Young Writers Society

James stared at her with what was now a blank, dead-eyed expression. His tone that followed was dry, and almost monotone.

“Oh dear. What a brilliant analysis, Runi. I must admit, I think you understand me better than I do myself, for I was not even wholly aware of my thought process behind my response. Truly, you are the first and only person to come to this conclusion. Please, tell me then, what is my identity."

Yup, she had definitely hit the nail right on the head. Tiberius wasn't his real name - which sucked! - and he was resorting to sarcasm because of it. She thought long and hard on a response. Any interaction between the two of them later on hinged on how she handled herself in this moment; if she failed to address the comment properly, it was likely that "Tiberius" wouldn't respect her.

Then again, it wasn't like he had really been doing that in the first place.

"I don't know," she admitted. "All I know is that it's not Tiberius Hemming, and that you have a family out there somewhere. A family, I'm guessing, you probably left behind after that whole treason thing." She couldn't help it - for the briefest of moments, she wished she could have been in his shoes. To have a family to protect? That would be an amazing thing. The only person she had to protect was herself, and that was never quite the same.

James blinked and met her eyes. All signs of emotion left his face, even the annoyance in his eyes. He knew he'd only been entertaining her theories, and he knew she would only prod for more answers.

"And what does it matter to you?" he asked. "Even if my name was a lie, it would mean nothing to you. No one you're handing me over to will care. No one in the gods-forsaken world would care. You're only using me for the money I provide you for my capture, and if you cared about what happened to me afterward, you wouldn't be bringing me there in the first place. So stop talking to me like we're on friendly terms, because we aren't. You don't need to know sh*t about me. I'm just your payday. So stop fraternizing with your prey before you're tempted to have a conscience. It's easier to fight you if you don't."

She took in every single word he said, trying to comprehend where the sudden burst of anger had come from. She had tried being humane - wasn't that more important than not? It had never been about being "tempted to have a conscience". It had been about giving someone who was supposed to be a bad person good treatment because treason wasn't exactly one of those crimes where you're a horrible, horrible person because of it.

And he made it sound like her job was bad, like she was the one who was supposed to be locked up behind bars. She wasn't. Wanting money for his capture wasn't a bad thing, was it? She needed money to live, and money like that could set her up for a very, very long time. And in the little time she had been a bounty hunter, she had discovered that she was very, very good at capturing very bad people.

Saying all of this to "Tiberius" wouldn't amount to anything. She had figured that out already from how he had been responding to what she had been saying. Maybe no one who took him would care what his real name was. But she did, even if it was just to fulfill her growing sense of curiosity about the man sitting beside her.

And before she could even decide if she wanted to say anything at all to her prisoner, she started to speak. "I'm not a bad person," she said. "I just need money and this-" She gestured at his bonds."-is something I can do. You've seen my reflexes, and you've seen how good I am preventing you from escaping. I don't enjoy the job, but I'm catching bad people, and I can get money for doing something good."

She looked him in the eye. "But you're saying that I'm the one who doesn't have a conscience, even though it's your name and picture on the wanted poster."

“Everyone’s the hero of their own story,” he replied dully - an apathy marking his brief response as he fell into silence with a sigh.

He had nothing more to say to her.

Darunia Vain

She was silent for a minute, staring down at the ground beneath her legs as she thought through what he had said. His sigh lingered in the air; he clearly wanted this conversation to be over. But she couldn't end it on that note. She just couldn't. "Tiberius" - or whoever he was - had his own story to tell. It was a story she was beginning to guess that most people he encountered weren't aware of, and, seeing that she was the one turning in him, she needed to learn the story to feel justified in what she was doing.

She looked up and over at him.

"Why are you the hero, then?" she questioned. "You said that everyone's the hero of their own story. So what makes you the hero?"

James rolled his eyes. “I was making a point about a difference in perspective. I wasn’t saying I’m a hero,” he replied, the word ‘hero’ bitter in his mouth with its new connotation.

Darunia Vain

"But what makes you the hero of your story?" she insisted. Now she wasn't just looking at him - she had turned her body so she was facing him. "There has to be something, otherwise you wouldn't have said that. Does it...Does it have to do with why you committed treason?"

She didn't go as far to say that she was beginning to consider that he might have not committed a crime that was as heinous as his poster painted it to be, but she didn't want to seem naive. She had met all sorts of people before. Tiberius, admittedly enough, wasn't having that common of a reaction to this sort of conversation, but there was nothing to say that he wasn't a strange person, or was an exceptionally great actor.

But she sure as hell wasn't going to assist in the imprisonment of an innocent man.

James finally broke eye contact and stared at the dirt and grass by his face. Normally, this would've been the point in the conversation where they would've reached an impasse. He would refuse to answer, and would fight his way out eventually and escape one way or another.

She wasn't the first to be curious and ask prying questions, and she wasn't the first to have that theory either. But she was one of the few three who actually didn't seem to be manipulating him to share more. She was sincere. And at that point in his life, he knew was sincerity looked like. What it felt like. And even though it should've been a welcome thing, he wasn't inclined to be truthful. Years of secrecy and betrayal weighed down on him like a bitter reminder of what it looked like to let his guard down. It always ended in him getting the short end of the stick. So he'd traded honesty for survival, and doled out kindness in secret.

There was only one bounty hunter who knew a small part of his story, and he'd told himself that would be the one and only exception. He didn't want to make Runi a second. At least with the other bounty hunter, he had some established trust. But Runi was still entirely a stranger. Her curiosity offered him nothing in the way of security, and he couldn't bet everything on a gut feeling that she was decent person.

So he kept it short.

"People who commit treason only do it for one of three reasons: selfish ambition, self preservation, or to right a wrong. Take a guess."

Darunia Vain

"I don't know!" she abruptly replied, exasperated. She had tried to keep her cool - honest - but every question she directed at him was returned with a vague answer that only left her asking more questions. "I'm trying to figure out if you're a decent person, and you're not exactly being helpful, idiot." The last word was spat out, but not too harshly. She wasn't that good at insulting people, especially when she genuinely liked them. But she was growing pretty frustrated, and calling him an idiot just seemed to work in the moment.

She took a deep breath to clear her thoughts.

"I've lived alone for most of my life," she admitted. "And I've never really had a place to call home. I don't know a lot about how the places in Nye work, and I can't say that I know exactly what the Moonlight Kingdom is like, either."

Another deep breath.

"Maybe-maybe I was wrong for capturing you. Maybe they're the bad guys, and maybe this bounty hunter thing really isn't the right job for someone like me." She looked into his eyes. "But I can't know if I'm doing the right thing right now unless you let me know. You don't have to tell me who you are, or where you're from. I don't need a lot of details. I just want to know why your name is on that wanted poster, Tiberius. Is that too much to ask for?"

James had been relatively sure of what he was dealing with until her outburst. He looked up at her, confused and indignant.

He didn't expect her to come to a climax in whatever kind of moral crisis she was facing just because he wasn't giving straight answers. He also hadn't expected her to so earnestly plea to him on the basis that apparently, she was... not familiar with Nye. Or specifically, so it sounded, human kingdoms and cities. If she was that much of a loner... there had to be something different about her as well. Something he'd missed. Something that made her an outcast, even if she wasn't on the run from the law.

But he wasn't sure how to reply. She wanted to know if he was a decent person, and that was something he didn't feel he could answer. But if he could briefly explain why he was wanted... and she would let him go? The possibility was better than fighting, and if she was offering a peaceful option, it would be foolish of him to resist.

He broke away from her gaze and fixed his eyes on the ground. Several seconds of silence hung in the air between them before he replied quietly.

"I sabotaged the king's plans to do something immoral and unethical," he said simply. "That's all I can tell you."

Darunia Vain

She stared at him for a moment.

"When I said I didn't need a lot of details," she promptly said, "I didn't mean that little." Then she wanted to bite her tongue - the last thing she wanted to do was further alienate Tiberius, and he wasn't exactly the most cooperative person already. A harsh tone might make him go silent. Whatever she did, she had to make sure that his silence wasn't the end result.

"You can tell me more," Runi said. "I'm not afraid of having knowledge I shouldn't have."

My whole life I've had knowledge I shouldn't have.

"You can't stop after saying something like that, Tiberius. You have to say more - I don't know what your standards for immoral and unethical are. What if they're different than mine?"

James stared out into the forest blankly.

"Immoral and unethical included innocent people getting hurt and used as pawns to achieve a goal that's more trouble than its worth," he answered stiffly.

She blinked.

"They what?" she asked, scooting around so she was now directly in between Tiberius and the part of the forest he was blankly staring at. He couldn't just leave it on a note like that! She took to staring at him while she waited for some sort of elaboration. She knew Tiberius had a frustrating fondness for vagueness, but they just had to get to a point in the conversation where it became clear that she wasn't going to let him answer her questions with so little.

James tried to inch back and away from her, but with his hands behind his back and his stomach on the ground, he hardly moved. Her insistent curiosity was annoying and burdensome, and she had not been true to her word that she only needed a little to satiate it. His eyebrows lowered and he dropped his gaze, determined to avoid the eye contact she seemed to be trying to force.

"Blackfield has been ruling a kingdom for sixty years. He built it on the the ruins of the calamity and will do everything he can to keep it - but like any ruler, he's let his conscience be corrupted by power, and he wants more. And he's willing to use other people to get it. What I did..." he paused, letting out a soft, frustrated hiss of a sigh. "What I did was only a weak, foolish attempt to stop him from doing so. But it was infantile, and fruitless, and I greatly despise reflecting upon it. So please, for the love of gods, stop asking more."