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• Caspian sits back on the bed with a sigh and nods.

<Captain_Driver> I shut the door behind me and wait.

<Caspian> "Sit down, please."

• Caspian seems to be trying to figure out where to start.
• Captain_Driver sits.

<Caspian> "What happened? In the garden."

<Captain_Driver> "In what sense?"

<Captain_Driver> "No. fuck the sense. I'll tell you what happened."

<Captain_Driver> "I tried to do what I know how."

<Captain_Driver> "I tried to do what i'm supposed to."

<Captain_Driver> "I tried to give us some advantage over these godlike madmen who have all the powers of demons and all the skills of criminals with the disadvantages of neither."

<Captain_Driver> gets up and begins to pace angrily.

<Captain_Driver> "Much as I have been doing from the first time I shook Belizo's hand in Anlir, I attempted to turn what I know against an enemy I can't beat."

<Captain_Driver> "They have my wife, they have my mother, they have my town,"

<Captain_Driver> "And they seem to have you."

• Caspian blinks and looks up in surprise. "Me?"

<Captain_Driver> "Yes. You."

<Captain_Driver> "What the hell were you thinking facing them."

<Captain_Driver> "They came, we knew they were coming, and you played hero. you didn't come in."

<Captain_Driver> "So I got nothing."

<Caspian> "I misjudged. I expected Incera, but not the others."

<Captain_Driver> "I'm trying to batter down the castle gates with my dick."

<Captain_Driver> spits that last line.

<Captain_Driver> "What happened? I lost. that's what happened."

<Captain_Driver> "I lost as soon as I shook Belizo's hand."

<Captain_Driver> "I was an imperial guard, I was a sherrif, and I was a silver torch. None of that is helping me now."

<Caspian> "You haven't lost. You haven't lost while you live."

<Captain_Driver> Yeah, I USED TO SAY THAT!"

<Captain_Driver> "And then every time I try anything we end up worse off!"

<Captain_Driver> now on the verge of frustrated rage. "I can't BEAT HIM!"

<Caspian> "I believe that you can. But not the way you have been trying."

<Captain_Driver> "That's for damn sure."

• Caspian knows what he wants to say, but seems to be looking for the right words.
• Captain_Driver is still pacing like a tiger.

<Captain_Driver> "And then we run into Charlie."

<Captain_Driver> "You know what seeing him told me?"

<Caspian> "Tell me."

<Captain_Driver> throws up his hands. "I don't remember what I was like as a sherrif."

<Captain_Driver> "I don't remember what I did, or how I did it. all I have is this muscle memory..."

<Caspian> "I can't tell you that. I only know what I've seen since we met."

<Captain_Driver> "I never, ever regretted not being an imperial guard any more, but I'd give anything to be a sherrif again."

<Captain_Driver> sits down again.

• Caspian smiles a little. "That's a dangerous statement."

<Captain_Driver> "Why? Isn't that who your father hired? isn't that who Viollca fell in love with?"

<Captain_Driver> throws up hands again. "I'm not him anymore. I really wish I was."

<Captain_Driver> "Right now I'm the man who thought he was hot shit in the Imperial Guard and slept with the imperial princess."

<Captain_Driver> "Except that now, I'm him and I'm beaten."

• Caspian sighs. "I'm sorry. I meant the statement of giving anything... Not a very good joke."
• Captain_Driver thinks about that, then looks embarassed. "Oh...sorry."
• Caspian nods slowly. "I agree though."

<Captain_Driver> "I really don't know what to do."

<Captain_Driver> "Nothing I do is working."

<Caspian> "Learn. Change."

<Captain_Driver> "Yeah. learn what? change to what? That's what I've been working on."

<Captain_Driver> "and so far the results have been spectacular cluster-fucks."

<Captain_Driver> "The /order/ church couldn't help me."

<Captain_Driver> "My enemy is a servant of chaos. the Order church couldn't help me."

<Caspian> "Paul..."

<Captain_Driver> "Yes?"

• Caspian again seems to be searching for the right words, the right way to say this without being too harsh.
• Captain_Driver waits

<Caspian> "You are a good man. I trust you with my life. I trust you with my sister's life. I have for some time, and you /have/ grown since then. But what you're talking about... What leads to these situations... Perhaps I'm wrong, and I hope I am, but it's a thing that you've demonstrated the whole trip. And you've danced around it in your self-criticisms, but you seem to... draw back from it in the end."

• Captain_Driver listens

<Caspian> "It's... arrogance, Paul." It pains Caspian to say that. "You will not back down, no matter the cost, when you feel your pride is at stake. With Ascuncion in the gardens, it was like again watching you speak to the police when they made to arrest us just after we met."

<Captain_Driver> "You mean the ones who arrested teenage girls and thier fathers and used the fathers as leverage to rape the girls?"

<Captain_Driver> "Was I not fit to call them on that? should I have left it to that knight who came to arrest you?"

<Caspian> "You called attacking a chink in his armor, but it seems to be one that you see in everyone. That they can be beaten if you prove that you're the bigger man."

<Caspian> "To call them on that, /yes/! /NOT/ to DARE them to take us by force!"

<Captain_Driver> "I DIDN"T DARE THEM TO TAKE US BY FORCE! I TRIED TO TALK THEM DOWN!"

• Captain_Driver gets ahold of himself. "Which...I have tried to do for every enemy not hellbent on destroying cities, or obviously demonic."
• Caspian takes a deep breath.

<Captain_Driver> "So I appear arrogant to you because I actually try to find some way I can render threats not threats anymore."

<Captain_Driver> "You won't be surprised to hear the feeling's mutual. got any ideas how I can do what I'm supposed to do in a /humble/ way?"

<Caspian> "You appear arrogant to me because you feel the best way to do that is to compare the size of your dick to that of every opponent we encounter!"

• Caspian cuts off abruptly, agast at himself.

<Captain_Driver> "Is that what I was doing in that town? I thought I was trying to defuse a situation."

<Captain_Driver> "And last night, I thought I was trying to turn the tide of an otherwise impossible confrontation."

<Captain_Driver> "Is it arrogance because I tried, or because I failed?"

<Caspian> "Paul, you brought the gods themselves in as pawns on a claim that you were braver than Ascuncion, knowing little of him."

<Captain_Driver> "No. I gambled that my god, being more powerful than me, would do something for me!"

<Captain_Driver> "I was in someone else's home!"

<Caspian> "How is it not arrogance, when you choose that battle, that gamble that you're bolder and can bring your opponents cowering to their knees, every time when you yourself have said that it ends in disaster /every time/?"

<Captain_Driver> "Because there has to be something. ther has to be something that works! there has to be something that can beat them!"

<Captain_Driver> "If you don't believe that, what are even doing?"

<Captain_Driver> "That's not arrogance! that's trying to do something, /anything/, with what little we have!"

<Caspian> "We are trying to figure out how to defeat them. You are trying the /same thing every time/."

<Caspian> "You declared Asuncion a coward who wouldn't speak your goddesses name."

<Caspian> "You declared the demon in the forests of (place) a coward who wouldn't attack us from hiding."

<Caspian> "You declared Belizo a cowar- You declared those lawmen cowards who wouldn't dare arrest us in light of their own crimes."

<Captain_Driver> "I honestly don't know what you're remembering about those so-called lawmen. I tried to talk them down."

<Captain_Driver> "There was no goading in anything I said."

<Captain_Driver> "And as for that demon, what would you have done in my place?"

<Caspian> "And each time that you've seen that it has only pushed them to attack, to make good on their threats, you have still done it again."

<Captain_Driver> "I was out there losing men."