* 𝐅𝐂𝐑𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 : “and what was the offense of which this is the punishment?”
DOES HE CONSIDER THIS A PUNISHMENT ? inconsequential to the question, perhaps, but it needles the mind : truth is, sans an absence of time and the otherworldly presences they deem hunters, this is an existence naib knows well. one of conflict, survival, and empty results. ( win a game and you are here, lose a game and you are here ; save a teammate and they are here, fail a teammate and they are here ; live and you are here, die and you are here ; it’s a game of war with toy soldiers, and naib——————– oh, naib knows the role well. ) it’s difficult to consider more of the same a punishment.
this is just life, sits on his tongue. he will never say it. ❝ didn’t figure you for a philosopher, campbell … or someone who pries. ❞ some days mercenary studies prospector and thinks they are cut from the same cloth, which is the problem : brown as the dirt they’ve dug, black as the haunted shadows beneath eyes, red as … he halts that thought, folding his arms in the silence and staring at the manor walls they’ve come to call residence. ❝ don’t care. call it hell and we’re sinners, heaven and we’re saints——ha, limbo and we’re somethin’ in - between. we’re here either way. if thinking it’s a punishment makes you feel better, it’s not mine to judge. ❞ / @fcrtune / closed, ✉.
A philosopher? Norton scoffs at the jab, rolling one shoulder where he stands among the flickering shadows of the corridor. Someone who pries, though, he thinks — perhaps, if the shoe fits. When there’s something worth prying for, unflattering accusations are often worth their weight.
He doesn’t reply, not until he’s turned the Mercenary’s answer over and back again inside his head. Self-pity has always left a foul taste on the back of his tongue, but there’s no other way around the implications of his own, heated accusation.
If this is a punishment, then what’s to be said about the life he’s led till now?
Calling it that doesn’t change a thing. There’s no comfort, no justification in it either. The words seem hollow to him now, enough so that he’d regret them if there was reason to bother.
Between the two of them, regrets were plentiful enough.
The Prospector breathes in, then out, steadying himself in his return to neutrality. His gaze flits briefly to the tired profile of the man beside him, then darts away to the same wall Naib Subedar’s been boring holes through. Both hands stay buried in his pockets, another layer of fabric to hide the scarring underneath.
“ Forget it... Punishment has nothing to do with it. ” Norton backtracks, thinking of the others, and of himself. It feels good to play the victim: validating, a relinquishing of power, to the forces pressing down on those trapped horribly in life, or... in an otherworldly manor.
But Norton Campbell has always been a fighter of circumstance, not a victim. The ones who died had been victims, victims of fate, victims of his recklessness. He was no victim. He was a survivor, if not then a haphazard executioner. The thought is a nauseous shadow, creeping up from where the candlelight can’t reach.
He speaks again, flatly, shifting uncomfortably in place. “ Easier to make your home in hell and call yourself a victim. ”
Easier than clawing your way out, with dirt in your mouth and blood on your hands. But there’s more pride in that, he thinks. “ The others here... ” Norton starts and stops before he can pass judgment. Most, but not all of them are completely unlike him. He nearly doesn’t finish, but the look on Subedar’s face compels him to say a little more than he intends to. “ Some of them say it’s worthless to do anything else. But the way I see it... it’s only worthless to struggle once you stop. ”
And once they stop, they make themselves as worthless as their struggle.
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