1739 - Justice

Versailles.

Two men enter a room.  One is old, one is older.  One is fair, the other dark.  One is furious, one is calm.  Both are dead.

"Did you see what he did?" the angry one exclaimed, barely in check, coming dangerously close to raising his voice.  He pointed a finger at a servant in the corner, the young ghoul cowering in fear of him behind her maid's  uniform.  "Bring me a drink, now."  She nodded quickly and fled the room to fulfill his wish.

Slowly, almost delicately but for the power in him, the even older man sat down in one of the chairs of the salon.  Gingerly, finger by finger, he began to remove his gloves.  Ponderously, he turned to look at the ancilla before him.

They earn a few centuries and they think they know everything.

Pacing slightly, the younger had removed his own gloves and discarded them on the table.  The ghoul returned with the requested goblet, filled with something warm, rich, and red, on a silver tray.  As soon as he had taken it she scurried from the room once more before he had a chance to berate her somehow for whatever had apparently befallen him.

"In the Salon d'Hercule, no less," he said, shaking his head with incredulity.  "At the inauguration of the new Elysium he had the audacity to disgrace us all in the King's own palace.  What he could've done if he'd been seen..."

The elder, his face like marble, raised an eyebrow.  Perhaps all was not lost.  "So you do understand the larger implications, then?"

That stopped the younger in his tracks, at least.

"You understand that there is a bigger problem here?  Something more potentially damaging than just what was done to your pride?"

The younger stiffened at that.  "He used his powers on me!  Made me flee from him!  Right in front of everyone!"

The elder shook his head and gave a weary sigh.  "You're looking at this all wrong."

The younger took another drink from his glass and set it down.  Exasperated, he collapsed into a nearby chaise.  "I'll have his head for this.  Or at least his lands.  Something."

"Do you want his head?"

Finally that gave him real pause.  Uncertain what to say, suddenly wary of looking foolish (yes, only just now), he considered his words.  "No..." he said, "...Obviously not that."

The elder nodded.  "I should think not.  But do you see the crime here?"

"He made them laugh at me.  He embarrassed a member of the First Estate in open court."

"And as any harpy will tell you, that is no crime.  If you scheme and study him for a hundred years the most you will achieve is some smattering of prestation or territory, and only then if you manage to sway those arbiters of social order to your side.  All that work, and for what?  A pittance of a settlement?"

This time the younger held his tongue (finally).  What had started as a peevish rant had become a lesson, and he was determined to learn.

"You spend your nights in the gathering of information, which is a worthy pursuit, but that information is worthless if you cannot put it in the larger context.  Yes, he made you look foolish.  But there is a bigger issue here.  In the palace of the King of France, in an Elysium, with mortals only just down the hall, he broke the Masquerade."

The younger man perked up, the lesson beginning to come clear.

"To pursue a personal vendetta," the elder continued, picking up a book to make it clear that he planned to end soon, "Is an act of ego.  It is an act of revenge.  You are Invictus, Unconquered, of the First Estate.  Revenge is secondary to the Traditions, first and foremost the Masquerade.  We are its defenders and keepers in all things.  When such a crime has been committed, we must seek justice.  Not revenge."

275 years later, in a very different place, those words sounded once more through Lord Quinn's ears.  Only this time, he heard them come from his own lips.  So strange.