The Manhunt/Chapter 12

If this were the life of fairytale legacies, then what a life it was.

Gabriel Benoît was speechless. In a weekend, he had been treated more decently than he had ever been in his life. People acted around him as if he was someone – not the overworked clerk he had once been.

Appointments usually occurred in the mornings. Even the stuffy, tiresome act of suit fitting was chill – one simply walked in the direction of the tailor, avoiding bookings merely due to legacy privilege. Gabriel could not help but think how grand it would be to carry one of those bookmark IDs, and have shopkeepers and restaurant staff let you in at your own.

Afternoons were spent around the streets of Paris. He had time to spend his time pouring over paintings, time to actually spend wandering through the Louvre. It was freedom beyond measure, a life beyond simply living.

Later, in evenings, there was a thrill in renting a car and driving around, headlights down the street, watching the glow of streetlights from the window, doing all the teenage things his youth had robbed his of – drinking, laughing.

And talking.

For once in his life, people wanted to hear him talk.

It seemed as if the words that came out of one’s mouth was more valuable if your clothing was neat and respectable, if your relatives had some sort of renown. People didn’t simply hear him; they listened. He could ramble about fate and philosophy, contradict himself in one sentence to the next, and he would be met with polite clapping and compliments. He could misquote Voltaire and Descartes, and no one would bat an eye.

It was unfortunate then, that a man who liked to talk so much didn’t involve himself in the conversations Bastion and Airmid were oft to have. They were too personal, too tied up with the fairytale world, that all an outsider could do was nod and doze off.

So in the late evenings – when midnight was near, it was just the two. Bastion Fanfarinet and Airmid Valerian, too drunk to care, throwing their thoughts out into the air, like some unrecorded history.

“Do you think you could have saved the princess?” he had asked once.

Instead of answering, they asked in return. “Do you think you could have ever run off with a princess?”

“Only out of obligation,” he said stiffly. “For the good of my story, for the benefit of my author.”

“Story over self? What was that called again? Utilitiness? Usefulness?”

“Utilitarianism,” Bastion corrected the term with a roll of the tongue.

“And yet you aligned with the Rebels for the destiny debate!”

He turned his head away. “I was a villain. We all kinda got guilt-tripped into it.” He breathed in deeply. "This movement is supposed to improve your lives, they said! This is supposed to remove all the stigma! I didn’t believe in those ideals. I didn’t get the point. Fanfarinet deserved his fate. Thus, who’s to say that I didn’t deserve to die?”

“And that’s why peer pressure sucks!”

“Weren’t you a Rebel as well? For what reasons?”

“Obviously, it’s the philanthropist option!”

"Was it?"

"It seemed the correct stance at the time. Advocacy for the right of autonomy! That’s a system worth fighting.”

A system worth fighting.

One could not possibly be friends with Pythia Adalinda and not have activist dreams when younger. Bastion had joined her in marches, carrying posts and signs. They blended in with the crowd, hoping their tales were just obscure enough not to attract attention as legacies. He rarely raised his voice, but he had then – and done so proudly.

In the safety of the Adalinda Palace, they had drafted up little amendments to laws and their own decrees, to which the Queens had praised their little game of politics.

But when youth faded, along came tumbling his energy to fight.

Activism had been neither as cool, nor glorious, or glamorous as they had made it out to be. It had never been all peaceful – years later he had heard of smoke bombs and gunshots and blood on streets. Bastion Fanfarinet had firmly recognised that everything he once done was the ignorant idealism of a child.

Perhaps, it was safer to simply conform, and tell oneself there was nothing wrong with the system.

“That’s… that’s very brave of you, Airmid,” he said, with a bit of a thought. “Not everyone has your strength."

“Doctors work for the people! It’s a debt to community, for the benefit of others,” their arm was propped up, forearm perpendicular to upper arm, fingers shifting about as if they were pulling words for them to articulate.

(Although, with them having drank so much, it was hard to articulate.)

“I thought it natural to align with something meant to help.”

Bastion said nothing, turning away slightly.

Dear D’Aulnoy, for someone who praised the process of uncertainty, Airmid Valerian was downright convicted in their principles.

“Admirable,” he said. “And perhaps impractical.”

More would have been said, had the conversation not been interrupted by a knocking at the door.

Gabriel had managed to open the door before either Bastion or Airmid reached it, and was in polite small talk with two men in sharp suits. They recognised the approach of Bas and Airy – and had they noted their drunkness, they did not show it.

“Ah, the man we wished to talk to. Your proposition was a success: the journal is rightfully yours,” said the one on the left.

“Here,” said the one on the right, who pressed it into Airmid’s hands.

“Thank you,” said Airmid. What more was there to be said?

With a polite nod, the lawyers turned and left.

In their hands laid the wrapped journal. With a blurry look, Airmid observed the cover, and realised they were too drunk to savour this victory.