Prologue
There are many problems with the way the world runs. The bad guys might come out on top. It might be impossible to tell the bad guys from the good guys; the bad guys and the good guys could even be one and the same. The bad guys always think they're right. And sometimes, just sometimes, they are right. Most people know that not everything is solely good or solely bad. Only some know that nothing is.
The second that Butler died, my world blurred. Not just in the physical sense. Despite my tearfulness, I also felt a shift in the manner in which I deemed things either "bad" or "good." To use a clichéd metaphor, what had been unwaveringly black or white was now a churning grey (or was it gray?). Nothing seemed just plain bad or good anymore. Nothing was just plain bad or good anymore.
Butler had died protecting me. He had died taking a bullet for me. So, naturally, it's all my fault that he's dead. If I hadn't been so careless, if I had only planned more thoroughly, if I had worn my bulletproof vest like he'd told me. A million ifs flitted about my head buzzing like mosquitoes. This passed as swiftly as it came, though.
This is the way he would have wanted to die, I thought. He had been aging very fast, and thus getting decreasingly active; he would have retired very soon if this hadn't happened and if there was one thing Butler couldn't stand the thought of, it was retirement.
I felt guilty about Butler's death and I wished very much that it hadn't happened, but I also knew that it was going to happen eventually and this was probably the best possible time.
In that way I deduced that Butler's death, a thing which before that point in time I would put solely in the bad category, was equally good and bad. This was the first in the endless string of grey area I soon found. Shall I tell you how I ended up in the greyest of gray jail cells in the grayest of grey worlds?
Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl. Do you?
A/N: Greetings, fellow writers!
The Orion Awards (awards for Artemis Fowl fanfiction) are truly awesome and they need support, so go check them out (links in my bio).
This fic is not going to be about Butler's death. This fic is going to be about the insights Artemis makes because of Butler's death. It is meant to completely skew the way you look at things, finding the good in bad things and the bad in good things (and the good!and!bad in good!and!bad!things).
Remember that I can only improve my writing if you give me constructive criticism!