Marco's Heart

[peccatore]

You find yourself in a bright white, circular room. It's nearly empty; too bare, almost clinically so. But the bareness of it means that what is visible here stands out:

A podium in the center, where a familiar figure sits, head buried in his hands. Three paths running from the podium to three different spots near the edges of the room - not corners; circles don't have corners - where three doors leading seemingly nowhere stand with no regard for their complete lack of structural support.

It doesn't take you long to figure out where you are, does it? You only have to decide where to start.

Comments

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle withdraws his hand, stung.

"Is that so odd? I have had people inside of mine here."

[peccatore]

If it brings Jarlaxle any comfort, Marco has been recoiling from just about everybody in here.

"... No. No, I suppose it isn't. I suppose you're here for a reason."

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle nods. "Still, that is no reason for me not to spend some time keeping you company before I go off to explore the rest of it."

[peccatore]

"Why...?"

He sounds exhausted.

[nevercaught]

"Because I do like you. And because you are hurting and sometimes things hurt less when someone else is there to keep you company, even if you do not speak of it."

[peccatore]

"Why? Why do you like me?... I'm a hypocrite."

[nevercaught]

"So? Most people are." But then Jarlaxle is quiet for a moment.

"Do you remember that last anonymous night, whereupon you cautioned me the following morning to be careful? That show of concern from you was touching. You hardly knew me, yet you worried that I would get hurt due to my rash advertisement. That is why I like you, Marco. Despite everything, you make an effort to be kind."

[peccatore]

"... I do so like to warn people."

There is... a strangely bitter note to his words.

[nevercaught]

"Marco?"

[peccatore]

Marco's head sinks further down. He seems reluctant to elaborate.

[nevercaught]

"Marco, I feel that there is something you needs must elaborate on."

[peccatore]

"... I should. It would be fair. It would be right."

[nevercaught]

"Then tell me," Jarlaxle says, simply.

[peccatore]

He hesitates.

"But I'm a coward." Yes. More resolute, now: "I am a coward. That's why... That's why my mind has concocted this... this farce. Because I would never tell you otherwise."

[nevercaught]

"My own mind concocted a farce of its own, because I couldn't allow other people to see me in my vulnerabilities and imperfections," Jarlaxle says. "I understand."

[peccatore]

"Vulnerabilities... Imperfections..."

He clenches his fists.

"I should rot in Hell."

[nevercaught]

"I wouldn't know much about that," Jarlaxle comments. "Lolth's power is connected to the Abyss, not the Hells. Were you a worshipper of Asmodeus or another such devil? On Toril, one's afterlife is supposed to be determined by their gods."

[peccatore]

"Wha--? I, uh. As, Asmodeus?"

Achievement unlocked! Jarlaxle, you have thrown Marco for such a loop that it's knocked him out of his autopilot self-loathing!

[nevercaught]

"He's the most powerful of the archdevils in my world," Jarlaxle says, "enough that he's a full god. I've slept with a couple of his worshippers, actually, but I never saw much use in worshipping devils myself."

[peccatore]

Marco nods slowly, unsure how to process this information while hating himself so violently he has locked himself and a dozen other people in a gallery of his wrongdoings.

"Okay."

[nevercaught]

"What devil do you worship?" Jarlaxle asks, curiously.

[peccatore]

"Wha... I don't...?"

[nevercaught]

"I assume that if you worship a god—or even if you give lip service to one—you would be bound to their particular afterlife," Jarlaxle adds. "Rather than the hells. Though I suppose it may work differently in your world. You do not seem to wish to go to the hells, no matter what you say about deserving."

[peccatore]

"That's, that's now how it... Um."

Marco does not know how to draw a line from this to what's eating him.

[nevercaught]

"Then how does it work?" Jarlaxle asks, innocently—or rather, with his best approximation of innocence. He is doing his best to keep Marco slightly off-balance, as confusion is preferable to active self-loathing.