Alignment and Ale

“Jaslow, come here and have a drink.” Even tipsy, Selene knew how to give orders. Her deep, chill voice belied her long, wiry frame. She hunched over the bar, hands clasped firmly around a healthy tankard of ale. Her shoulders swayed to a silent beat.

Jaslow frowned. He’d never seen the fair mistress of justice anywhere near hammered. She drank to be polite, and sometimes not even then. Barely water and fresh cider were her drinks of choice. He knew. He’d been on campaigns with her before.

“I heard about what you did to those commonfolk over in Rasp district.” She growled, without looking up.

On instinct, his hand went to his rapier. Perhaps she was an angry drunk. He wondered if she’d try to arrest him off duty. Maybe she’d start a good, ol’fashioned brawl. Could be fun…

“Get your Goddamn hand off that sword.” She snapped. “I am NOT going to arrest you. Not tonight, anyway.” As quick as she’d been to snarl, her voice trailed off with a small, soft sigh.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He reached the side of the bar and motioned for a drink to the bartender. The dwarf nodded curtly, and a maid reached over to fill a glass. She handed it over with a wink. Any other time, Jaslow would’ve winked back. Tonight, however, curiosity beat his libido. Of course, his libido had been recently placated by a feisty young Teifling.

He turned his attention back to Selene. She had removed her armor and instead wore an embroidered, rose-colored robe with a rope belt around the waist. Her boot-clad feet curled under the pegs of the stool, not a stable position to hold. She had her katana, and her hair was pinned with its usual poison-tainted dart. With her head bowed, stray strands of dark hair slipped over her face. She looked exhausted.

She jerked her head up and words tumbled from her lips. “Which of us is better…morally?” She asked. “The misguided martyer or the self-rewarding hypocrite?” Distaste filled her expression, as though she’d just swallowed maror. “Who’s the bigger fool?” She amended. “The one looking for logic where there is none, or the man who defies it to suit his own purposes?”

“If you’re questioning my morals, miss, you’ll need more than one pint.” He said glibly. It didn’t surprise him that she was a philosopher drunk. He sipped the ale and sucked his teeth. Hearty.

“I’ve already had several pints.” She retorted. “I’m hoping a hazy world will look better than this one.” She raised the mug to her lips, but lowered it before taking another sip. The container clanked as it returned to the bar. She glared at him, and he regarded her with open curiosity.

“Jaslow, you decide what’s right is what advances you.” She accused. “You pick someone pocket, that’s fair game. Someone tries to rob you, you break their fingers. You do it without regret. How? Why? What gives you the goddamn right?”

“How do I live with myself, you mean.” Jaslow’s lips twitched. “Hypocrisy is easy to live with when you accept it. It’s the ones who deny themselves the truth of it all that labor the most.” He met her gaze squarely, and she looked away.

“Fuck you.” She muttered. This time, she took a deep sip.

“I’m flattered.” Jaslow purred. “But I prefer my warrior bedmates sober.”

She shot him a stare so withering that his legs involuntarily closed. He shifted in his seat and re-gathered his air. He switched tactics. “What happened, Selene?” It may have been the first time he’d called her by name.

The air between them filled with the fuzzy din of nearby conversations. Selene’s expressions ranged from angry, to depressed, to frustrated, and finally, to defeat. Minutes passed and Jaslow waited while she worked up the words.

“I…don’t…know.” She confessed. “I don’t know why I do it anymore, why I bother.”

“Justice is no longer as black and white as you once pictured?” He guessed. He drained the mug and released a contented burp. He passed it back to the maid for another.

Selene propped her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands. “I can’t always be right.” Her voice was almost too soft to hear.
Ah. Little miss perfection had finally made a mistake. Jaslow didn’t disguise his growing grin. He’d been waiting years for this day, when she finally found something that couldn’t be fixed with a sword’s slice or some fancy words. When her precious law didn’t cover one of the world’s many pockets of gray. He remembered their first adventure. She was straight from the academy back then, a rising star in her class of Heronious clerics. She stomped into their meeting, chest thrust out—not for sex appeal but for authority—tossed her head and claimed she only deigned to join their party at the urging of her mentor. Jaslow had contemplated killing her that first day. To his mind, the righteous were a troublesome lot, but they had uses. They could be trusted to do what they have sworn to do, or they died trying.

There was something ridiculous in her refusal to see the world for anything other than its highest potential. She refused to lie, and sometimes Jaslow could’ve done without her opinions. She nagged, she preached, she had a short temper with anyone or anything less than honorable. If she wasn’t so damn deadly with a blade, the world would’ve put her in her place long before now. But it was only a matter of time.

“I almost died yesterday.” She said. The smirk dropped off Jaslow’s face.

“I was on patrol. A couple hannya got the jump on me—no idea how they got so close without my notice. Long story short, I limped away, alive but not by much.” She raised her eyes to study the amber liquid in front of her. “They…hated me. Hated me for what I was, what I stood for. To them, I’m evil.”

“You’re bothered that two snake-folk think you’re evil?” He asked incredulously. His lips curved upwards once more. The maid handed him the mug again, and he graced her with a thankful nod. He checked Selene’s mug. It was still full from when he had initially sat down.

“I’m bothered by the idea that what’s right to me is wrong to them.” Selene corrected. She thought for a moment, lifted her shoulders and dropped them again. “I’ve killed what I decided was evil. I attacked without reservation, without thought, without regret. Why? In the name of what was right. You know what? What if they think they’re the good guys, and I think I’m the good guy…who decides which of us is truly…GOOD?”

“I suggest you take that sort of argument up with your God. Odds are he’s been dueling out the same argument with his fellows for eons now.” Jaslow deadpanned. He took a sip to sooth the headache she was giving him. However, he was intrigued by this new, talkative side of his old comrade.

“I was at the temple before I came here.” She replied. Her fingers traced the lip of her mug. “They hate me…I hate them. As long as we’re not fighting to the death, we each free to think the other is wrong, and be content in that knowledge. Is it really so wonderful that we can both be “right” in our hatred? At the end of the day, it was a blade that decided which of us was more worthy to live. Well…that and a few bolts of lightning.” The skin around her eyes crinkled ever-so-slightly. She had a notorious fondness for raw energy.

“I always wondered about your fascination with this concept of righteousness.” Jaslow admitted. “Tell me, what do you get, what do you win, if at the end of it all, you spend your whole life fighting for some invisible concept of greater good?”

“I get to live with myself. I achieve the comfort of knowing I did everything I could to make this world a better place.”

“A better place for who?” He challenged. “You? You won’t be around to see it in a few hundred years—maybe less if you don’t keep a better watch out against hannya.” He shook his head. “Those who decide they know the truth, that they know what the world is really all about, they’re so closed-minded that they can’t contemplate any disorder, any contradiction. They’re so straight they can’t bend—stop me when this begins to sound like someone you know.” He drawled.

She shook her head and a sad smile graced her face. “What’s the solution then? Act like you, care about nobody and nothing but yourself, live each day with the expectation that there is nothing worth fighting for but personal glory? Maybe there is no solution to a universal right or wrong, but what is there to gain by not trying?”

“Nothing. There is no gain, and no loss. That’s what I like about it.” He paused and gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re a rather eloquent drunk, aren’t you?”

“It’s tough to be drunk when my thoughts are so sober.” She quipped. She froze, tilted her head, wrinkled her nose, and laughed. As her mirth faded, she returned to studying her drink. She released another sigh. “I’m not—I can’t give up.” She confessed. “My world isn’t black and white, but wrong is wrong. Not always, but usually. I do what I do because…I think someone has to. Someone has to champion the forces of good against evil. Someone has to look out for the common folk, to keep them safe from the ills of the world.”

“As long as you protect them, you keep them helpless. If you truly cared, you’d let them fend for themselves.” Jaslow pointed out.
“No. That’s akin to arguing a child should be left to feed itself. They will learn with time.”

“If you say so.” His reply held no enthusiasm. He held in a sigh of his own. Her delusions knew no limits. There were plenty of folk in this world who could not be saved, and plenty more who didn’t deserve it. To watch a warrior with Selene’s potential be chipped away by charity, to see her energies spent among the graceless and unappreciative, it was a damn shame. He was just beginning to like her, and again, he saw that she was maddening in her self-imposed simplicity. He rose from his stool and flipped the maid a coin.

“Goodnight, Selene. Best of luck to you in your travels.” He held out his hand and they clasped forearms. He studied her face, sensing this would be their last encounter.

Her cheekbones were as high as ever, though the skin under her eyes was lightly tinged with blue. Her tan complexion glowed under the bar lights, and her deep brown eyes regarded him with a composure unparalleled to anything he’d ever seen before. If she was truly drunk when the conversation started, she’d recovered.

“Good bye, Jaslow. Thank you.” It may have been the first time she’d ever called him by name. The warmth in her voice was appeared genuine. Their clasp lingered a second longer than protocol dictated, and he felt a new understanding pass between them. Some people never change, and perhaps it’s better that way.

He left the bar feeling unusually at home with himself.