Seeing and Believing

One does not recall a time when he was forced to do an honest day's work; something about him suggests privilege, a soft sternness that only a scholar can radiate. To see him in his shirtsleeves is somehow incongruous with the rest of his person. Yes, his hair suggests disarray, as do his desk and attitude towards paperwork. But his person, his demeanor—these things are immaculate, untouchable. Never mind what everyone knows (or what they think they know) is going on behind closed doors.

He is easily imagined in the library stacks, his hands gloved and conspicuously free of mould and dust; surely the reference librarians view him with a special affection.

The consummate rebel: of course his staff is devoted to him. (All save for the boy and his hulking brother wearing that odd armor, but then again---they do not count, not exactly, not in the same way. Alchemy is not exclusively controlled by the military, for all the show and fuss they have raised about it. And then there is that: they are very young.)

Men want to be like him, women want to sleep with him—that is how things appear. But again, one must realize: closed doors and the secrets behind them.

(In actuality, he has worked many honest days, sweat and sand and blood, carting dead bodies, or things that might have been parts of bodies to a mass pit that he has had a hand in excavating. Burial is the only honest thing, he thinks, because he has been killing all day and is glad of the reprieve.)

At night he is not out carousing, flirting with young playthings, or enjoying the societal whirl that one might expect from his mere appearances. Instead he sits alone, or with a bottle, and stares into an empty fireplace with twitching fingers. Occasionally, he breaks things. In the morning, one of the faithful will quietly put things to rights and he will go on as if nothing unexpected has happened, as if everything is business as usual. He is an accomplished liar, perceived as a bright and glittering lump of youthful potential (he is not yet thirty). He is a raw sort of military clay, awaiting orders.

Except not: it is as if he does not hear commands, as if they do not apply to him. He is somehow exceptional. Even his black moods and sullen behaviors seem charming, artful. He pretends not to notice, pretends that he is unaware, but he is really flaunting his position as the center of a (admittedly very small) universe. He is an ambitious sun attempting to depose a galaxy.

Everything that he is appears to be perfect. This is a lie like everything else, but it is one that even he can pretend to believe, in daylight.