Creak. Crackle.

Jean leaned back in his stuffed chair, a thick tome in his skeletal hand as his fireplace burned bright. He propped one bony leg on top of the other and rested the book in his lap. It was nearly large enough that, when opened, it would bridge from knee to knee.

Fwip. Fwip. Fwip.

He ran his finger across the pages, finding the stray strand of blonde hair he used for a bookmark. He didn't recall where he had found it, and considering his bald head, it didn't come from himself. However, it proved invaluable in keeping his place every day.

Tweet.

"By the Scion's grace!"

A kettle screeched from the kitchen, and a man cursed. Jean sighed, closing his book and standing up. He crossed the room to the kitchen and saw his roommate struggling with the stove as a kettle steamed on top. Jean shook his head, entering the kitchen to help.

"I don't know how you keep doing this, Keita."

"Sorry, Jean." Keita bowed, his long, curly white hair practically frazzled from the steam filling the room.

Keita and Jean first became roommates longer ago than Jean could remember. However, few people in Grim Aegis could remember anything beyond a week in the past, and Jean was certain the ones who could were making it up.

Keita was a dark-skinned man, much like Jean, from his neck and above. While he wore a simple white robe, he was far from simple. It wasn't his ability in the kitchen that convinced Keita to stay in his home.

"For a man who can describe the complexities of aetheric resonance." Jean pushed the kettle off the hot metal, reaching and pulling a towel to grab the handle before he knocked it off the stove entirely. "You have no skill in the kitchen."

"What can I say?" Keita smiled through his curled beard. "I am a scholar, not a cook."

"You say that every time it's your turn." Jean shook his head.

"Jean, it is always my turn."

Jean smiled but didn't have a comeback for that. The haze of malaise that wrapped around the city made it hard to tell one day from the next. Who had cooked the night before? Jean barely remembered, but he was fairly certain they had worked together.

"I'll help you this time, but you'll do it yourself tomorrow."

"You said that yesterday as well." Keita laughed before stepping beside Jean to examine their ingredients.

"I'd say we have enough for a soup," Jean said.

"You always say that." Keita shook his head. "Just once, I would like us to have good pasta or a salad. With all this soup every night, I will turn to water."

"Those are big words for one who brings in the same ingredients every day and never actually wants to cook."

Keita only smirked in response, and Jean thought through his ingredients again. Even with what was in the larder, he couldn't see a meal that he and Keita might both enjoy.

As he tapped his finger against his chin, his entire world bled from sight.

"I think you're wrong."

Jean stood in a strange room. It was oval in shape, with a massive viewscreen at one side and a set of four chairs around a central seat in the center. A man wearing a black jacket with a shadowed face sat in the central chair, his fingers steepled. Jean realized that he was in a slipship, though one of a design he wasn't familiar with, when he looked out the front viewscreen and saw a sea of darkness with small islands of light.

"I'm listening," the man said, motioning for Jean to continue.

Jean nodded, turning away from the viewscreen and pacing back and forth down the curve of the viewscreen. Though Jean didn't understand the dream or vision he was witnessing, he felt the strings of fate pulling him along for the ride. He didn't resist.

"Your idea of justice is insufficient," Jean said. "From what you've told me and what I've seen, you leave it up to momentary feelings and decide on a whim instead of using stringent standards and principles to decide."

"Couldn't you say that I adjust myself to my circumstances because the world isn't perfect?"

"If we don't strive for perfection, the world will never change." Jean raised a skeletal finger. "When we bend to the situation, we bend the unflexing principles we choose to live by."

Jean paused, the glimmering islands in the viewscreen catching his attention. Though trapped inside his path, Jean couldn't help but think of the different people in those islands. How many suffered without the chance to see the light of day? How many needed someone with the will to decide their fate?

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"Consider how often we come across those who would do evil," Jean said. "People who are bound to a fate of death and destruction by their chosen path. Think of the suffering they cause and those they trod upon to realize their nefarious ends."

Jean turned, and the shadowed man hadn't moved. Without being able to see his face, Jean couldn't tell how his words affected him. However, his dream self smiled, holding out his hands to accentuate his words. Jean recognized that smile. He was enjoying the argument for the sake of it, taking a position opposite his friend to make him think more.

As any good scholar should be able to do.

"We have the power to stop these people, to remove them permanently from power and give people free lives outside of their oppression. Why would it be wrong to do that?"

"To just murder the bad guys?" the shadowed man asked.

"Yes," Jean said. "When we have the strength to, and we see people suffering, eliminating the people who do evil is the best way to ensure that they don't do evil again. They are unlikely to change, so choosing to end them ensures that innocent people do not suffer, especially when the evil person comes to enact their revenge."

"So, kill the bad guys to save innocent people in the long run?"

"For those who are truly evil, those whose will are bent on causing nothing but suffering, yes."

The shadowed man didn't respond, barely moving with his fingers remaining steepled. Jean couldn't read his face, and that bothered him. Was he smiling? Was he frowning? A person's face could tell him so much in an argument, and the shadowed man revealed nothing. However, Jean's dream self still reacted.

"You disapprove?"

"What gives us the right to decide that?" the man said. "Who gets to live and who gets to die, that is."

"By virtue of our strength, it is necessary."

"So if the evil guy is stronger, he gets to decide, and that's still right."

Jean paused, his dream self crossing his arms and glancing out the viewscreen. The man had a point, though it wasn't strong enough to demolish his argument. It was just a tiny hole in the wall of Jean's argument.

"It isn't that it is right, but we would be unable to act," Jean said. "The evil acts would continue until someone with sufficient strength arose."

"Then I don't see the functional difference," the man said. "If strength is all that matters, then there's no need for it to be wrong or right. There's only a need for strength. Strength doesn't determine what is right; it just determines what's enforced."

"But without strength, it doesn't matter if you can't stand against evil to begin with."

"I'm not disagreeing with that," the man said, still unmoving. "I'm just not sure I should be the one to decide if a person should die. Sure, they may be evil, and they may hurt people, but who am I to decide that they deserve to die, outside of necessity, to save my own skin?"

"That sounds like deciding in the moment and not out of principle."

"It is." The man sighed, lowering his hands. "Back on Tombstone, I had the option to kill two guys who were doing some pretty awful stuff. I could have killed them both, and the townsfolk would probably have thanked me for it."

"But you didn't."

"No," the shadowed man said. "I tossed one in a cage and handed the other over to a mob."

"Why? You could have removed both of them for the suffering they caused. You could have changed the world for those who lived under their oppression."

"I could have." The man nodded. "To me, those decisions shouldn't be made by one person, when possible. That puts a burden on you that you have to carry, and you might make the wrong choice. It's better to hand it over to a community and get people to decide together."

"And if they decide to punish unfairly, or they decide to let a murderer go free."

"Hah." the man laughed.

Jean raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not laughing at you," the man said. "But that's a good point. I can think of plenty of times courts have done precisely that all across my old world."

He paused, looking out the viewscreen to the islands of light.

"But at the same time, I've seen what happens when you concentrate that power to decide in too few hands. The balance pushes me towards more people deciding, not less."

"An interesting point," Jean conceded. "A good strong person versus an evil strong person. A good community versus an evil one. In all cases, injustice can be meted out while justice is left silent."

"The problem with the world is that it isn't perfect. I just do the best with what I can. Simple as that."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

As they spoke, a figure rushed past Jean and onto the bridge. He was a giant dark-skinned man with long black hair and the same shadowed face as the man Jean had been talking with. The man seemed out of breath but not a threat. Behind him, a white-haired knight also charged in, his face equally shadowed.

"Your shift is over, brother. It is time to spar!"

"A trial by fire," the knight added. "A battle to inspire!"

Jean chuckled, waving the man he had been arguing with away. "Go with them. I'll think on this exercise and come back with a stronger argument."

"I'm sure you will." The shadowed man laughed, following the others.

Jean watched them go before returning his gaze to the viewscreen, a smile reflecting at him. It had been an enjoyable argument, even if it was left unresolved.

"What do you think, Mari?"

"Jean." A heavy hand shook his shoulders, and Jean's eyes opened to the world around him.

The fire crackled from the stove, and candlelight lit the room. He was back in his kitchen, with Keita leaning over him with a worried look. Jean blinked a few times to push away the sparkles crossing his vision.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." He raised his bony hands in defense and rose from the ground. "I must have fallen."

"Oh, you definitely fell." Keita chuckled. "Your eyes went blank, and you slammed right into the table."

Jean touched the side of his head and found a tender bruise near his ear. That he had fallen and hit his head was undoubtedly clear. Whether that was the cause of his strange dream was less so. Just because he hit his head did not mean that hitting his head was the cause. That would be a fault in logic.

"How long was I out?" Jean asked, leaning on the table.

"For a few minutes," Keita said, one hand on Jean's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Jean had to think about that. The dream had been so vivid, closer to a memory than a dream. While he had been a spectator to the dream itself, the words he had used had felt like his own. However, there was a problem with that line of thought.

None of those memories were his own. He had lived in Grim Aegis as long as he could remember, though with the haze, he wasn't sure how far back that lasted. Even now, the haze was wrapping around his mind, soothing his worries.

However, even with that haze, the dream remained.

"I don't know," Jean answered. "I don't know."

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