Her heavy shawl grazed his arm, and her heavily perfumed scent lingered in his senses. Roses. She smelt like roses. He turned his head slightly to catch sight of her, hazel eyes watching as she melted into the crowd. Soon, her green shawl was invisible. Who was she? Strangers brushed past Alaric everyday. What was her life like? Did she laugh, love, learn? Or did she hold a dark pain? Was she waiting for someone to save her?

He hadn’t even seen her face, and yet she’d left an imprint on him all the same.

Funny how that worked…

His attention was wound back by an answer to his question. Had he done wrong? The Commander put it in perspective. Every action a man did was relative. To some, his actions were the gravest of wrongs. To others, his actions were mere facts, forgotten after being processed. Alaric wondered if the words were meant to comfort him, for he felt none of it. They only confused him more. Was he supposed to forget about it now? Treat the incident as something that was…without sin? Alaric blinked and forced himself to look away.

Murder was a sin. There was no justification for it.

But maybe there was redemption. There had to be. Maybe in rationality. Had Zefir not attacked the Commander, he would have been alive, a free man. Had he not broken Dominic’s nose and grabbed his sword, he would have gone home to the very people who cried over him now.

And Alaric would have stayed naïve and well-intentioned. Alaric would have stayed guiltless and faded. Not for the first time, Alaric cursed the man he’d killed. For being stupid, for being in love. He cursed him for playing the hero. When had heroes ever amounted to anything? Heroes died. They faded, they broke. There was nothing happy about the life of a hero. There was nothing more than an end in tragedy. Zefir Te’Elohin had paid the price for his heroics.

Just as Alaric Jackson paid the price for his villainy.

“So what now, sir?” Alaric asked, turning his gaze back to the Commander. “I forget about it and move on? Do I classify it as duty?” His words might have been hard, but his tone lacked the edge to make them potent. He was simply asking a question. Alaric really didn’t know what he was supposed to do…

[Alec Cates]

There was quiet for a moment, and Alec wondered if his words were having any effect at all on the young man. It seemed to him that Alaric was too wrapped up in his guilt to pay much attention.

Alec inhaled the chill, feeling a touch of contentment trickling into his soul. Myridia. He loved this city, with the people who didn't care about strangers and the people who did, with the litterbugs and the five-year old thieves and the roaring marketplace crowded with screeching women and haggling merchants. He loved the feeling he got from walking around in this city, his city. That feel that he was just one in a mess of people. Anonymous. He wore it like a beloved cloak, pretending for a moment that he could change course and walk wherever he wanted and nobody would notice or care.

Alaric spoke, breaking the spell.

The Commander paused, pursing his lips as he thought the various answers over. He really wasn't a good person for advice. He was too cynical and mean-spirited for this sort of shit. He should have left the pep talk up to Strofask. "You categorize it however you want," he said, his voice gruff. "I'm going to stick with 'stupid mistake' since that seems to fit it best. As for what you do now, well, you do what you always did." The eyes that turned to Alaric were light blue, a little fogged with age but somehow sharper than the eyes of most people. "You can't do anything for the victims you've left behind. You can't do fuck-all for yourself, either, by the looks of it. So why don't you give it a rest for a while, kid?"

He turned back to the street, the chuckle in his throat mean and low. "Just go to work and eat and sleep like you did before. It won't feel like you're healing, but you are. One day you'll be clutching your guilt to your chest like a broken arm, and the next you'll find that you hadn't thought about it in a while." Alec stopped, turning towards the young man suddenly and putting a hand on his shoulder. It was a stupid, fatherly gesture, but he needed to make sure the boy stopped and looked at him. "Every man on the watch or in the army will have the first person they ever killed. We've all got him. You don't ever forget him. That ghost'll haunt you until you die. That, I can promise. But your only options are to keep soldiering on or kill yourself, and I know you're not going to kill yourself. Are you, lad?" It was a command, they both knew. Alec's eyes had hardened to a fleecy, diamond glint, making it no secret what he thought of suicides.

"What are you hoping to do with this burden you've given yourself, eh?" he finally asked, turning away and continuing along the beat. "You hoping some miracle will bust out of heaven, courtesy of Mr. God Nobody, that will trade your suffering in for something better?"