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libraryofbabelOn the outside, you are the picture of grim calm, as you accompany Iris in leaving no stone unturned as to the fate of her adopted sister Sam, only frowning slightly when she calls that abomination to ask if she's heard anything—
—on the inside you are screaming internally and trying to figure out some way, any way, that you can make this all okay. The problem is that you cannot, because several hours earlier, Max showed you the footage he recorded of Sam's death,1 and when Iris finds out she is going to lose her entire mind.
He explained their plan very calmly and reasonably and you felt increasingly ill the whole time, never mind that you can't get sick. You thought then, and still keep coming back to now, what Despond said—why are you so sad, when you planned to kill her yourself? You still keep thinking, that… maybe it would have been kinder if you'd done something sooner. You keep thinking that's Iris's sister, disintegrating under the electrical burns.2 Her body, anyway; they'd used her as a trap for the elder vampire who'd possessed your young protegée who shares a name with you.
Where's that confidence that everyone loves you for?
"Maybe, ah—maybe we could ask... even if Claudette didn't know—"
"Iris," you say, swallowing thickly. "Iris, I'm sorry."
She's always been quick on the uptake. There's only a brief flicker of confusion before horror dawns on her face. "What—but, you can't mean—"
You bite the inside of your lower lip, try to keep your voice measured. "I only found out afterward. Max told me—just too late."
"You let me just go on, thinking—" There's rage in her voice like you haven't heard in a long time. And never directed at you. "Why?"
What else is there to say but the truth: "...I didn't know how to tell you."
Iris reaches up to the crown of woven white roses on her head, flexing it between her hands—staring down at it with a frown on her face. "You told me they were good. That they were different." A pause. "The last thing I told her was that I was going to protect her."
She makes an uncharacteristically jerky motion, and hurls the crown at your feet, eyes red-rimmed with tears of blood, and with one last betrayed look at you, stalks off into the night.3
"Iris—" you start to say, but.
Well. What else is there to say.
[1] For the first time, Yi wondered if Despond had been right (see On the Nature of Predators, Early 21st Cen), as she had quietly watched and asked a minimum of questions; she knew that if they were already starting to cut her out of the loop, that they were starting to consider her something apart from one of them, and she was so close to accomplishing her ends.
[2] She could not, in that moment, find any way to justify the actions of those whose studies she had nurtured this last half century and more; how long had this festered under her nose?
[3] Later, Hope would learn that Iris had met her final death, unable to take the strain of continued existence after what she had experienced. Was this the last straw, for her?
—on the inside you are screaming internally and trying to figure out some way, any way, that you can make this all okay. The problem is that you cannot, because several hours earlier, Max showed you the footage he recorded of Sam's death,1 and when Iris finds out she is going to lose her entire mind.
He explained their plan very calmly and reasonably and you felt increasingly ill the whole time, never mind that you can't get sick. You thought then, and still keep coming back to now, what Despond said—why are you so sad, when you planned to kill her yourself? You still keep thinking, that… maybe it would have been kinder if you'd done something sooner. You keep thinking that's Iris's sister, disintegrating under the electrical burns.2 Her body, anyway; they'd used her as a trap for the elder vampire who'd possessed your young protegée who shares a name with you.
Where's that confidence that everyone loves you for?
"Maybe, ah—maybe we could ask... even if Claudette didn't know—"
"Iris," you say, swallowing thickly. "Iris, I'm sorry."
She's always been quick on the uptake. There's only a brief flicker of confusion before horror dawns on her face. "What—but, you can't mean—"
You bite the inside of your lower lip, try to keep your voice measured. "I only found out afterward. Max told me—just too late."
"You let me just go on, thinking—" There's rage in her voice like you haven't heard in a long time. And never directed at you. "Why?"
What else is there to say but the truth: "...I didn't know how to tell you."
Iris reaches up to the crown of woven white roses on her head, flexing it between her hands—staring down at it with a frown on her face. "You told me they were good. That they were different." A pause. "The last thing I told her was that I was going to protect her."
She makes an uncharacteristically jerky motion, and hurls the crown at your feet, eyes red-rimmed with tears of blood, and with one last betrayed look at you, stalks off into the night.3
"Iris—" you start to say, but.
Well. What else is there to say.
[1] For the first time, Yi wondered if Despond had been right (see On the Nature of Predators, Early 21st Cen), as she had quietly watched and asked a minimum of questions; she knew that if they were already starting to cut her out of the loop, that they were starting to consider her something apart from one of them, and she was so close to accomplishing her ends.
[2] She could not, in that moment, find any way to justify the actions of those whose studies she had nurtured this last half century and more; how long had this festered under her nose?
[3] Later, Hope would learn that Iris had met her final death, unable to take the strain of continued existence after what she had experienced. Was this the last straw, for her?