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Geoffrey lay naked with Inigo in the guest bedroom. It was a white room, white walls, white bed, white ceiling, door... only the hardwood floor and antique dresser broking the color scheme. Yes, it was all white: the color of Geoffrey's fur. It was said that white was a blend of all colors, and black a void of colorlessness. It seemed to Geoffrey that white should have been something beautiful, yet somehow, it only made him feel empty, hallow.

But for a while, Inigo had made him forget his emptiness. It seemed as though the young bat was every bit as wild in bed as he was in spirit and appearance, and it did Geoffrey some good to feel something so powerful once more. After they had finished fucking, they just lay together sideways on the bed, Inigo clutching onto Geoffrey's back in an intimate embrace.

He knew it was a mistake, but it was an amazing mistake. Yes, he let his will slip, and yes, he knew it was his responsibility to keep the bat focused on his studies, but for just this once he didn't care. He actually felt something when he became intimate with this adolescent that he was supposed to be teaching.

At first, the light slanted from the guestroom window into the bedroom, and provided warmth as it mingled with Geoffrey's fur. But as the morning grew older, so did the sun rise, and the warm light slipped away from Geoffrey's being. But thanks to Inigo's embrace, Geoffrey was still warm. The bat was awake, he knew, though the fluid pattern to the rising and falling of his chest indicated otherwise. It was comfortable, but Geoffrey knew they couldn't stay like this forever. They only had so much time before their session was over. Geoffrey decided to break the silence. "I'm surprised you haven't said anything for a while, Inigo."

There was a bit of a delay before he responded, unusual for the quick-witted bat. "Is that so weird? Even I get tired of talking, sometimes..." Inigo was speaking in a particularly delicate fashion, the usual jauntiness of his tone all but missing. He seemed a different person altogether, somehow. "Silence is lonely, but it's familiar enough..."

The defeat and longing sewed into Inigo's words touched Geoffrey on some level. He was reminded of a time when he was younger, and more in touch with his emotions. For a moment, he almost wanted to go back to such a time, but he knew that even if he could, there was nothing left for him there. "How morose..."

The familiar silence once more visited the room, and with nothing else spoken, an echo of 'morose' lingered in Geoffrey's mind. Still within Inigo's embrace, Geoffrey rolled around, now facing Inigo and looking into his green pools of eyes. There was loneliness in them, longing... It seemed that bat was hoping for a kiss, but Geoffrey wasn't about to comply to that desire. His kisses were as empty as his love-making. "Inny, there's something I want you to explain to me. You're attracted to both sexes right?" It felt strange: him, being the one to drum up a conversation.

A single dry laugh escaped Inigo's muzzle. "Was I not obvious enough about it? Perhaps I should wear a sign."

Geoffrey didn't bother to contest the faint snarkiness present in Inigo's response. "This is what I don't understand about you. Why settle for both sexes when you could just bed women? It would save you a lot of ridicule."

Inigo began to shift about, inching himself downwards until his head was nestled against Geoffrey's chest. He held that position for a few moments before answering, "Well to start, we have a saying back at home: in Common tongue it would go something like... 'the wider the net, the more fish you catch', so I keep my net wide. I don't like think it's fair to say no to somebody because of how they happened to be born."

There was a certain naivety to Inigo's statement, Geoffrey realized. He was amused by the childish charm of it, but all childishness had to end eventually. "Inny, do you understand the implications of being attracted to other men in our society?"

Inigo answered with closed eyes, his head still nestled against Geoffrey's chest. "I have an idea, but I don't care. I don't let rules made hundreds of years ago from a bunch of stiff, robe-wearing, dead Vahn-Seh tell me what I can and can't do," Inigo spoke, using the pejorative tribal term with no qualms and great contempt. His boyish confidence was returning in his tone when he continued, "If I see something I like, then I like it and I want it. That's all that's important."

Geffrey's next question was spoken with a dead seriousness, heavy as a hammer. "And if you liked killing others?"

Inigo was hit by a jolt of surprise; his eyes shot wide open in surprise as he looked up at Geoffrey. "What?"

"Killing, murder, slaughter, homicide, actions to that effect... If you found such actions fun, would you partake in them? Even though people say they're wrong."

"No... that's... I'd never find something like that fun..."

"But let's say you did. Let's say, experience the ecstasy of ten orgasms every time you took the life of another. Would you do it?"

The notion perturbed the bat greatly; unnerve was evident in his expression. "I couldn't bring myself to just kill somebody for fun..."

Geoffrey scoffed dryly, disparagingly. After all the bat had been through in his childhood, for him to still have such attachment to morality... "You're lucky then... You were born with a perfectly healthy conscience... I'm envious. Of course, if you stay here with us... Well, that might just change."

This was the first time Geoffrey sensed fear from the bat: his eyes dilated slightly only to then look away, and his ears folded down pitifully; he looked more like a kitten than a bat. Geoffrey certainly didn't care to see his pupil in such a state; he wanted to see the smile back on his face, it was one of the only bright aspects of his day. But he needed to know what sort of dangerous game he was playing.

Inigo seemed suddenly very eager to change the topic, wiping the concern from his muzzle and readdressing Geoffrey light-heartedly. "You know, you weren't half bad... have you done this before?"

"Mm, I had a lover... once."

"Once?"

"Yes... he's dead now."

The casual attitude with which a lover's death was mentioned caught Inigo unawares. "I'm sorry... Do you miss him?"

Geoffrey found that he wondered that himself, sometimes. He wasn't sure if it was his old lover that he missed, or the child inside him that died when the stag did. "Sometimes, I suppose. He really was a sweet boy..."

Inigo's muzzle was flushed with curiosity. He smiled slightly when he asked, "Will... you tell me about him?"

Geoffrey felt a faint smile creeping up upon his muzzle. He knew his past was best left buried, but he couldn't help but want to open up to the bat; he had a certain sincerity in his more introspective state that made the otter want to trust him. "Very well... Hmm, let me begin by paining a setting, then... In the old days of Yore, I was once a child, and I emphasize that word. I was a child in every aspect: I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I loved like a child. I was born to a very wealthy family, one that provided me with all sorts of succor and luxury, but it was a strict, authoritarian and religious household, and I despised it very much. The only thing I found joyful was the private time I had to read in my parents' archive and practicing marksmanship. But all in all, it wasn't a miserable existence, just lacking... But things began to change by the time I had just turned sixteen. My parents informed me one day that they wanted me to marry some noblewoman, which became a quandary for me, because from a very young age I knew that I was not interested in females... I told my parents such, but kept the part of my attraction to males secret... They took me as a late bloomer, and their decision of my future partner remained unyielding."

"And then, in the midst of such a crisis, came this charismatic, muscular stag, and only a few years older than I was at the time. He was our new stable boy for our household, and though he was of low birth, I couldn't help but find myself attached to him. After we shared a few shy glances between each other, we soon became fast friends. He was very open with me, kind, sweet, caring... And how joyed was I that one day when he told me he felt for me... we became lovers the day he confessed. Those nights with him were some of the best of my life... lying and hugging, whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears in the cover of night. I enjoyed that fleeting time so much, though I often can't help but think of them bitterly now. But that's only natural; men tend to think bitterly of their past loves."

Taking a quick pause to collect his thoughts, Geoffrey noticed that Inigo was enraptured with the story. He was listening to everything with a dark whimsy, soaking in the words like a child hearing their first fairy tale. He didn't want to wait to hear the ending. "So... what happened next? How'd he die?"

Geoffrey bitterly grumbled to himself before he answered; he wasn't quite sure why Inigo was so interested to hear the darker details. "I'll be curt then; my parents eventually found out about my clandestine male lover. And so, in an attempt to keep me following down the path they set for me and safe from temptation, they had him falsely accused of practicing some dark sorcery or the other, and subsequently beheaded..."

Inigo was caught unawares but the story's sudden development; his ears shot upward in alarm. "That's awful! How could anyone do something like that... You must have been furious with your parents, weren't you?"

There was much needed to be said to explain the depth of Geoffrey's fury with his parents. They were feelings that had warped him, changed him. They were emotions that ruled his body and its actions for some time, until they overflowed and left him, leaving him with nothing. He couldn't begin to accurately describe his fury to another person, because for Geoffrey of today those feelings were just a faint memory now, a picture from a time stuck in the past. "Yes, I was... In fact, I killed them."

When the bat heard Geoffrey's words, his expression became one of abject horror as he began to tremble in place... It made sense; the boy likely wasn't fond of death, and he spoke fondly of his family back in the tribal lands. The thought of despising one's family must have seemed inconceivable to him. Inigo's embrace weakened.

Geoffrey sighed despite himself; he knew the bat would react this way. The poor, sweet child. "Some people in this world just deserve to die, Inny. Under Alarice's auspices, you'll learn that soon enough."

Inigo didn't challenge the statement, though he seemed very much disturbed by it. He just lay still for a while, thinking deeply, until he gingerly asked his next question, "Hey, Geoffrey?"

"Yes?"

The bat seemed scared to follow up his question. "Does Alarice... kill people?"

The bat must have found their dark conversation a perfect context to segue into a question haunting his mind. "Killing is a means to an end, so yes, the necessity to kill does come up in her line of business. It's a crude proverb, but you need to crack a few eggs to make an omelet."

"But what's the end to the means then? What's her goal? What's worth killing people?"

"Mm, let me start by asking you a question. What enables people to freely kill others Inigo?" Inigo put on a ponderous expression, likely overthinking the question. It was drolly amusing. "I'll give you a hint..." Geoffrey said as he pointed his trigger finger at Inigo, sticking his thumb up in the air and quickly bucking his paw upward.

"Guns?"

"Well, weapons to be more exact, but yes. And if one person controls all the weapons..."

Inigo finished the sentence, "...Then they basically get to decide who lives and who dies."

"Exactly... If she can keep guns out of the hands of bad men, then..."

"...Then she'd save more lives than she killed! I never thought of it like that..."

Geoffrey was proud to see Inigo make the connection. Perhaps he did have a future in Alarice's auspices. Being able to convince or delude himself into justifying certain actions was a necessity that Geoffrey wasn't sure Inigo had, after all. "Some place means above results, and others vice versa. It's a matter of personal philosophy, I suppose. But it takes an exceptional strength of character to bloody your hands for the greater good, and even greater strength to not slip into darkness resultantly."

"I see..." Inigo said vaguely and he went back into position to snuggle up against Geoffrey's chest, seeming to be at peace with the otter once more as he relaxed. The justification must have put his worry to rest. After a minute of comfortable silence the bat spoke up, softly in the rarer, more considerate tone of his. "Oh, by the way... Thanks for staying with me afterwards, Geoffrey. It... means a lot..."

Geoffrey felt another weak smile appearing on his face. He tousled the bat's red hair affectionately. "It was the least I could do for all your hard work..."

For that brief moment, Inigo's muzzle radiated with joy, and the bat seemed truly happy. "You know, I think I might just be falling for you, Geoffrey... you're sweet."

Suddenly a chill raced down Geoffrey's spine. What mildly warm feelings had mere moments ago vanished. Solemnity edged his voice when he spoke, "Inny, don't you dare fall in love with me." Geoffrey broke Inny's embrace and sat up. He placed his legs down on the hardwood floor, back now facing Inigo and webbed paws intertwined.

The bat's expression was mostly confused, but there was a hint of hurt as well. He looked at Geoffrey's back reproachfully. "Well, why not?"

There were so many reasons... but no matter how many he vocalized, he could never truly explain the harmful nature of his character. It was best to avoid the specifics. "Because I'm not a good person..."

Geoffrey felt a claw placed on one of his shoulders. He scowled. "I think you are..."

They were sweet words, but they only made Geoffrey taste bitterness; it disgusted him to no end to be seen as someone good and virtuous. He found himself sighing in disgust and irritation; he was going to have to demonstrate. And so, the albino otter brushed off Inigo's claw from his shoulder, stood up on the floor before turning around once more, and grabbed onto the black bat's shoulders with his webbed paws, staring him dead center in the eyes. There was confusion and surprise in Inigo's face.

"Look into my eyes, Inny, and tell me: what do you see?"

Inigo was a bit unsettled by the sudden question, but he complied nonetheless. "Well, they're dark blue..." the bat commented sheepishly, a strained laugh forced its way out his muzzle. "And pretty..."

"Perhaps I should rephrase. What is lacking in my eyes, Inny?"

"I... don't understand what you're asking."

"Light," Geoffrey answered cryptically, speaking the word as if it were some nostalgic remnant of the past. "There's no light in my eyes, Inny."

"I don't..."

"When you submerge yourself in shadows and drink the darkness, you can see all that walks in the light in perfect clarity. This is the secret to my perception and strength of marksmanship Inny: With darkness you gain perfect sight, but it changes you... into something unrecognizable."

"Geoffrey, just what are you talking about here...? You're starting to scare me," the bat muttered with a panic-stricken smile, his panic growing steadily.

"Inny!" Geoffrey hissed, the sudden anger in his voice giving Inigo pause. "If there's one time in this world for you to focus, it's now." His grip tightened. His stare intensified. It was as if some dark spirit had replaced the quiet otter, using his body as some sort of marionette. "I'm as rotten as they get, Inny. I'm worse than Faula, worse than my parents, worse than the people who killed your tribe..." The last comparison particularly shook up the bat.

And how lucky I was, that I wasn't chosen to be one of those men. I fear that I would have enjoyed the slaughter...

There was death and despair in Geoffrey's voice. "I'm a cold-blooded son of a bitch, always have been, always will be. The only time I feel warmth in my blood is when I'm covered in the blood of others. I've dedicated my life to serving Alarice and purging the world of monsters, even though that's exactly what I am. The irony has always haunted me... Sometimes I just want my contradiction of a life to end. I want death's sweet breeze to extinguish the candle of my life... So you shouldn't shackle yourself to a living corpse like me, no. You deserve so much better."

"O-Okay..." Inigo managed to croak out. The white otter slowly released his grip from Inigo's shoulders. Geoffrey didn't want to further frighten him; the poor bat looked as if he had just seen a ghost. A ghost that was white as death.

A few tears began to well in Geoffrey's eyes, but they didn't fall. There was no release to be had for Geoffrey. "Just do me a favor... don't let the bitterness of the world harden you. The joy in your voice, the glimmer in your eyes, and that childish smile... hold on to them for as long as you can. Because once you lose the light, it's gone forever. There's no salvation to be had, no reconciliation, no return... And if you find one day that the light has faded from everything, you'll regret your life's path, just as I have..."

And then suddenly, as if he had just forgotten everything, the emotion vanished from Geoffrey's expression. He let go of the shaken bat, who crawled backwards in fright. Geoffrey turned around to face the window, staring blankly at the unwelcoming light, thinking of nothing in particular. When he spoke up next, his voice was empty and desolate.

"Just as I have."