A Man to Man Talk

[Glenn]

A year ago, Catch had been brought to his destination blindfolded.

That was not necessary this year. This year, with a carefully perched (and surprisingly well trained parrot), the Jacob brothers had arrived to where Catch, his goat, and his piglet had been staying at the Dagger. If he wasn't there, they'd wait. When he was, they handed over the parrot and informed him to go back out the kitchen door and towards the lake.

If he did, with or without the parrot, he would find a moderate one room shack. In the shack would be two chairs, a table (his table), and a rather ramshackle bed. In one of the chairs would be Glenn Burnie waiting. Patiently.

[catch]

"It's n, n-n-not that I haven't wanted you," Catch whispers to the birdling, as it perched on his shoulder, a strange tourist of red and green and blue, colorful in a colorless place. It hiddles close to him, for Catch is hot, fever-hot, and thus comforting; it drags a lock of hair through it's beak, and sighs a muttering 'Temperance' under it's breath, as if to say that Catch is, somehow, forgiven, without needing explanation.

Catch needed to give it, and so he took a deep breath, but it was stopped by the sight of a shack, a little one, one he had not seen before, growing out of the Tavern-grounds like a cancerous polyp. Like the hoglet, left as a gift, this was not something he could quite believe; he looked at it, and glanced nervously about him. Glenn-stink. There was Glenn-stink all over it, and Catch did a slow, careful pacing about the structure, feeling it with rough hand-pads, and hardly daring to breathe. He comes to the door. He hesitates.

But he goes in, despite the strange, subtle horror he felt, an emotion he could not explain. It is anxiety, but he does not know it. And, within? It is Ser Glenn, as promised; it is a familiar, wonderful tables, it is chairs, it is a bed. The parrot is not so cold, here, and it does not press so ticklishly against Catch's throat, but the addled man holds it here, anyway, his fingers loose and gentle as they nibble at downy neck-feathers. He stares at Glenn, and says nothing. He wonders.

"... Hello, Ser G-g-glenn," he will say, finally, closing carefully the door, and shuffling further into the shack.

[Glenn]

Catch is one to spot life in all of its forms. There is a blanket upon the ground, large enough for goat and piglet, yes, but also with a basket as well. "Your birthday's come and gone, Catch." Was that not a proper greeting? Apparently the Governor was unaware. "I will be be honest with you," and here, there is a smile upon his face. "That's your gift today, Catch, my honesty. A bit belated. Perhaps not what you wanted, but a gift nonetheless. Do be careful with your questions, accordingly."

He opened his arms outwards. "This is yours, and it is a gift, of sorts, but it's also a solution. Dulcie did not like you keeping animals at the Dagger. There are rats, a family of rats, the babies only a few weeks old, in that basket. She was to use them to lure you out, somewhere else, anywhere else, so that her Dagger could stay clean and without disruption again. This is not due to any dislike of you. It is just something she had to do. She wanted to give you the rats to make up for it. I suggested this instead. A home for you nearby the Dagger and Dulcie. A place where you and your animals could live. I know we've tried this before," and weren't the Jacob brothers a wonderful reminder of that. "And that didn't work out. So we'll try this now, and see if this does. Dulcie and I would both be glad if it would."

So many words, but that was the Governor and Catch had to expect it right from the start. "I have something I'd like to talk to you about, but before we begin, do you have any questions?"

[catch]

His. A little home, for his. So that he had time to hink, Catch peers at the basket, imagining the hissing and writhing within, the Rat King, sworn enemy of the Queen of Cats, and he wanders along that worm-path so that he does not hear most of what Glenn says, aside from the fact that this place was to be his. His alone.

Catch swallows, and he licks his lips, and blinks to bring himself back to Now; he shall sit, slowly, the intricately-carved chair groaning beneath his stunned weight. Birthdays and Puppet-shows, and catch looks about, nervous for any Stages and Puppets, but he sees none. Just Glenn.

"It. It is a g-g-grand little p-p-p-place," he shall say, slowly. "I. I am sorry. I n-n-never wanted Miss Dulcie c-c-c-cross -" His eyes shine with sudden, threatening tears, and he wipes them quickly away in bird-fluff. "C-c-could I. Could I still chop wood f-f-for her? Please?" he says it with the desperation of a dying man. He was good at chopping wood; his eyes shatter at the thought that his job shall be given to another. This is his only question. It was the only one that mattered, like many things, at this moment.

[Glenn]

Reassuring tones, but honest ones. "She was more cross with me for getting you the goat. We worked together and came up with this solution." It was a relatively small cost, especially if it could better keep Catch content and contained, even more so if it kept Dulcie from trying to commit gubernatoricide. That list was far too long as it was. "Therefore, of course you can continue to do whatever job she has for you."

An easy question easily answered. There were no puppets. No Maxwell and Mary. No Rhaena. The parrot was there but only because the Jacob brothers had brought it for him. Nothing like last year at all. Just Glenn, sitting. Even the rats in the corner were not truly his fault.

"As I said, if this doesn't work out, she may be cross." Honesty. Catch's gift." If that's it, then," pleasant, smiling calmly. "I'd like to talk about this last year."

[catch]

Glenn could tell him anything, now. Catch straightens in his chair, and he clamps down on his tears, he whispers the reassurance to himself. He can do his job. He can do a purpose, and so long as he is good - so long as he stays in here, in his little house - he can continue.

"I'll. I'll b-b-bring Mortimer and, and my Pig here. And I'll let th-th-the, the cats know. I p-p-promise, Ser," he shall say, fervent. He will keep it. He will not be a promise-breaker, not like with the Sky Lady, the thought still a piercing ache in his heart.

Then. Then, they must speak about the year, and Catch says nothing, but sits in his small chair like an awkward school-boy, his hands clasped in nervous moisture between his knees, his eyes wide on the dim Glenn-form. He could not judge time; he wasn't as clever as Ser Glenn. he would wait to hear his guilts and failures and small victories with breath held.

[Glenn]

"You see," and he was smiling. Of course he was smiling. Glenn and Catch, celebrating the madman's birthday, a day of honesty, even if the creation of the shack had pushed it back a bit. People wondered why Catch was coddled so, why he was given gifts and animals, why he was tolerated. Cinnabar Calomel knew. Maxwell knew. The Governor knew as well. "it was a year where I had hoped that you'd grow, Catch, and honestly, you couldn't start from a worse place.

"You began the year by attacking Treadwell and kidnapping a baby." He'd just leave that out there for a while, let Catch digest it. Usually, he'd keep talking, would roll right over Catch and nothing would get accomplished. Today, today he left it out there to rot.

[catch]

And it was uncomfortable, because it was a Change, and Catch did not handle Change, even if he was an agent, a source. He was prepared to let Ser Glenn speak, was prepared to wander and do his best not to wander and fail once more, over and over again, snapping back to the conversation at which would be, hopefully, the correct times. Times he was expected to respond. But this, this festered, and it boiled; Catch begins to fidget, the parrot left to explore the beams of the little cottage, his muscles jerking about in subtle, palsy ways.

He waits, but nothing more comes, and he must think about these things. Must think about the Fat Man, and he hated thinking about him at all, but even worse was the thought of little Rhin, warm and fat in his arms, laughing, stolen - oh, he had not meant to steal! Only, Andre had frightened him - a precious thing. Catch's breath rattles behind his teeth, like old bones, and finally, he can stand it no longer, but squeaks out.

"B-b-but. I. I g-g-got better, didn't I?" he asks, as if this Past-Him was a different person, the hero of another tale, and Glenn told him only children's stories. "I. I b-b-became a, a Good Citizen."

[Glenn]

"That, Catch, is something you can tell me. Have you gotten better? I think so. But you're getting older, after all. You just had another birthday. We can't treat you like a child forever, and nor would you want us to. I'm sure you've had many birthdays now, Catch. How many winters have you seen?" An elbow went down upon the table, and Burnie leaned forward, his head falling beside it, looking at the scarred man, the large man, sideways. "I'm tired. You get a pig and I wonder who gave it to you. I wonder if it's a trick or a trap or a plot. It's frustrating to have thoughts like that on my mind, Catch. I can't control other people. I can't. If they would harm you or use you for ill, what am I to do?"

A long silence, another long one, as Glenn simply stared askew. "So I wonder this. You know it is wrong to attack Treadwell. you know it is wrong to take a baby. Why are these things wrong? That's what I need you to tell me. I need you to explain to me the why of them."

[catch]

Older. Older, older, olderolderolder, and Catch loses the rest of Glenn's words, for a time, his hands almost injuring themselves in the unwinding, thick fingers that do not know any better lifted up to touch his own face, to feel, gripped in the vision of Grawnya, his own face a seam of wrinkles and sagging, rotting flesh, the feel of blood coagulating, thickening in his arteries and veins, the cry of a heart that beats slower and ever-slower, until it might stop altogether. It could happen. What if it did? What if his body failed him?

"... so I wonder this..."

That is where he comes back, where he blinks, abruptly, and pulls his hands from his face as if they are hot irons, knotting together once more, and he does his best to appear studious, to be a Good Citizen, to hide the guilt that ducked his head a little in a sheepish gesture. Ser Glenn is a creature of Question, when he was not a creature of Maggots, and he asks one, now, and Catch swallows thickly, lips parting to allow a tongue and words.

"To. T-t-to attack the, the F-fat Man is. Is Bad. Because." Just like a schoolboy, he must think; he must find his answer, one that is neither too truthful or too full of lies, and he stares at Glenn all the while, unable to hide none of this, his face as clear and anxious as books. "... he is a horrible, fat, many-mouthed th-th-thing, but he. He hasn't... eaten... anyone. Yet?" A question for a question, hoping he has done well, hoping Ser Glenn shall accept it.

The other, he knew. He knew very well, and he blurts it out before Glenn could find fault with Treadwell's answer. "And. It is wrong to steal. It is wrong, and it is rude. And. And I d-d-d-didn't mean to, but it happened, and. And I am v-v-very, very sorry."

[Glenn]

Catch was amiable. How long had he been this way? There was reason to believe that he was tricked in that ancient city, that he was duped, perhaps by well-meaning people, perhaps by those who would use and victimize him. Was there any question that he saw such parallels in Myrken, especially the golden Myrken that Glenn so wished to create? If he was that friendly, that easy to love in years past, in centuries past, how many friends had Catch made over the years? How many had he lost? How many had he destroyed?

"This is how we raise our children, Catch." A calm, kind smile. No tapping. No grinning or smirking. No coldness in his eyes. Nice and calm. Pleasant but not overbearing. "We tell them something is wrong because it is wrong. We force that thought into their head. We punish them. It's how I was raised, punished so often." Too many words. He knew it, too, but it was so hard to stop the tide when it began to storm and rage. So he would raise a hand and he would pause. "It is how we treat children Catch, but you are no child."

Another year, another tick on a page that ran for a hundred yards. "We've told you something is bad or wrong but we haven't worked out the why with you. That is our oversight, and I'm sorry for it. Treadwell is a human being like any of us. He has feelings. He has wants and desires. He has a family, Catch. Once he had parents, but he's old now and they're dead but he does have a wife, children. He has friends. He has a job that's important. People rely upon him and people take joy in the toys he creates. If you hurt him, if you kill him, how do all of those people feel?"

[catch]

How do all those people feel? Quite before he can stop himself, Catch's mouth opens, and he the words rush out of him, said without seeming-thought, though, in truth, he has agonized over this fact for months - months.


"D-d-do th-they know wh-what a horrible creature he is, Ser Glenn?"

And then he grimaces, because he knows this is the wrong answer; he can grasp, dimly, what Glenn is trying to do. Why, of course he has a wife, and children, and those he would call friend. But they didn't know. They didn't know what a terrifying Thing the Fat Man was, and he didn't want Ser Glenn to say that he is a child, or that he must learn as children do, by rote, even if that has been his life - as much of his life as he could remember.

Catch licks his lips, and he kneads the pit of his palm, where Solena had once driven a knife.

"It's n-n-not a mad-thing, Ser Glenn," he says, almost piteously. "It. It's r-r-really not. C-cloud-hair - I m-m-mean, Zilliah knows, t-t-too. He knows wh-what he really is. He. He serves it, he loves it, and, and I. Well. He, he would b-b-b-be sad if I, if I p-p-p-put it down a hole. And I know it's n-n-not the, the same Fat Man. Ser Aleks saw it!"

In his rambling, Catch remembers, and he grasps that horror-filled night with both hands, gripping over nothing on the air, straightening with fervor and delight. Yes. Ser Glenn respected Ser Aleks, and Aleks was a witness, and he would explain, so much better than Catch could.

"I, I won't hurt him, Ser, n-n-not without your saying, b-b-but ask Ser Aleks - he'll t-t-t-tell you, it's n-n-not a madness, it's real."

[Glenn]

Glenn listened. He really listened. There were reasons to be suspicious, after all. Many. Rumors and whispers. Even if there weren't, Catch was rarely so adamant about something and... well, no, that wouldn't really have mattered, but it was still useful in this. He listened and then he spoke.

"Catch. Let's say that's all true, and I'm not saying it isn't. He's mad, a monster. He wants to possess everything. He can't help himself. He'll leave destruction and entropy in his wake." A long pause, letting those things sink in, probably as the man before him nodded along. "I've heard that about you, Catch. But you try, just as Treadwell does. You have people who care about you just as he does. You try to be a good citizen, just as he does. And thus I try to help him, just as I do you. I try to contain his worst excesses. I try to keep Myrken safe from him but maximize his happiness as well."

Then, another long, slow pause. A stare, focused. He wouldn't move on if Catch didn't understand. "The difference between you and he is this. He has not stabbed you. He has not stolen any babies. It may be because he is old and doddering. It may be because his impulses lean in a more benign direction, but he is able to control himself and does not harm anyone. Otherwise, I would be having this talk with he." The Governor would smile, so long as Catch had not run out screaming or swung at him by now. "That said, I think you will understand this talk better than he would have."

[catch]

Catch listens, too, and he does nod, and - as Glenn comes to the end of it - he swallows, a bitter swallow, small against the tide. Like everything with Ser Glenn, it is logic. The parallels are there, and spoken in such a way that even a babe could understand, and there is Catch's bitterness. Treadwell has not done those things that Glenn knows of. Perhaps there could be a way to change that. Later.

"Yes, Ser," he shall say, unable to meet the intensity of the Governor's eyes; he gazes, studious and proper, down at his hands, willing them to be still. He misses the smile, but he looks up at his last words, wondering at them. Would the Fat Man, really, not understand? It was a confidence.

"I'll. I'll d-d-d-do as. As you say." Proper. Like a Good Citizen.

[Glenn]

"No."

Things had been going so well too, hadn't they? Surely this talk was almost over. Catch listened. Catch agreed. It was all simple, straightforward, in the end. Logic. Catch understood it enough to resent it. He understood it enough to agree, to promise not to do such things again.

Yet here was Glenn Burnie unsatisfied.

"It's not about what I say, Catch. Not today. That's not why I'm here. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I don't want you cowering. I don't want you saying what I want to hear. I want you to understand. I want you to know why people feel like they do. I want you to know why the rules are what they are, the point of it. There are easy answers Catch, but you are worth more than that. You are worth more than being confined by rules you don't understand, yet we all must be so confined. So we'll work through it, one bit at a time, until you understand, you and me together. I've cleared off my day for you, Catch."