Favor
Verb: overgenerous preferential treatment.
Author's Notes: Surprise! Two chapters in two days! To be honest, the last chapter was probably one of the parts of this story that I liked the least, on its own. It's meant to show how Lara/Harry's relationship looks from the outside, but it works best when paired immediately with the next chapter (this one). Sort of a two perspective of the same event thing.
I was originally planning on releasing the Side Conversation on Saturday, and this chapter on Sunday, however, I don't do things on Saturday. It is my pure party day, where nothing is accomplished. Since I had Monday off, I decided to do the double posting today instead.
A lot of reviewers were wondering how I would reconcile Harry and Lara's relationship through White Night, and here's the answer.
Also, to all the reviewers who reviewed my Spanish, yeah... Those are all google translations. The only Spanish I know is that 'El Nino' means 'The Nino'.
So sit back and watch... Lara and Harry have a genuinely serious conversation which portrays and incredibly important piece of their ongoing relationship.
Time: Post White Night
Lara and Harry were both silent, as they sipped their coffee. She had arrived first, but when Harry finally arrived, she could tell by his expression that he wasn't ready to talk.
That suited Lara just fine. She had several ideas about how this conversation might go.
Letting him take the lead was probably the safest course for now.
So she sipped her coffee, and observed her wizard.
Ser Knight was pensive. He looked exhausted, drawn. Even though it had been several days while they both cleaned up their ends of the debacle, he still looked as though he hadn't finished fully coming to turns with everything.
Lara herself had mostly compartmentalized everything she needed to. Now, there was just the intensely aggravating aspect of clean up left: negotiating with the contractors to fix the foundation of the Chateau.
Still, look for opportunity in the chaos. With widespread construction, she might as well instigate a few of the projects she had been contemplating recently. There were several technological upgrades she had been meaning to get around to for the manor, and Riley had proposed several tactical ones as well that would have involved intensive restructuring.
Might as well add those to the upcoming bills.
Finally, Harry looked up from his coffee.
"Were you behind it?" he asked simply.
Ah, how the simplest questions often had the hardest answers.
"I had planned it," she admitted directly. "Skavis was a well-known chauvinist, and had proposed something similar many years ago. It was inevitable that a coup would come, and if it was one that I instigated, it was one I could control and stop. So I found a way to set Malvora and Skavis against each other, weakening their forces, and then stopping them ultimately."
Harry watched her. Finally, he spoke.
"Planned it? Only planned?"
She nodded.
"I had everything organized and ready to begin, but I hesitated to initiate."
"Why?"
"Because I knew you would be angry with it." Her confession made him raise an eyebrow.
"You hesitated to keep your court in line, because you were worried about my opinion?" he asked, skepticism obvious in his tone. She simply nodded again. "Why?"
"It is not so uncommon a thing, to refrain from a course of action simply because it might alienate an ally," she pointed out. "Harry, you have grown into being quite the force, in our world. If I had initiated the plan, then I had no doubt you would eventually discover, and that you would stop it. It might even have been sufficient for you to become an enemy of the Court. I have a responsibility to them as well, to keep them safe from you."
He was silent for a moment, simply studying her.
It was the truth. Long ago, she had rationalized her continued involvement with Harry as being unimportant due to the fact that wizards, for all their power, were mostly uninvolved in the world and that their power rarely mattered because it was not used.
Harry used his power, and he had become adept at it. He involved himself. And he had gathered others as well, who would follow his lead. The White Council, through his direct and indirect influence was becoming more responsive, more aggressive. Wardens were becoming more and more dangerous, and he was one of the most dangerous.
Not doing something to alienate a power was a basic decision.
She did not say how part of her hesitancy was because she didn't want to disappoint a friend.
JUST a friend.
"What happened?" he finally asked, and she sighed.
"One of my sisters was aware of my plans. They thought that I hesitated simply to ensure I would not be implicated, and did so in my stead to provide me deniability."
Elisa had meant well, Lara was sure, but while she was more competent then some, she still wasn't one of Lara's top operatives for a reason.
"Though once I had learned she did so, I did not make any effort to stop it," she also admitted.
"Again Lara: why?"
"Because regardless of the lives lost, I believed that this course would lose less than others," she acknowledged freely. "A coup WOULD come, and if I wasn't aware of where it was coming from, I would be in danger. If I was removed from power, my family WOULD have been destroyed once the truth of my father's state was known. And one of the other two families WOULD have taken over. If they did, then the policies of the White Court would be very different from what they are now."
She had protected her family and cemented her control over the White Court. Her rule would be better for even the kine. Lust was far safer than Fear or Despair for them. Once the choice had been out of her hand, than she had the choice of trying to stop it, or to use it.
And use it she had.
"You'll have a list for the wergild," Harry told her shortly, and she simply shook her head.
"I already have the names. The money has already been prepared, and is being distributed to the survivors." He blinked at that. "We do need instructions for where to deliver the wergilds for those with no surviving family."
It wasn't exactly an unexpected demand. Lara had made sure to keep track of the slain, partly to ensure that she was aware of how the plan was progressing, and partly so she could be ready when Harry requested it.
Even gathering the money hadn't been hard. Her insurance company, which she had started half as a way to draw out those who were trying to investigate her and half because she had thought it was funny, had a significant amount of funds available for issues like these.
It was useful to have readily available funds for unexpected situations. Like last year, when she had discovered someone trying to sell her wizard on eBay.
She had been confident she had the most competitive bid before the whole thing had come undone.
She had spent an enjoyable time trying to determine how best to have Ser Knight pay her back for a while. (She was pretty sure that he would have taken dressing as a butler and waiting on her hand and foot for a day while calling her 'your majesty' in good humor. She had doubted she'd be able to get him to do it in a speedo and cravat, but the mental image has also been funny.)
"I'll contact you with where to send them," he told her. "Arrangements are being made."
"Good," she said. She paused for a moment, but he had resumed staring at his cup. "Though I would like to take a moment to discuss my annoyance of your lack of forewarning on the attack."
"Oh?" he managed a small smile. "Is it annoying to suddenly find yourself thrust into a life and death struggle that someone could have warned you about but didn't? Please, let me know if it is. I have no comparable base of experience for that kind of thing."
"You're not as funny as you think you are," she told him flatly, though could surrender that point. "Mostly, I would have liked to have the opportunity to use it to more accurately determine further treachery in my Court."
Her Court. Her people. One of hers had betrayed them. Had attempted to destroy them. People under HER protection, who had been welcomed into HER house, had been harmed.
She would find the ones responsible for this, and she would destroy them. She would rip them into pieces with her bare hands.
"Yeah, me too," he sighed, and she simply nodded.
"Was the effort at least fruitful for finding your own?" she asked politely, and he started.
"How did you… no wait, never mind. Because you're Lara," he sighed.
It had been pretty obvious why he had done what he did.
A wizard had been among the attackers. Working with Outsiders and betrayers.
It hadn't escaped her how the attack force that Harry had brought hadn't had any other wizards in it. His own Council had traitors as well, and he was trying to find them.
The fact that he hadn't been surprised, and had even prepared for it, was telling about his experience with them. She had heard rumors that the White Council was facing internal discord, but the stodgy old group had always presented a united front to the rest of the powers, regardless of what was going on internally.
"It wasn't a sweeping success," Harry finally admitted. "But it did help shorten the list."
"Warden Ramirez?" she asked, and he nodded. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "And you're sharing this information with me freely?"
They had previously taken great care to ensure that the confidential information of their organizations remained confidential. Potential traitors in their midst was information Lara herself would take great pains to conceal.
"Lately, things have been strange," Harry told her slowly, stirring his coffee. "I'm sure you've seen it: the Red Court, the Sidhe, your Court, the White council. There have been a whole lot of weird things happening."
"There are always those who would seek to overturn the status quo," Lara reminded him just as slowly.
It was lip service to an established line. Things HAD been strange. A drastic upheaval in a power could happen, but it was rare. After all, most powers tended to be long lived, established. They had the strength to ensure their standing, and by the time they had power they had the experience to keep it.
For multiple courts to be showing upheaval, well, it technically could just be coincidence. It could have just been one court coming due for a change in power, and that power tipping enough scales to cause others to fall.
But it just as easily could be something else.
"I'm just making sure to keep a list of who I'm absolutely sure isn't one of them," Harry stated, noncommittally.
"And I suppose that my name is on this list?" Lara asked dryly.
"Lara works for Lara," he confirmed. "That's one thing I'm absolutely sure of."
"Good," she purred. She always did appreciate signs of Harry's respect for her. Really, he was too shy. She wouldn't mind more signs like that for her. Perhaps from on his knees before her, while she was seated in front of him…
She pulled her mind clear from that direction. Perhaps something to be considered at a later time.
"And you're seeking out those on that list?" she prompted him expectantly. Surprisingly, he shook his head with a dour grimace.
"It seems like everyone on that list is just too much of an asshole for me to work together with properly," he complained. He paused, and gave her an obviously feigned apologetic look. "Present company excluded, of course."
"Of course," she repeated. Internally, she added some discipline to her respect scenario. Perhaps a collar and a blindfold.
"I suppose this could be considered an ongoing, professional request," he finally concluded. "I think both of us can agree that traitors in our midst is something we wouldn't want. And if we can get some insight into the others' side from our personal hunts, it would be beneficial to both sides to share that information."
"Officially, or unofficially?" she asked.
"Unofficial."
She nodded her agreement. Their meetings were technically off the books as it was, and the harshest part of dealing with traitors is that you could never be sure just how deep the treachery reached. Officially reporting might have promoted visibly closer ties between their organizations, however it opened up the possibility of the information being intercepted before usage.
Under the table though, well, steps could be taken quietly.
So far, this week's meeting seemed to be unusually heavy on the business side of things. It didn't displease Lara. When she finally had Ser Knight, she expected he would often be involved in the administration of the Court. For now, she studied Harry to see whether or not the discussion had resolved whatever issue was on his mind.
No, Lara, decided. He still seemed unusually pensive. How best to lead him to revealing his secret troubles? It would no doubt require the subtlest of her wiles…
"Harry, what else is wrong?" she asked directly. She blamed Harry for that. She would have to learn to accommodate bluntness in her list of tools at some point.
"The White Council finally found out about us."
Lara froze for a moment. But it was only a moment.
"So those old fools finally figured it out?" she asked, partially amused, partially concerned.
"Be fair, Lara," Harry chided her, also vaguely amused. "It was years before WE figured it out, after all."
"Years before YOU did," Lara corrected primly. "I'm quite sure I intuited it without even realizing it, and instinctively exploited the opportunity to draw you closer in a subconscious move to eventually subjugate you."
"Riiiiiiiight," he dragged out the word. Lara felt that maybe, just maybe, he didn't believe her carefully considered logic.
"And the confrontation?" she prompted, moving past their implied agreement to disagree about how they recalled their initial meeting.
"It went about like we thought it would," Harry's response relieved her. It had always been a danger, just how the White Council would respond to their meetings. Logically, the paranoid minds of the Council would assume that their errant wizard was enthralled, or if he wasn't, they would make demands to use their relationship to exploit the White Court. Harry had two major weapons against the concerns:
The first, that he WASN'T enthralled, a status which could be proven rather easily. And second, he already WAS exploiting their relationship against the White Court.
She HAD given him information, information which he had used to attack or confound members of her Court.
It was just that she always made sure that those attacks and thwarting assisted her in removing rivals, or consolidating her power.
Add in her own peaceful initiatives for her Court, and it wouldn't be hard to simply frame their meetings as covert attempts at diplomatic contact. From there, the potential benefits of this contact would alleviate some of the pressure and demands from the Council.
So in the end, all Harry had to do was acknowledge their meetings and prove their value, and the White Council would have to back off. They might remain suspicious, and keep a close eye, however there was nothing else they could do.
However, if it had gone well, than why was it still weighing on Ser Knight?
"When I was explaining the situation, when I was asked about Thomas and you, I told them that you were monsters," Harry said softly. Lara cocked her head, waiting for the rest of what was bothering him.
Then she realized that was it.
She laughed.
"Harry, are you upset with yourself for calling my brother and I what we are?" she asked, shaking her head. Really, this was too much! Perhaps he considered the title 'monster' to be an insult.
She did not.
"To call a fig a fig, Harry," she chuckled, shaking her head. "I am a monster, after all. So is Thomas, no matter how much he might deny it."
Really, hairdressing? She could applaud his ingenuity. He had genuinely studied and experimented with his Hunger, finding new and innovative ways to appease it. However, it was certainly a plebian and debasing method to do so. She was sure in a few decades it would make prime teasing material, after Thomas had time to get this romantic streak out of him.
How many lives had she taken over the years? In combat, in passion, in service to her family?
Even those she hadn't killed, how many lives had she destroyed, relationships ruined, families crushed just to satisfy her Hunger?
She didn't know. It was probably impossible to calculate at this point.
"I know," Harry said softly. "You're a monster. But you were a human, once."
Lara went still. Not as though pausing in her thoughts. Still, like the supernatural do when they're truly startled.
"You were a human once," Harry continued. "A kind one: one who would forgive a thief, and even offer them alms. Until one day, you became something else. But I don't think you became a monster the day you changed.
"I think you became one, piece by piece. One act at a time. I think that part of you was still human, back then. I think that you fought it, that you tried to limit it. Tried to find the ways to do lesser evil, or even to try and have some good result out of the evil.
"It shows, sometimes. Not the human that's left in you. I'm not sure that there is any, anymore. But in the monster that you became: how you keep your word, how you follow the accords, how you limit the damage you do even as you do it, how you love your family.
"It shows a lot more in Thomas. He's trying so hard, but I see the way he slips, the way he sometimes fails. It scares me, that someday I might see all of it gone as well, and just the monster left…"
Lara did not move. She was certain right now, that her eyes were silver.
"Why do you say this?" she demanded from him softly.
She felt as though her body was thrumming. She wanted to deny him, loudly, angrily. She wanted to strike him for daring to say such things. She wanted to use her allure on him, force him to lose his protection, and then show him just how much of a monster she was.
She wanted him to be wrong.
But…
It had been so long. How much had she forgotten about back then? How much had she just become used to how she was?
But what… if he wasn't wrong?
"Today I just accepted the loss of innocent lives," Harry said softly. "I realized that nothing could change it, or bring them back, so I accepted their loss and tried to use it to do some good, to look at the benefit that could be got from it. I wouldn't have done that once. I would have shouted, screamed, sworn it would never happen again. But now I know it will happen again, and that I can't stop it, not all of it. So I have to just make sure that more people are better for it, this time and the next time it happens.
"But I accepted it. And when someday, something else more terrible will happen, will I accept that too? Someday in the future, will I look back and see how much I've changed, and see…"
"See the monster that you too have become?" Lara whispered. Harry shuddered.
Had… had she ever sat there? Had she ever looked into her future, and found something there which horrified her? If she had, had there been anyone she could speak to of it? Had anyone been there to comfort her?
She didn't realize she had reached out and taken his hand until she felt it in hers.
She didn't look at him. She just gazed into her cup.
She felt his hand close on hers.
Her Hunger was ravenous, desperate to try and take him from the contact, but she ruled it with an iron fist. She would not allow herself to feed mindlessly.
(The kiss in the Deeps was an entirely different matter. She had been certain of her own death, and wanted her last thoughts and actions to be anything besides fire and claws. It was perfectly natural at that time to allow herself to express her everything.)
She didn't know how long the two of them sat there.
*Scene Break*
Lara sat alone that night. She had claimed the patio outside of her room, and was accompanied by a glass of wine expensive enough to pay for one of her more conspicuous cars.
Her Hunger ached, furiously. It wanted to feed, and it wasn't particularly picky on who at the moment.
She ignored it.
Instead, she focused inwards.
As a creature that thrived in atmospheres of excess and decadence, she had on the occasion been exposed to those recovering from a lifestyle that glamorized overindulgence. While she had never had the need to attend, she was familiar with the phrase 'taking a fearless self-inventory'.
Something similar to a self-inventory is what she was committed to at the moment.
Was there some truth, to Harry's observation?
Lara was a monster. She knew this, and though she searched herself she found no shame, no regret in it. There was no self-loathing for her nature, just calm acceptance. She was what and who she was, and felt no need to change.
Had it always been that way?
She tried to recall the silly girl she had once been, fool enough to seek to recover stolen wealth from a band of ne'er do wells and a charming rogue. She seldom thought about it, but when she recalled the most recent times she had it was to feel a fond exasperation for her childishness. Nothing but a certainty of the foolishness of her past self, who knew nothing of what the world truly was like.
When had she changed from that child to who she was now? The most defining moment had been the awakening of her Hunger, but surely there were more moments between then and now? Would she recognize them, if she remembered them?
What of her actions? She knew many in the Court who glorified their Hunger, who fed relentlessly and without care, who enjoyed the wake of destruction they left.
She did not agree with them, but she did not condemn them for it. She condemned them for their wastefulness, for their excess, for the problems their actions caused. When she saw those results, she always felt that the same could have been accomplished with so much less issue, without causing so many problems so easily avoided.
Why did she do that? She had always simply attributed it as a personal preference for efficiency, an attribute of her character which allowed her to be effective as an operative and ruler of her Court.
Was there something more to it?
She found nothing to prove her wizard's assertation.
But she found nothing disprove it either.
How then, had he been so certain? How then could he lay claim to knowing a part of her that even she did not?
There was only one way, which Lara could think of.
What… what had he seen, when he soulgazed her all those years ago?
To this day, what she saw within Harry had shaped how she dealt with him. If she hadn't, she would wonder if he was seeking to use her, if he was plotting against her. Instead, she knew that he would not, that his goals weren't conquest or acquisition of power and instead were guardianship and defense to keep the wound within himself from being inflicted on another.
Lara knew how often her species were misunderstood. They were humanlike, and beautiful. They had a tragic origin, being forced to become what they were after having known mortality. They were alluring, and that lure beguiled those who saw it in to trying to defend them, to mark them as misunderstood, to save them.
Lara had played on those misconceptions many a time in the past, to the detriment of those who held those feelings.
But Harry… Harry did not. He didn't wonder or worry that she was a monster. He KNEW what she was.
And yet, despite that knowledge he hadn't cut off their relationship. There have been many other monsters that he had struck down without issue. His immediate willingness to strike down others in her Court without issue led her to believe that he wasn't harboring any misconceptions about her species.
It wasn't that Harry was ignorant of her faults. It wasn't like he had forgiven them, or tried to downplay them.
He simply accepted them as an aspect of her, but only as an aspect, and not as the whole.
She shivered, sipping on her wine. Her body was responding to her contemplation again, but she put aside her arousal, just like she had her Hunger in favor of her thoughts.
Her brother was still wrong though. What she felt… it wasn't what he had implied.
Impossible.
Lore Check: So, Harry is pretty pensive in this chapter. You have to remember that this is where Lash sacrifices herself for him, so that's no doubt weighing on his mind. The part about Elisa being the one to initiate the plot is sort of a copout (I'll admit it). I think I provided reason enough for why Lara didn't do it herself. I feel like Lara WOULD have been prepared to go through it, but was rationalizing why she shouldn't in a way that makes sense to her, when the real reason is that she knew that it might damage her relationship with Harry. Elisa taking it was a relief for her, as it let her have her cake and eat it too.
The little blurb about Lara's insurance company was something I threw in there for a bit of a laugh. I mean, I had to reference the attempt to sell Harry on Ebay somehow, and the insurance company was something I enjoyed when I added it in originally.
The real meat and potatos of this story, is of course Harry's monologue about Lara's past, about her path to becoming a monster. This is, of course, entirely my own invention. Again, Lara's past is entirely blank per Butcher. I thought about how how Inari was so young and innocent, and asked myself how would Lara go from someone like Inari to Lara? The answer is one step at a time. Harry himself has been growing more and more grim, more and more ruthless, more and more dangerous just in the canon series. What might have happened to Lara, over the centuries?
And Harry can see it, happening to himself. He can see what he was, and see Lara as what he might become. And Lara, being confronted with it, isn't quite sure how to deal with it. She can't remember being anything other than a monster, takes pride in it. But she knows, intellectually, she might have been something else once, but can't even recall what its like.
No #PartyGirl, or #Tsundere here. Sorry folks, but it's not all Lara being cute and embarrassed.
