The first time Roderich questioned the justice of his society did not come about through a triumph of morality. Roderich did not one day choose to feel for the plight of the oppressed in his country. He did not care about the starving thousands who made his life of luxury possible. He felt no sense of remorse over the gruesome bloodshed of the Games which he watched with rapt entertainment every year.
No, the thing that first made him feel a sense of injustice was smaller, pettier, and in a sense, more selfish than that.
It was when Roderich first realized that his avox had the voice of an angel.
He decided to ditch school one day, knowing that his father wasn't home. and found the avox singing a song adapted from a melody Roderich had written and played on the violin, as he stood on a ladder, dusting.
The child's voice was untrained, and, of course, wordless, but showed incredible raw talent, rising and descending fluidly with impressive range and emotion. Roderich had written the melody as an expression of sadness and frustration, but in the high, clear voice of the little avox it sounded free and almost joyful.
It came upon him then, a feeling which might have been called fury were it more actionable. The thought that this child should be silenced, his tongue taken from him, to never sing the words of beautiful arias, never give voice to grand operas, seemed a terrible crime against the very universe itself.
The avox glanced down and his mouth snapped shut as he saw Roderich below him, his eyes impossibly wide and horrified as he stood frozen in terror.
"Come here," Roderich said, stiffly. He had no idea what to do in this situation, except that he did not want the avox to fall to his death, and that looked like an increasingly probable possibility.
The boy descended the ladder and stood in front of him trembling.
"It's um. It's alright," Roderich said, "I'm not angry. This can be our little secret."
On an odd sort of impulse Roderich reached out and patted the child on the head. The avox flinched at the contact but then relaxed, his lip twitching upward as though he were trying not to laugh at Roderich's awkwardness.
They stood there awkwardly for a few more seconds before the avox glanced between the ladder and Roderich and back again.
"Oh, right," Roderich said, "You can get back to work. Feel free to sing if you like. Pretend I'm not here."
The child grinned shamelessly as he went back to dusting the cabinet, though he didn't make a sound. Roderich didn't reprimand him for that either, even though he technically should have, and left to practice the piano.
This was not, of course, the first time that Roderich had kept secrets from his father. But it was the first time he had done so for someone else's sake.
About an hour later, the avox came in with a mop and in a few minutes began hesitantly to hum along as he worked.
The avox had witnessed plenty of things Roderich would not want his father to know about. But this wasn't just Roderich ditching school, it wasn't letting the avox know a secret because avoxes don't count. This was a secret they were keeping together. A secret they were creating together, a boy and a child alone in a house with music. It felt nice. It didn't feel lonely.