pro_patria_mortuus | (no subject)

Now Grantaire has more than one reason for wishing he hadn't drained the bottle quite so quickly; it might at least have served as bribery.

Ah, well. "Our host appears at last!" he exclaims, taking two strides forward -- putting himself, therefore, a step in front of Enjolras. "Friend, the grounds of your estate leave something to be desired. Far be it from me to critique your housekeeping, but if you took my advice, you'd seek out a new steward."

Grantaire may or may not notice the quick look, half of startlement and half bemusement, that Enjolras flicks at him as he steps past.

Enjolras is prepared to take the lead in his turn; indeed, he's waiting for the instant to spring forward and do so. Grantaire knows his way around a boxing match or a sparring mat, but he's never shown signs of a lethal instinct. Enjolras, for better or for worse, knows himself, and that lethal instinct is something he's well equipped with.

His weapons are little enough, right now, but it'll have to do.

The Minotaur raises his shaggy head and bellows again, earshatteringly. And then -- speaks?

His voice is a thick rumble, clumsy and halfway to a cow's lowing, but it's comprehensible. "No host, tribute."

There's light enough from the torch; Enjolras lowers his flashlight, carefully. (He's prepared to drop it if he needs both hands. For now, he'll keep his ability to shine a bright light in the monster's eyes.) "And we're not tribute," he says evenly, eyes on the Minotaur.

"Poor and offensive tribute we would be, indeed," agrees Grantaire. "Wonderful guests -- for does not the host take the greatest joy in finding himself superior to his guests? -- but as decorative objects, we find ourselves, alas, somewhat wanting."

(As long as Enjolras has the sense to keep his face in the dark, and stay behind Grantaire.)

Unfortunately for Grantaire, not only does Enjolras not have that sense, but the low-burning torch's sullen light is nonetheless bright enough to catch golden hair and a pale face, and throw a glow upon both.

The Minotaur snorts again. It's begun to sway slightly from foot to foot, like a boxer weaving, or a bull considering a charge.

"You think I want decoration? Pah. You think I want you? You intrude. You talk too much. You are meat, tribute."

Enjolras's eyes have narrowed slightly at this speech. He takes one step forward, head high, attention intently fixed, flashlight pointed down, weight balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. "What do you want?"

It's a genuine question.

The Minotaur pauses, struck by the question; so does Grantaire, whose eyes glint cynically in the light of the torch.

Faint hope that Enjolras would ever keep himself out of danger! -- but through Grantaire's mind may be sodden, he's not entirely a fool. If Enjolras has decided to exercise his charisma, there's nothing Grantaire can do at this point to help, and a great deal to hinder that most dangerous of weapons. Resigned, he takes a step to the side and leans against the wall of the labyrinth, arms folded (looking, if it must be admitted, slightly sulky. He'll get over it soon enough; the prospect of seeing Enjolras charm a minotaur proves to be vastly entertaining.)

Enjolras does not remotely view this conversation, nor any conversation at all, as exercising his charisma. (That is, of course, a large part of why his charisma is compelling.)

He waits. The question seems to have caught the monster's interest.

(A strange creature, up close. He'd never thought much about the minotaur, beyond its purpose in the tale and, later, the metaphors possible. But here it is, an altogether peculiar mix of man and bull, all muscle and threat and rank odors. Threat -- and yet, against all expectation, perhaps not pure malice. Perhaps.)

He would like a genuine answer, if he's going to get any answer at all, and he's prepared to wait for it. He's also prepared to react otherwise, if needs must.

"What I want," says the Minotaur, at last, "is irrelevant." It squints down at Enjolras, wary and suspicious -- and right to be, thinks Grantaire, lolling back against the stones. If the poor creature knew what kind of odds were leveled against it, it should retreat straight away, while retreat was still possible.

Enjolras's brows draw together slightly. "No," he says. "I can't agree."

"It may be impossible to achieve, perhaps. Or merely hindered, ignored, disdained. But not irrelevant. How could anyone's wants be irrelevant? To another, very well, that's possible, but not to his own life. Even in a maze you have some choices."

A monster, trapped since birth in a labyrinth. Of course his goals are hindered; of course his choices are limited. But still they matter. And what they are -- liberty? To be left alone? To devour people? -- matters not only broadly, but in this moment.

The Minotaur's smile is a bitter, snarling thing, upper lip rising over smeared, yellow tusks.

"You don't understand this maze, tribute. All turns lead to the same pit in the end."

(Grantaire, meanwhile, has pressed his hands against the wall and is digging his fingernails into the crumbling stone. The need to make some comment, or at the very least to burst out into laughter once more, is almost physically painful. He did dare the world to do its allegorical worst, didn't he? The more fool he!

But instead, he has to stand back and allow Enjolras' overwhelming, shining earnestness to wash over every monster in the place, himself included -- with his usual survival methods for this kind of onslaught, alcohol and irony, both entirely unavailable. It's very nearly tortuous. Which is completely ridiculous, and the fact that he can't even laugh at himself about it makes it all the worse.)

Enjolras's fingers lift from the walking stick, acknowledging and dismissing that assertion in the same moment.

"But do they have to? Is that inevitable?" A delicate pause, just an instant. "Or is it only the way the path has been walked in the past?"

The Minotaur snorts loudly. The bovine sound is incongruously pastoral, echoing off stone walls and stone ceiling.

"One way is the pit. The other way are the king's blades. Once you come in, you don't leave."

"Of course not," says Grantaire, unable any longer to contain himself. "If you don't think that you can. If you believe that you're trapped, that there's no other way out, then of course you'll continue to remain in the labyrinth of your own despair -- isn't that so, Enjolras?"

His voice is as earnest as a churchman's; it would take someone who knew him to discern the heavy note of self-mockery floating through it. (Or so he hopes.)

Enjolras slides an instant's sidelong look at Grantaire, but doesn't otherwise take the bait. (If bait is the term.) As for the Minotaur, well, his expressions are proving to be somewhat difficult to read.

"If it's you alone against a king's blades, then certainly there's little you have the power to do. The blade, the pit, or to be the king's pet monster. But why stand alone, and let him define all your choices for you? You walk, you speak, you reason. One of the rights of reasoning people is liberty; another is brotherhood."

Tribute, the Minotaur keeps calling them, and there are bones just around the corner. There are those to make common cause with, or at least there have been, and will be again.

If anything, the laugh is worse than the smile. Laughter can be terrible; Grantaire knows it well.

"Brotherhood!" cries the Minotaur, laughing. "And who would be my brother? You?"

That laughing roar resounds off the grimy walls, echoing, half bull's bellow, half words ripped from a man's throat, all bitterness, even the sound trapped.

"You think," says Enjolras into the fading echoes, his voice level. "You speak, you are a rational creature. Yes. Whether or not we're friends, yes, I call you brother."

Enjolras has killed his brothers before; in the end, he was killed by them as well. The fact remains.

The Minotaur doesn't seem to know what to do with that statement. He laughs again, low and bitter, but there's an uncertain quaver in it, and it peters out too soon into silence.

"Ah! Minotaur," says Grantaire, into the emptiness that follows. He's mostly conquered his fit of hilarity; his voice is rueful now, sardonic, commiserative. "If you wanted a comfortable meal -- if you wanted a comfortable existence, if you wanted a comfortable despair -- ah, friend, you shouldn't have let him talk. Eat him now, and every time your stomach grumbles, it'll sound like someone shouting 'Liberte, Fraternite!'"

Enjolras's jaw sets briefly with impatience, before he pushes the sentiment back. He doesn't look over at Grantaire.

"If you're telling the truth, little human," rumbles the Minotaur -- who, though shorter than Enjolras, is admittedly much broader -- "then you're the only one who would say so."

"Am I?" returns Enjolras, immediately and without a shadow of the uncertain skepticism which colored the Minotaur's words. "Or have you not given any others the chance to see that you would be their brother in turn? A man who calls himself a king sends you people to kill -- sets guards at the door -- wants you at odds with all humanity, but why should you do what such a tyrant wishes?"

"And how should I change now?" returns the Minotaur. "Even if it's as you say -- even if it might have been as you say, once -- the blood in this place is old, and thick. Is it not too late for me to be anything other than I am?"

"If you never attempt to be otherwise, then it will be."

This conversation has gone beyond the need to hold weapons at the ready. Enjolras sets the tip of his walking stick back on the ground, with a very quiet tap.

"Otherwise -- no. Never."

Grantaire is also fairly convinced that, by this point, there's no need for weapons at the ready; he had no doubts it would be that way from the moment Enjolras started talking.

It doesn't mean he's entirely happy to see Enjolras lower the walking stick in front of someone who has, as of yet, notably failed to declare his intention of not attempting to murder them. That puts him in the position of being the one who's responsible and on guard, which is a position he generally wishes to avoid as much as possible. He would much rather continue to lean against the wall and concentrate on not laughing.

The Minotaur watches them, silent except for the snort of his breathing. His eyes are dark, large, but made small by the broad hairy expanse of his bovine face, gleaming liquid in the torchlight that scatters more dully off the shaggy fur. Enjolras returns the look in waiting silence.

"Go," the Minotaur rumbles at last.

Enjolras bows slightly, the polite farewell of one equal to another. Then, quite deliberately, he turns his back on the creature -- the person -- and begins to walk away, down the musty shadowed corridor.

His awareness prickles, his nerves on edge for any hint of motion behind, no matter how easy his stride is. But he trusts, here and now. That trust is a weapon in his hand, aimed and loosed just as every word was -- for all that it, like every word, is also genuine and honestly meant.

Grantaire hesitates for a moment, then, with a loose-limbed shrug, falls into step behind him.

No point in looking back at the monster, poor beast, nor in wondering now what's more likely to kill him -- the next batch of Athenians, the king's soldiers, or the lonely pangs of his own heart. Odds are good they've done him no service, as far as Grantaire's concerned.

...but on the bright side, they're not eaten, so, you know.

Enjolras does look back, just one quick and sober glance sideways as he turns the first corner. He says nothing; he carries on, and the wall intrudes between, and the Minotaur doesn't follow.

He does, half a corridor later, glance at Grantaire, in the dim torchlight. It's a thoughtful look, and assessing.

(Up ahead, as they'll see when they round the corner, there's a Δ scrawled on the wall as if in white chalk.)

Grantaire catches the gaze; his eyebrows shoot up high into his curls.

"Well?"

He's proud of himself, he's got no more uncontrollable an urge to laugh than he ever does; the hysteria has now quite passed.

Enjolras stifles the brief twinge of irritation at that expression, which seems to him sardonic. Whether it is or not, there's no point in responding.

There are other things he might say to one of the others. But to Grantaire, now and here, what he says is, "What do you think of all this?"

It's a serious question. He's not holding out great hope for a serious answer, but there's always a chance.

And in the meantime, there's a delta-marked archway that might be a door just ahead. Enjolras slows slightly to let Grantaire catch up; they may as well pass through together.