ataraxion | voice

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voice

[...there's a second of white noise, because-- well, this is weird. It's like online chatrooms, which Mitchell has never been keen on, to say the least. One on one communication hasn't been so bad--better, actually, considering he's been mostly holed up in his room, avoiding human/werewolf contact. But, right--necessity--]

If people are going t' go through those tubes and get onto that other ship, do their phones keep on working? These devices, I mean. Do they go that far? If they do, and if this can be heard over there, I'm making a request. Space pirates had to have cigarettes on them, yeah, and I'm in need of cigarettes. Sanctioned looting can include a bit of personal stuff, yeah-- and it's sort of a, a desperate need. Please and thanks in advance.

[Like very desperate. Like the more he talks about it, the more strained his voice goes. Vampires with nicotine addictions, it's a hard life. A pause, then, he might finish there--but instead he sucks in a breath. Right. Normal.]

Actually, there's a lot of questions on how things work around here, and not all of it is out of our control. Like--so there's a cast of, what, a hundred plus of us, and we have t' trade for things that we need, if someone else has got them. But if you don't have anything t' trade, is it just-- begging for it? Hoping for a bit of Christian charity? Every man for himself? Not that I'd be much surprised by that one, given the... [Maybe it's better not to finish that one, in light of recent events, but given his low faith in humanity, and given his own recent exploints, none this is really all that surprising. So, wry once more:] ...given the situation.

[An awkward pause.]

Anyways. Thanks again.

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[He doesn't ask.]

And say you were asked to stand in front of a judge and argue for them to be punished. Do you think it's particularly fair to them to stand up there and allow yourself to speak from that place of hatred? Or would you sooner rely on evidence? Logic? Reason?

And d'you think it's always that easy? Logic, and reason--that's grey thinking. Evidence, that speaks for itself.

What there is, is what's been done. What's been done t' people, and their families--their lives--and what they've done t' you. There's not always a judge in a courtroom. There's a judgement, but it doesn't go like you're saying. And it shouldn't. Not for some things.

Edited 2013-05-07 17:26 (UTC)

[And he hesitates. This conversation is suddenly straying rather too close to...certain topics...for his comfort.]

If there is no judge, then it is not proper judgment. Judgment must always be rendered by a disinterested third party with wisdom and a thorough knowledge of law, after being presented with two well-argued sides. It must be clean and civilized.

Crime isn't civil. Why should its judgement be civil? Why should its punishments?

[And likewise, this is suddenly a conversation he does not want to be having, not now, and not here. How the hell did they even get here? Mitchell rubs a hand over his eyes, with a sharp sigh.]

That's-- discussing philosophy, that's a first clear sign of boredom. Or madness. Space gets t' you faster than you'd think.

[As if that's going to explain all of that away! It's a weak attempt, but he's got to say something.]

[But Edgeworth isn't one to let something like this out of his teeth. It might make him uncomfortable, but he doesn't back off.]

So what do you suggest as an alternative, then? Mob justice? Tearing wrongdoers to pieces? Or inflicting back on them precisely what they did to others? Would that be a solution? Whom would we ask to dirty their hands with that?

[The ironic specificity of that phrasing--tear them to pieces-that's not lost on Mitchell, and his mouth tightens a little. A train car, smeared with the blood of twenty people. Torn to pieces.]

I don't know.

[Clipped, short. He's done talking about this. Inflict it back on him, maybe that's the answer. Take him to the train car and show him what he's done, and force him to admit it, and then send him back. Give him a destiny he can't avoid.]

It's a nice thought.

[Edgeworth's voice gentles, at least. He thinks that Mitchell is on the other side of the equation. A wronged party. Someone who's lost someone.]

But justice is retribution. It's not revenge. We don't enjoy it; we do not like to kill, to hurt, any one of us. So it has to be a strictly calibrated thing - a punishment to fit the crime, to cause all to fear being caught without straying into cruelty.

Even if we might want to cause those who have done harm to truly suffer, we cannot, because that will leave us worse for it. It will rob us of that which we discussed before: humanity. Mercy. Decency. So instead, it must be civilized, and cool-headed, because when we go to excess because we want to that is when we do it because we enjoy it. And that is when we are no longer just; that is when we are murderers ourselves.

[But Mitchell is both the victim and the murderer. He killed because they killed, but he would have killed anyways, because there is a part of him--a part that is not so deep, an ugly dark seething part that likes exactly that: to kill, to hurt, to taste fear mingled with blood. That's what power tastes like.

And he can wear a mask, he can construct stability, he can pretend to be human and give up blood and live on the straight and narrow, but he will always fall, because that dark part is not his condition, but something completely and utterly him. I could see it in you, Herrick said, and he was not wrong. He's gone beyond excess, so that even his justice was a murder, and he fucking loved it. Because he isn't the only monster, is he. There are monsters wearing human faces who are really human, with souls nearly as black as his.

There is a long silence, then, in answer to Edgeworth.]

And what if your criminal is a monster?

I'm of the opinion that most criminals are.

[That's said harshly, savagely; he's not exaggerating. But a moment passes, and the surge of anger fades; then he shakes his head, and he changes his answer to something more civilized.]

Then so be it. That doesn't change anything about what I said. Indeed, it merely underlines it: if we allow ourselves to be swayed by horror or fury at the work of a true monster, then again, we allow ourselves to be moved by cruelty. And when cruelty and personal will enter into it, then that is killing because we want to.

So you're saying-- be more human than the monster. But it doesn't work that way. What you're sayin', that's the nice thought. It's all nice words, but when it comes down to it, people want their vengeance. The monsters do too. And you can't blame them.

[It's all getting muddled. Humans judging monsters, monsters judging humans-- it's like the warehouse again, with Kemp against the wall, and George in his ear: They're monsters! Not us! Where does it end, he's asked that so many times, and there's never an answer.]

If someone killed the person you loved most--just wiped them out--you're tellin' me you'd be civil. What does that mean? What punishment fits that crime?

The man who killed the person I loved the most -

[His voice breaks for a single moment; he hates himself in that moment. He doesn't know why he's saying this - why he's telling this man, with his smoking habit, who works some dead-end job, who's deliberately difficult when he speaks, something that he hasn't even told Jenna -

Because he speaks from experience. Because he knows of the desire for vengeance.]

Lived within fifty miles of me, back home. His address was on file with the DA's office. [Though it wasn't Yogi, in the end - he knows that know. He's dreamed enough about it - the memories have come back to him enough - that he knows that it wasn't Yogi at all, that day.

Not a lie, though, is it? His father's killer's address was indeed on file. It was just listed in the prosecutors' file; that was all.]

I didn't ever go down there. I didn't even look to see what the address was.

[He's not surprised, really. He's been thinking of himself--only himself--through this whole conversation, and it's a conversation that should end now. It should have ended ten minutes ago--five minutes ago--but it's still going, and he keeps prolonging it, with a grim curiosity, the same way he'd press his thumb against a bruise, just to see, to see how long that dull pain lasts before it fades. How long can this last.

But he's not surprised that this lawyer's got some death in his past. Some murder. Who doesn't? Even in worlds without vampires, without that plague, without monsters, there's still evil, it's just the human evil.

And it's that same grim curiosity that has him press:]

And why didn't you.

[Because he knows what he would have done.]

For exactly the reasons I've been detailing to this point.

[It's miserably painful. Speaking of this - in conversation, on an unencrypted feed, where someone might hear - it's agonizing. But he's uttered the words already, hasn't heard any clucks or coos of condolence - he's pushed past the worst of it, the initial admission. Now he can retreat back into logic. Coolly analytical self-reflection.]

Because that's not what's done. He slipped through the cracks and escaped the weight of justice. I never forgot that, but only because I needed to remember it in order to remember that I needed to work hard and fairly to ensure that someone else did not suffer the same thing. To ensure that justice was done for all people thereafter. But hatred? Wringing out vengeance with my bare hands? That would make me into someone very like him.

[He laughs at that--short, not amused. He escaped. But he didn't escape, because there's always guilt--and the judgement that comes after that.]

And what if you saw him today?

I wouldn't even know his face.

[A bit quietly.]

It's been twelve years. I wouldn't even recognize him.

But if he introduced himself, and came up and reminded me of what he had done, then I would do nothing.

[He laughs, again, short and sharp.]

Then you're an idiot. He gets away with it, and he's out there, in the world--and who's to say he's not going t' do something like it again. Because he will.

[He's thinking of himself, the monster; he's thinking of Kemp--of all of the vampires that he's known, Herrick and all his followers--]

And you'd let him walk away.

And that will be on my conscience.

[He bites that out miserably - but there's no doubt in his mind.]

I already ruined the chance to put him away once. But if he does it again, I will be there, and the trial will be perfect. If he steps out of line, I'll punish him personally.

[And when he hears that--I'll punish him personally--that's the part that he was waiting for. Vengeance, no matter what name you call it or how you dress it up. That means something deeper than courtrooms and trials, and Mitchell smiles bleakly.]

I hope you do.

[And he means that. Because everyone deserves their revenge, and everyone needs their punishment.]

[A pause, and then quietly:]

I hope I don't. I don't want my satisfaction to come because someone else was hurt.

[He huffs a laugh, sharp--it's more of an inhalation than a laugh, honestly.]

Yeah. Well. When you're facin' him down, we'll see if you say the same. And if it is, then you're a better man than most.

[A pause. He feels ill, because in that moment, he really thinks about it. If he faced down Yogi - if he looked him in the eye -

The point is moot, Miles. You were always the one at fault. If anything, he's your victim.

The tightness in his throat makes his reply just a bit too urgent.]

That's - That is not true. Few people would claim revenge.

[He doesn't miss that urgency--and, bleakly, it amuses him. Because that's humanity: confessing their goodness even as their hands are busy with the bad. Just as evil and just as cruel when they choose to be--choose, they get to choose to be monsters, to make their revenge bloody or cold.]

And are you sure of that?

I am.

[He shakes his head.]

Without question. After all, how many slights are committed in a day? And how often do people seek revenge for them? Rarely or never. It is only those who already have criminal minds who commit any such crimes.

Oh, that's not true. You think all revenge is big and bloody? It's not. There's a thousand tiny revenges that go on every day--there's a thousand monsters out there, but they're monsters in small ways. They don't go out and tear a man t' pieces, but they'll cut at him every day, and they'll think themselves justified in it--and maybe they are. And those small things, they're not so bad, yeah? Except every little revenge, it chips away at you.

And if you gave those same people a chance--one free chance, if they knew they couldn't be touched afterwards--if you put the gun in their hands and said do it, if you left that man's front door unlocked and told them where he'd hidden his money--they'd rob him blind, they'd shoot him, they'd take what they wanted.

Edited 2013-05-08 18:18 (UTC)

[He looks up. There's no uncertainty here; this he believes with every ounce of his being.]

That's not remotely true.

voice

[voice] HAHAHAHA like I would set foot on a plane

[voice] but how will i see you if you don't set foot on planes

[voice] you'll have to come to me I suppose /flutters lashes

[voice] S I G H

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