A/N: For dgray-contest on LJ, week #1: sin, not entered. Intentionally this short. Complete.
xxxxx
Constellation
xxxxx
In the dark, with no one to prop his belligerence up against, he knows he is not fit to be a Bookman.
It is a double-layered secret.
Many jokes are made of his incompetence, his inability to remain objective, detached. His predecessor scowls and rants. But beneath all that there is respect. Though his friends laugh and tell him he is all wrong for the job, they silently believe him to be everything he told them he should be. That he is a Bookman. That he will act as a Bookman in the end.
But below that, far below, there is more-- truth they have discounted, wanting to believe the best of him, the best they were told he was capable of.
They are wrong.
God has called him to this post: recorder, witness, impartial judge. He is called to set aside all bias and tell the tales he lives through as they happened.
In word and signature he has accepted this charge.
But deep in his heart, below the levels he allows outsiders to see, he is a remorseless traitor. He loves them. All of them. And he will fight for them with passion far outside the pragmatic limits his calling demands. All the fire of his soul will be brought to bear against their enemies, not for the sake of his survival, but for the sake of theirs.
They are right. He is no Bookman. He is Lavi, no more and no less than that.
He spreads his fingers against the sky. A handful of stars vanish into his palm, out of the one thousand two hundred and thirty seven which are clearly visible.
There is a metaphor to be found there, but despite all the things he can be when he chooses, he is no poet.
They are only stars.
XxxxX