look, we all know I love to rag on Essek for being dumb and gay and especially bc of how disaster of a spy he was at that party but you know what gets me?
Essek was a 90yo kid when he stole not one but TWO beacons. He was a teenager when he carried out the beacons heist flawlessly and handed them over to the Empire in the hopes that they would keep their word and keep him in the loop of their research (they didn’t, but that’s another post entirely.) And for 30 years he has managed to keep his involvement in these thefts, in all-out treason a secret from the Bright Queen, of all people.
Essek is VERY competent when he activates his braincell. He can be a smooth-talker when he likes. But the fact that he was so nervous and everything he said to Jester at the party was hilariously inconsistent because he couldn’t even bring himself to flat-out lie to the Mighty Nein, the first people to treat him with kindness in a very long time; and that he tried his best to avoid them as much as he physically could: that even when they had him cornered, he didn’t try to actively teleport or run away where they couldn’t reach him, that he continued to panic but never not even once considered hurting the M9 to make his escape; that he rolled shitty all night because he felt shitty about having betrayed their trust. It really speaks a lot about how he is slowly finding his footing with who he is as a person because the M9 treated him with kindness.
Essek isn’t a bad liar, he’s probably very good at it and rightfully so. But he is so bad at lying to his friends, to these people who have always been nice to him and have shown him some modicum of trust (if not love) and the way Essek has responded to that affection is phenomenal. Here he is, under-deck on a ship moored to the dock in Nicodranas while the war he helped kick off approaches its titillating zenith, admitting to his crimes and his betrayal of the friends he is so sure he is going to loose for the actions he committed even before he had found them (or, they had found him),
and these people, they listen and then they hold his hand, kiss his forehead and pull him into their chaotic party and tell him, “this is a family of second chances. You did what you did. It’s bad. But its not all that is. You can join us and do something about it to help change the wrongs. Not because it will offer us redemption, no (perhaps that escapes us both) or atonement; but because it is the right thing to do.”
And Essek who has never had anyone believe in him before, has never had anyone look at him like he matters to them too, suddenly has seven people who are willing to help him do better. To be better. They welcome him in with open arms even when he doesn’t think he deserves it, and they tell him in no uncertain terms, “we will love you, Essek you have no choice in this matter.”
For someone who doesn’t know what love and friendship is like, who finds from hard experience that it is hard to trust people, learning to trust the M9 and be trusted in return, to have that level of faith and love reciprocated. It has already started to change him from that “previously cold individual” (that he wore for a mask because he thought it would protect him) to a person who cares, who feel guilt and shame at having broken the trust of these people he cares about (and who surprisingly enough, care about him too?). It makes him into someone who wants to earn the love the M9 are giving onto him so freely. He wants to feel like he deserves it.
And given how his reaction after telling the truth about it all was not about himself as it has been all his life, but his concern for the m9 being “you are in terrible danger now, for all the things that you know” and Caleb replying with unwavering certainty, “so be it” like “you are worth that trouble, Essek. On purpose. We will love you on purpose.”
that is the kind of faith that binds. It tethers Essek to the Mighty Nein. They ground him both literally AND figuratively. And with time, we’ll find that its also a kind of grounding that heals because Essek has made the active choice of loving the m9. And they won't leave him, they will stay. They will love him also, and help him do better, be better than who he was when he found them.
