Ziyal watched him while he talked with one of his customers. He hadn't seen her yet… or perhaps he had, and just pretended he hadn't, you never knew with Garak. She smiled, lost in thought, and moved back behind the antique shop's colored glass windows that were hiding her from his eyes. It was a game. It had started like that when they had met in the holosuite and he had brought a weapon. Oh, she had no doubt that he would have used it should it have been necessary. The thing was, they both had known that wouldn't be the case. She liked this game. It made her heart beat faster and let her breathe so much easier. For some unfathomable reason she felt liberated by Garak's presence. How ironic that was. She, the hybrid, outcast in both of her worlds, with a past that evoked nothing but pity and disgust, found freedom in the company of a man who was as much a pariah as she was. Although a superficial observer might think that was the only thing they had in common.
Why would she, the innocent, the victim, feel free in the company of someone who was her antithesis? Someone who relished in his guilt, no matter how you looked at it? Perpetrator. And he would never admit, never believe that he was wrong, because he was convinced he wasn't. That had made him the most honest man she had ever met. How that would amuse him, should she ever tell him.
However, Ziyal already knew she would never do that. She and Garak did not have to speak words. Spoken words were nothing but charade, part of the game, and they both knew it. The truth was evident for them. Neither of them said it, but they would never deny it. They were both actors, pantomimes, who danced their intricate dance with each other, feeling both amusement and contempt when observing the ignorance of the people surrounding them.
The first time she had seen him, she had immediately known that he was like her. No-one understood that. No-one, except for the one in whose eyes the light of her recognition had found its reflection. Recognition, and contempt towards all those who wore their masks unaware. What use were lies, if you were lying to yourself? Such weapon turned against its master, and who could call himself master of lies, if not Garak? He was an artist who looked down on anyone who mangled his art with amateurish incompetence, and in this he had Ziyal's admiration and respect. Feelings he returned, if only because she saw. How could she not? Ziyal, who had crawled through a jungle of half-truths and intrigues like a paspa snake, up and up until she escaped, filthy, but alive. Surviving, she shared Garak's disgust. Perhaps it was arrogance. Perhaps it was the Cardassian stain, to believe so much in the survival of the fittest. But if that was the truth, why did so many others share this arrogance?
The Bajorans, who thought themselves superior in their martyrdom. The Federation, who thought it was superior having the moral high ground. Indeed, who didn't think himself for some reason superior to another? Who did not believe in the depths of his soul that he had the right to judge others, the right to divide the world into groups and look down on those who did not meet his standards? Such was a person she had yet to meet. Even those who had vowed to serve others did it with the conviction that they possessed wisdom. Or enlightenment. Or something. If you called it enlightenment, or principles, or inherent superiority, in the end it was the same thing: the mind which thought itself the center of the universe, the benchmark to measure each and every creature and molecule around it. Judgment. She did not hold it against them. What disgusted her was hypocrisy.
'What do you want with this man?' Kira Nerys had said. 'He is dangerous. A disgusting, evil man. He will twist you, taint you with his very existence. Stay away from him. You will only get hurt.'
Ziyal had been very tempted to scream at her. Demand an answer to the question of how she could dare to judge when her hands were not clean, either. Scream into her face how much she had already been hurt, again and again, and that she preferred an open knife to the one that hid behind a friendly smile. But she didn't, because she knew Nerys would not understand. Nerys did not want to understand. Nerys, who had done so much for Ziyal and still did. It would have been impolite and ungrateful to say the truth, even indirectly. The truth, in which there was Nerys' bloody past, both of their pasts, and hypocrisy, and murder and death, which stayed murder and death, no matter what the dead and the murderers were called. Thus, Ziyal stayed silent. And the band around her chest that stole her breath tightened a little bit more.
She watched as Garak's hands moved over the fabric of the suit atop his customer's chest, smoothing out wrinkles and straightening it. He was always so expressive with his hands. Without hearing it she knew that in this moment, meaningless stories fell from his lips, about tholian silk perhaps, about traders and another customer… a scintillating web. His customer enjoyed it, thrived on the attention, and thought himself for a brief moment the center of another's universe, even if it was only a tailor. Even though he knew it was only a fleeting illusion.
Like Scheherazade, she thought. Jake Sisko had lent her this book, One Thousand and One Nights. She had loved it instantly. She had admired Scheherazade. She had to admit, a bit embarrassed, that she had not thought humans capable of writing such a book. Not because of the stories, although she liked those. Because of Scheherazade, and the king, and the game between them that was so obvious.
'You don't know who he is,' her father had said. 'He is a man without conscience. He will use you, like… like everyone who crosses his path. It's what he does to people. They are only means to an end for him, game pieces. He killed your grandfather. He will pretend to desire you, just to hurt me. Do you really want to be his instrument of revenge?'
It had taken all of Ziyal's self-control to not outright tell him how much it disgusted her that he thought everything in the world revolved around him. Oh, she knew Garak had enjoyed it to hurt Dukat. What her father did not realize was that she did not care. She did not care what little war the two were waging. For Garak, it was just another game. For her father, it was deadly serious. She did not care. She did not care that Garak had killed her grandfather, a man she had never met. Just as she did not care what her father had done in his past… and oh, what had he done! How could he take it for granted that she forgave him and judged others?
She had been small, but she remembered how much her mother had loved him. She had believed in him, and he had sent her away. For her own safety. What a joke that was. Her mother had died for her belief. Ziyal, despite her knowledge of the truth, lived. He was her father and she loved him, but that did not change what she knew. That did not change what he was. He, who had sentenced hundreds of people to death who were also her people. Her mother's people, whom he still claimed to love. People he called his children, unruly children that he killed to teach them a lesson. In his mind, that made sense. In Ziyal's, it didn't. And yet, she stayed silent. Because she loved him, and because she knew that her words would change nothing, would only hurt someone she loved. And sometimes, it felt as if she was suffocating and her heart stopped beating.
Lub-dub, lub-dub. And then nothing.
Ziyal watched as Garak smiled at the Bajoran in front of him and took a deep breath. A paspa snake, crawling upwards in the darkness until she saw light. That was her. Tenacious.
She entered the shop in the same moment the Bajoran left. Garak looked up and smiled at her.
'Why, hello there, Miss Tora. What a delightful surprise. How may this humble tailor serve you today?'
She smiled back. 'I don't know, Elim. Is there something of interest for me here?'
With the sparkle in his eyes she could feel her heartbeat. She felt alive. That was her truth. The supreme truth. Nerys, her father, who ever had whatever to say, it did not matter. All they had to say were words, and what were words, but charades? Henceforth she chose her own lies. In that way she would know at least one thing at the end of the day… that she had been free.