"You're awake," I say aloud. Congratulations, I withhold.
"Where are we?" Once again I observe that the boy's none too bright.
"Prison, where else? More a dungeon, but it's really all the same." I can't say as I'm feeling all that charitable towards this ignorant urchin, so I can't help a certain surge of malicious glee when he trips over the body of some poor sod left to rot down here. Still, that's conduct unbecoming a leading man, so I offer some words of small comfort. "Relax, it's just a corpse. Jump at every little thing down here and you'll wear yourself out." Very small comfort.
I cover my amusement at his expression with a yawn and continue, "It's not even a proper dungeon. They just sealed off the bottom level of the fortress. Take a look around. We're not the first they've thrown down here."
"Where's Fran?"
Finally, a question with some merit; I give it the consideration it deserves. "She's off trying to find us a way out." I don't volunteer what she said before she left, however. Fortunately, neither does he ask.
Rather, he moves as if to explore. Feeling as if I should at least offer a token attempt of common sense, I say, "Remember what curiosity killed. Just a friendly word of advice." Thinking that a boy raised in a desert clime might have a sense of practicality about him, I also wave my waterskin, saying, "This is all the water we've got. I'd save my strength if I were you." Unsurprisingly, he is undeterred.
It's not my place to tackle the boy, to hold him in safety until Fran returns with whatever word she might carry. Once again, Fran's parting words to me as she left me to my watch over the unconscious child echo in my ears. Curse her, but she's right. I can't keep the lad from mischief, I can only watch and wait, and hope sense prevails. I know from experience, though, that it very rarely does.
Sure enough, before long I hear a clamour in the halls of a foolish hume that interfered with the resident muscle and will be receiving his scheduled and just beating forthwith. Damn Fran. She was completely correct and she'll never let me live it down. Damn Fran, damn this dungeon, and damn myself for a fool.
I follow the trail of gossip. It leads to a ledge overlooking a dusty pit. The boy is curled in a heap at one side and three seeqs are advancing on him. They gabble amongst themselves as they approach, and I catch something about a stinking hume. Once more, Fran's words replay in my mind, her slight smirk scraping against my memory with all the gentleness of a sandstorm. Damn, damn, damn!
"Something stinks in here all right," someone says, and I'm only slightly surprised to discover that it is me. I eye the boy as I continue, "I've changed my mind. This is no dungeon, it's a sty."
That's it. The words have been uttered, and I'm now called upon to perform. The leading man can't back away, and so I'm trapped. All I can do is curse internally and put on the best show possible for the audience. Angry and incredulous shouts rise up, and I give the only response I can, now. I spit disdainfully, dramatically, and enunciate clearly. "I said you're the one that stinks, Hamshanks. Hear me now?"
The moment carries me, so I flow with it, vaulting down into the pit, leaping to the rescue as a leading man must do, Fran's precise tones mocking me all the while, You would preserve Vaan's innocence?
"You all right, Vaan?"
I see in him much that you once were.
The boy—Vaan—nodded, bruised, but not beaten.
Do you wish to regain your own innocence—
Damn you, Fran, I growl to myself.
—or do you wish to see, had circumstances differed, what you might have been?
Fran's always right.
