TRP: Bee and Goro (Birdcage)

[SETTING: Day 384. The Horse 'N Ham Inn.]

Bee was, as described by Larkin and Mishka, a small, pale-skinned humanoid with tousled black hair, who wore simple, durable clothes and no armaments of any kind. They came down into the dining area of the inn where they were staying around mid-morning. This time -- unlike when Larkin and Mishka met with them -- they were wearing a teardrop shaped tiger's eye pendant on a sturdy steel chain around their neck.

They chose a table and smiled as they asked a waiter for a cup of coffee.

LINA

Goro skulked into the inn's dining room, scanning all the occupants until his eyes landed on who he presumed to be Bee. He watched them for a moment from some twenty feet away, just staring.

IZZY

They received their coffee, thanked the waiter, and drank innocuously, looking out a window.

LINA

After a couple minutes, Goro approached.

"Hey creep," he said. Which some might say was the pot calling the kettle black, but hey, just 'cause it was ironic didn't make it not true.

IZZY

They looked at him mildly and blinked. "Can I help you with something?"

LINA

Goro pulled out the chair across from them and sat down.

IZZY

They continued to look at him with polite interest.

LINA

"I think you oughta stay away from Sam Obsidia," he said. Obviously he was hoping for a more robust conversation, but it wasn't like Bee was gonna say okay and leave.

IZZY

"Oh," Bee said.

LINA

Goro scowled. "Fuckin'... keeping him captive or some shit for three years? And now you come sniffin' around him again? Cut it out."

IZZY

"You must be a friend," Bee said amiably. "That's good."

LINA

"Yeah huh."

IZZY

"Do you have a name?" they asked. "I assume you know that mine is Bee."

LINA

"Nah. Don't gotta name." Goro smiled cheekily. "Anyway, the hell's your deal, exactly?"

IZZY

"I'm a missionary."

LINA

"So, an asshole who forces their beliefs on other people."

IZZY

Bee smiled a little. "No."

LINA

Goro got all wide-eyed and innocent. "No?"

IZZY

"No," they confirmed pleasantly.

LINA

"What do you do, then?"

IZZY

"I help people."

LINA

"Help them."

IZZY

"Yes."

LINA

"How?"

IZZY

"It depends on their circumstances."

LINA

"Explain to me how in god's name you thought you were gonna help Sam by holding him hostage."

IZZY

"Are you friends with Mishka Bell?"

LINA

"I may have heard the name a time or two." His tone suggested an unequivocal yes.

IZZY

"Then you already know the answer."

LINA

"What, you thought you were gonna get Sam away from Pride?"

IZZY

"I assessed whether it was the correct decision, and yes -- I tried."

LINA

"You might need to revise your methods. Just something to think about."

IZZY

"Thank you for the advice."

LINA

"You ever apologize to him, or anything? For, you know, keeping him captive?"

IZZY

"Yes," they said simply. "Many times."

LINA

"He wasn't all that receptive, I'm guessing."

IZZY

"Indeed."

LINA

"Are you really a paladin?"

IZZY

"Yes." They took a sip of their coffee.

LINA

"Oh, well if that's the case, you'll be familiar with a spell called Zone of Truth. Yeah?"

IZZY

"Mmhm."

LINA

"You mind if I...?"

IZZY

"Go ahead," they said mildly. "I'm not a liar."

LINA

"Alright then. Zone of Truth." Goro infused his words with magic this time and felt the spell take effect. He looked Bee straight in the eye. "Are you really a paladin?"

IZZY

They looked back at him flatly. "Yes."

LINA

"Can you charm people?"

IZZY

They sighed. "Yes. I know many spells and have many abilities granted to me by Lathander."

LINA

Goro tipped his head to the side and scratched his cheek, squinting. "Huh. Interesting. You play any instruments?"

IZZY

"No."

LINA

"What's up with your freaky eyes?" Goro gestured at his own while he asked.

IZZY

They tilted their head at him. "What's up with your ears?"

LINA

"I'm a half elf, motherfucker. What are you?"

IZZY

"I'm an aasimar."

LINA

Goro blinked, speechless for a second. "Oh."

IZZY

"Are you done?" they asked.

LINA

"Do you want me to be?"

IZZY

"I can't say I'm enjoying this interaction," they said regretfully.

LINA

"Oh yeah? Why not? Am I too nosy for you?"

IZZY

"You're rude and invasive, and clearly entered this conversation with a bias against me. I understand; you're a friend of Sam's. You're on his side."

LINA

"Yeah. You wanna try winning me over?"

IZZY

"I'm not interested in wasting my time."

They sipped their coffee again.

LINA

"Hey, now. I can be swayed. It's been done." He couldn't actually come up with an example, though.

IZZY

"Really?" They sounded unimpressed.

LINA

"I think. If you could tell me something I don't already know about Pride, maybe."

IZZY

"You've spoken to him a great deal, then?" they asked. "You know so much about him already."

LINA

"I don't know if I'd call it 'a great deal.' Four or five times."

IZZY

Bee looked at him over their mug for a moment.

"It isn't the demon that's won you over, then. It's Sam."

LINA

Goro couldn't help softening a little. "Yeah? What about it?"

IZZY

"He's charming," they commented. "Strangely naive, mm? He fumbles. He's easily overwhelmed. He has the air of someone who needs another person to help him take care of himself, doesn't he?"

LINA

Goro nodded hesitantly.

IZZY

"He's a grown man. Why do you suppose he's like that?"

LINA

Goro had to tamp down a scowl. "Some of us are just slower to--to figure things out."

IZZY

They tilted their head a little, expression flat. "So you relate to him."

LINA

"So what?" Goro said, bristling.

He didn't have to fake the annoyance, but he was making a conscious choice to let it out. He wanted to see if Bee would sense a vulnerability and try to take advantage of it.

IZZY

"Then please understand," they said quietly, "that Sam is, quite likely, not like you. I don't know you. What I know is that Sam has been systematically isolated by the demon stalking him, and once it made contact with him, it enabled all of his bad habits and played on all of his fears. It made him reliant on it to the extent that he struggles to make any of his own decisions without consulting with it first. Maybe someone did that to you. I don't know," they said again. "My point is that Sam has been damaged. He has not been encouraged to grow by the demon. He's been pruned by it into a shape it finds more pleasing."

LINA

"How do you know?" Goro pressed.

IZZY

"More than a year of my life spent in study." They tapped their short fingernails against the ceramic of their mug. "I didn't go into things assuming that Sam's patron was evil and manipulative. It was a process."

LINA

"I bet you did," Goro argued, trying to rein in the... rudeness and invasiveness a little. Just calmly stating what he thought. "You're a Lathanderian. You got certain preconceptions about demons, don't ya?"

IZZY

Bee remained impassive. "I didn't, from the beginning, know that Sam's patron was a demon, nor did I realize straight away exactly what class of demon it is."

LINA

Goro shrugged. "Eh. Still. Probably didn't take long for you to form an opinion."

IZZY

"It clearly hasn't taken you long to form one about me," Bee said coolly.

LINA

"Is that supposed to be you taking a swing at me? I'm good at reading people, asshole."

IZZY

"You didn't seem to take any time to try reading me before you began behaving aggressively and presumptuously. I suppose you're just going off what your friends think of me. It's understandable. But it's really not worth my time to argue with someone whose mind was made before they even met me," they said flatly.

LINA

"You're missing my damn point. I'm trying to tell how much of your thinking on Pride is really careful study, and how much of it's just 'cause he's a demon." God, he couldn't fucking win. He'd had just about the opposite conversation with Sam a while back. Everyone fuckin' assumed they knew what he thought about things, even when he was just curious.

IZZY

"It's all careful study." Their tone was still flat, and they stared at him blankly. "I'm a paladin of a righteous deity. Of course I don't enjoy the existence of demons. But one doesn't see the way that Sam relaxes in the arms of his demon, after meeting him outside of his dreams and knowing him to be a keenly anxious and unhappy person, and not question what the right thing is."

LINA

Goro's face twisted up, partly in thoughtfulness and partly in pain. He remembered the first time he'd seen Sam relax in Pride's arms. The moment he'd thought, Oh. It's his Hansel.

"You're saying... if someone's unhappy and nervous all the time. The person who makes them relaxed and happy--" He tried to move his hand and accidentally brought it down too hard on the table, making Bee's mug rattle. "Don't--don't--I'm just trying to understand. Just tell me. Please."

IZZY

Bee narrowed their eyes a fraction, as if confused. Somewhat slowly, they said, "I'm saying that people can be tricked into being relaxed and happy. Sam's unhappiness was manufactured by the demon, which then presented itself as the cure to the ailment it enabled."

LINA

"Why are you so sure about that part? The--the Sam's unhappiness being manufactured thing."

IZZY

They sighed briefly. "Four hundred and eighty-seven nights of conversation. Of listening to how the demon speaks -- to others, and to Sam. Realizing that it was attempting to manipulate me in the same ways, with half-truths and supposed good intentions. Seeing it encourage him into situations that would make him uncomfortable, so that it might comfort him afterwards and remind him that he's safe nowhere but in its arms."

LINA

Goro considered for a moment. It was only the last part that gave him pause. He wasn't sure if it was true, but--

Hansel never tried to make him do stuff he was uncomfortable with, even when Goro didn't mind being uncomfortable. Goro wondered if Hansel would, though, if it was all for the goal of letting them be together.

Nah. Nah, he fuckin' wouldn't. He'd insist on finding another way. That was just how Hansel was, though. Goro would do a lot of uncomfortable shit if it was the most efficient way of being with Hansel. He wouldn't think it was Hansel manufacturing his unhappiness.

He realized he'd been sitting there for a while in silence. "Oh," he said glumly.

IZZY

Bee watched him for a beat, lifting their mug for a sip. "I find it interesting that the demon is allowing him to have friends, now," they said over the rim. "I can assure you it's calculated. If left too long, you'll either be made an example of how Sam shouldn't trust anyone but Pride, or something unfortunate will happen to you to break his heart again."

LINA

"Maybe he's softening up," Goro suggested. "Maybe he saw how lonely it was making Sam. Being alone."

IZZY

"Maybe." They didn't sound remotely convinced. "But he was lonely before."

LINA

"Pride doesn't understand people very well. From what I can tell."

IZZY

"It understands Sam."

LINA

"Yeah, 'cause it's been close with him for so long. But I don't think--" He realized he'd followed along and called Pride it, which felt weird. "I don't think he really got people, before that. I think he's still figuring us out."

IZZY

Bee tapped their fingers against their mug. "I don't think it's figuring us out. I don't think it has any interest in us. It stalked and studied Sam because of some perverse fascination, and its end goal is to make him not human anymore."

LINA

"Alright. Well." Goro straightened up a little. "So what? If that's what Sam wants."

IZZY

"The demon is using him," they said quietly. "No one wants to be used."

LINA

"I think he does." Goro grimaced slightly. "Weird, but."

IZZY

"Let me rephrase. Sam does not know he is being used." They sighed. "I don't know how to explain to you the depths to which he's been manipulated. At this point, if I were able to tell him Pride has purposefully isolated and harmed you so that you'll be obedient and consent to anything it asks of you, and be assured that he believed me -- I don't think that it would make any difference. Sam would rather be manipulated by the demon if it means that the demon ..." Their voice softened, a little. "Braids his hair and kisses his face. The fact that he wants it doesn't make it right."

LINA

"He loves him." Goro realized what he'd said was ambiguous, but he meant it both ways.

IZZY

Bee frowned sympathetically.

"If you keep a bird in a tiny cage," they said, "and only you ever feed the bird, or speak to it, or stroke its feathers, and you give it no companions and no room to stretch its wings, the bird will sing for you prettily, but it doesn't love you of its own free will. Your mistreatment is the only thing you've allowed it to know. It doesn't know that it can be happy. It doesn't know that it can love any other way -- without desperation and reliance and fear."

LINA

"I've--" Goro started to blurt that he'd never loved any other way, 'cause he'd never done anything without desperation and fear, and of course he relied on the people he loved. He'd fought it, and it had felt like a good thing when he gave in.

Did Bee really need to know all that shit about him, though? God.

"You gotta give Sam more credit than that," he said weakly.

IZZY

"Than what?"

LINA

"Like a dumb bird in a cage."

IZZY

"I don't think that Sam's dumb." They looked at him for a moment. "Are you a cleric? Have you worked, in your life, in temples and sanctuaries -- been a healer?"

LINA

He nodded.

IZZY

"Have you ever encountered children mistreated by their parents? Or maybe they don't have parents at all." They frowned again, slightly. "There seem to be half as many street children in Skyport as there are children at all. But these children aren't ... stupid. They're only products of their environments. They assume that their parents are doing their best, and that they deserve everything they get, whether it's cigarette burns or a lack of dinner or outright abandonment. And when they grow up, that mindset follows them, to some degree or another, if they aren't persuaded out of it, and shown better.

"I'm not suggesting that Sam is a dumb bird in a cage. I'm suggesting that the conditioning is much the same, and people are complex, but not as complex as we would like to be. Sam has been caged, and his captor lavishes him with love and praise and affection. He believes that the only other option -- leaving the cage -- means a return to a lack of love. I don't blame him for that. I blame the fucking demon."

LINA

Goro didn't need to think about kids he'd run into in Skyport. He thought about Bakir. Defending Jasmilia, even after she'd fucking sold him to pirates.

"How would you know the difference, though," he said, "between that and--I don't know, a kid whose parents are real poor, maybe, and can't feed 'em good, so the kid's all scrawny, but their parents love them and keep them warm and safe? How can you tell?" Goro knew he could tell, but he wanted to hear Bee's reasoning.

IZZY

Bee tilted their head. "There's no comparison. Being loved leaves a mark on a person."

LINA

"It does?"

IZZY

They kept looking at him intently. "A child raised with love understands, viscerally, how to love. How to be kind. They may not have enough food, or sleep on a cold street, but they know what it means to feel safe. Cared for. To not be afraid. They're things that can be learned, later, but it's ... more difficult. A child can be well-fed and have a soft, warm place to sleep, and still go unloved, and struggle to care for themself -- to care for others -- to feel safe."

LINA

"I struggle to feel safe." Goro couldn't shut his damn mouth off again. "And I'm loved. I wasn't before, but I am now."

IZZY

"Then you're still learning," they said, and quietly, "Sam isn't. He hasn't been loved. He's still afraid."

LINA

"He's still learning too," Goro insisted.

IZZY

"Not from the demon."

LINA

Goro was gonna let that one slide for now. "Did you grow up loved?"

IZZY

"Yes," they said simply.

LINA

"Then how the fuck do you know what it's like to learn it real late, like him and me?"

IZZY

"I don't claim personal experience," they said. "Only years of missionary work, attempting to help people."

LINA

"A do-gooder," Goro said, without any apparent judgment.

IZZY

They shrugged.

LINA

"My ma's one of those." He frowned. "I should have her talk to Pride."

IZZY

"Hopefully she can offer some keen insights," they said.

LINA

"She always does," he said. Sounding borderline defensive, he realized, which really didn't make any sense. He was just... always defensive of Amari.

IZZY

"Has she met Sam?" Bee asked, openly curious.

LINA

"Nah. Why?"

IZZY

"Maybe she could help him where I failed."

LINA

Goro just frowned.

IZZY

Bee drank their coffee. It wasn't steaming hot anymore; the two of them had been talking for quite some time.

LINA

"Well." Goro stood up. "Nice meeting ya? I guess." He hesitated. "I'm Goro, by the way. If you need to ask after me."

IZZY

They smiled faintly. "Oh. Thank you."

[END]