Frontier Town Traveller's Haus - Lobby

[canisaries]

“Forgive what I’m about to say, but hmmm…” Lyra took a deep breath, braced herself for what might be a sharp yell, and then… she unleashed her accusation as an hissed whisper and a pointed stare, her ears flat against her back. “What the actual heck?!”

She stomped her foot and snorted, feeling the building tension evaporating from her body, then sat back down, her nose wiggling as shame crossed her face. “Sorry. That… that was uncalled for,” she murmured meekly, rubbing her forepaws together, then sighed somberly.

Andre chuckled hollowly. "That's nothing. Laura slapped me when she found out."

“But… I just don’t get it. To hold so much anger and hatred into yourself, and deciding to relieve it by lashing out at others, it’s… that’s not healthy.” A deep sadness etched itself in her expression, her highly empathetic heart aching. “You… realize that in your quest of hunting evil men, you’ve become a worse and more dangerous version of them, dontcha? And if there’re other people who are equally disgusted with evil men, then it’d be only fair for them to apply your logic and be disgusted with you?”

Andre sighed. "Yeah... Laura pointed that out, too. I think my response was that I knew this was the case, but it didn't matter. That I was in the right, and thus another vigilante trying to stop me would have been in the wrong, because I was just and my victims were evil. I've since come to realize that I should have never thought I had the right to decide who lives and who dies. Maybe someone else has that right, but not me. because I..."

He bit his lip, but decided to share anyway.

"The thing that convinced me that I was in the wrong was something I remembered from back home. You see, someone over there has put a kind of spell on me that makes me unable to tell lies. And under this spell, I tried to tell him that I derived no pleasure from my murders. I wasn't able to. And I realized that I'd been lying to myself all this time about this being purely a venture of justice. No. I... was a sadist." He paused. "Do you know what that is?"

 

[Cresselia92]

Andre chuckled hollowly. "That's nothing. Laura slapped me when she found out."

Lyra simply blinked. That was the best reaction she could think of, even if she quietly commented to herself: Not surprising. I know folks who would’ve done much, MUCH worse than that!

"The thing that convinced me that I was in the wrong was something I remembered from back home. You see, someone over there has put a kind of spell on me that makes me unable to tell lies. And under this spell, I tried to tell him that I derived no pleasure from my murders. I wasn't able to. And I realized that I'd been lying to myself all this time about this being purely a venture of justice. No. I... was a sadist." He paused. "Do you know what that is?"

Oh dear! Whenever she thought Andre had already showcased the worst skeleton of his closet, he always found another secret that somehow was even worse!

What was next? Revealing his master plan to become a politician, rig some elections, and finally become a dictator who orders the murders of inmates left and right while gleefully watching feeds of torture chambers?

I mean, it’d be some good nightmare fuel for a dystopian novel… as long as it stayed a novel, that’s it.

Once again, she kept that thought strictly to herself. It’s not like it would have helped Andre and the others. (Although, was there a way to actually help Andre with building new bridges? She still held firmly onto that belief because rough patches always worked out in a way or another, but…)

Lyra nodded slowly, readying herself for yet another onslaught of horror. “Yeah. I… I’ve met such kinda people in the past. Folks who didn’t mind ordering their Pokémon to attack other humans just to see the fear in their eyes and relish in the adrenaline spike born from the sensation of dominance. It didn’t matter whether they were adults… or kids like me.” She looked away, wondering for a moment if to continue, before reluctantly finishing her sentence, “People with little to no empathy.”

Was that the crux of the matter? Did Andre lack empathy and love toward other humans? Was that the reason he caused so much hurt to others? Maybe as a terrible and misguided attempt to fill a ravenous void that wouldn’t be satiated in any way?

“I’m… not sure what else to say about this matter because, well, I’m no psychologist or anything. Not yet, at least.” She chuckled nervously, working hard to keep her mood as high as she could. “But there’s one question I gotta ask, though.”

And Lyra stared deep into Andre’s eyes, with a gaze that showed a mystical wisdom that was beyond her physical age and that betrayed her usual carefree aura. Analytical pupils that aimed straight for the window of the soul.

“Do you genuinely care about the other Wayfarers and their safety, to the point of being willing to risk your life for them?”