The Worldly Doctrine of Today [Eliane, Alastair]

How long had it been since she came here with her countless briefcases of intelligence? A month and a bit extra? Eliane had put her trust into Arlette, and by extension, into Mr. Eisfluch and the Vandenreich at large. She wasn't really one to worry about things much; it just didn't do anything to better a situation, and she had faith enough in her sister's ability to get something done.

Her other sisters, however, were a little more impatient. More testy. It didn't help that news of Claudia's death wasn't exactly as well-received by those two, either. That was why she'd put in the request for a meeting, why she was now sitting in a bistro in the middle of the city waiting for the Grandmaster to arrive. She wasn't exactly content to simply tell her sisters to keep waiting; they deserved something a little more cohesive than that.

Whatever she decided afterward, well, that depended on how this meeting went.

Alastair was as punctual as ever, arriving a couple of minutes earlier than their arranged meeting time to ensure that everything would proceed on schedule. A couple of months of good behaviour had bought her some amount of goodwill, though it was the counsel of Arlette that had prompted him to put a small modicum of trust in Eliane. There was no showy entourage, with little need for a display of strength or observation this time, as the Grandmaster entered the bistro and waited to be shown to their table.

"Ms Eliane."

His greeting was as stiff and rigid as ever, a habit he could not shake when it concerned her, but Alastair did seem at least positively neutral as he met her gaze on his approach. It seemed they both had things to talk about, though he could intuit at least one thing that was at the forefront of her mind. Just like it was Artlette's.

"Hello, Mr. Eisfluch."

There was little of Eliane's usual playful tone in her voice, though that was not to say it was wholly absent. A habit she could not shake, she supposed. Or, really, something far more ingrained into her. She'd been made to have such a demeanor, after all.

"Arlette tells me there's progress being made. I'm glad. I don't think I need to tell you that my sisters aren't doing too well in captivity, even if it's for people's safety, and frankly, for theirs."

Eliane was rarely blunt; it rarely had the effect of making people uncomfortable, after all. But if there was one thing she'd become very adept at, it was focusing that urge toward the one target who she need not feel guilty about; herself. She was profoundly uncomfortable being honest, to a degree that she clenched her fist simply to speak in what most would call a "normal" way. But it was what it was.

"I don't imagine Arlette's told you much about the process of making them, or even the two of us, but those two are practically children, Mr. Eisfluch. They don't understand the situation like she and I do. I promised them that they would be safe here. That they would be happy, and that I'd make sure they had a better life. I'd rather not start this new life by being a liar again, so I'd like to know what exactly I can be doing for you to expedite the process."

She was upset. She'd never been upset before, and she didn't even know how to express it, except by speaking the same way she always did. Should she be proud of herself? Glad that she could feel something?

All she felt was a faint nostalgia for the experience of Arlette blowing a hole in her skull.

There was a point, somewhere during Eliane's impassioned speech, that Alastair's brow furrowed ever so slightly. It took a lot to cause such a lapse in his stoic visage, a moment of significant disturbance as he realised that she was trying to be genuinely compassionate. He knew Eliane well enough to know that it was in her nature to feign such things as easily as she breathed. To bluff, to lie, to deceive, to misguide. She revelled in the misfortune of others to a degree that he had found deeply disturbing, yet here she was actually trying to be better. Her reasons were at least somewhat selfish, and it did not suddenly win his implicit trust, but he paused for a few moments simply to study her in a different light. It was, in many ways, a step in the direction of progress.

"Ms Arlette has made a proposal concerning your sisters that I found agreeable, and it has been sent along to the relevant security committees for review, but I will concede that she was unwilling to take one course of action that I rationalised as beneficial for the process."

He was an honest man, with her just as much as anyone else, so it made little sense to take a corporate approach to this when it was also deeply personal to both of them. But perhaps it was her direct approach to this that prompted him to match it. Arlette had told him as much, but seeing it with his own two eyes gave him that one thing he held quite dear. Hope.

"I want to believe that your sisters can reform and that being in a less restrictive situation might be beneficial to that, but I cannot simply wipe away their past actions. Transferring them to a facility outside of my authority could be seen as problematic, as I have no doubt that others will seek to take advantage of such leniency to exploit the justice system I have a sacred duty to uphold. So I asked her if she would consider joining the Vandenreich directly. but she wished to hold onto her independence."

His gaze focused in on her as if he was peering into her very soul, orange and reddish hues unfaltering as he found himself appealing to her goodwill. Nothing else stirred his heart quite as this did, so he wanted to see if it had any effect upon her in turn.

"Ms Arlette is an ally of the Vandenreich, and was instrumental in helping to recuperate our position after the dismantling of the Duvalier Group, so I believe that this is an obstacle that can be overcome with enough evidence. But you are a part of that picture too, whether you would like to be or not, so I would like to extend to you the same offer. There is a space for you within my Vandenreich where you might be able to demonstrate your quality, and I am happy to work with you on the details of that position, so that together we might be able to make this world a better place for those we care about."

The mention of Arlette being apparently mmaking things more difficult, for one reason or another, made Eliane livid internally. The explanation he gave, however, at least assuaged that to some faint degree. It still made all of this more difficult than necessary, of course, but she understood why Arlette would avoid that.

"I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Her position's more secured than mine, there's value in a civilian life being built and waiting for us. Besides, she's not very good at humanitarian work. She probably thinks she's unqualified for it, if I had to guess."

The two hadn't talked much lately, just because their paths hadn't crossed much. They had little to talk about these days, and Eliane had to wonder whether or not that was ever going to change. The intensity of Alastair's gaze was something Eliane certainly felt as it bored into her, but if anything, she didn't consider it unsettling. It was the opposite of dismissive, something that acknowledged her.

It was affirming, more than anything.

"If you'd like to have me in your organization, Mr. Eisfluch, then I'd accept if it can support Antonetta and Wolfina. The world is a cruel place, and they've been brought into it under cruel circumstances. I'd like to help get rid of things like that, if I can."

Eliane didn't tend to talk much about the things she was good at; she'd always kept those things close to her chest, just so people didn't know what to expect. But if it was necessary, as she suspected it would be, then she was perfectly ready to make clear the degree of competence she'd built over the years. How hard she'd worked to resemble a human being.

"I did assure Ms Arlette that her goals would be achievable without her acceptance, and her competency speaks for itself. When it comes to your sisters, I am sure that she believes she is making the best choice for them too."

Alastair had played out this scenario half a hundred times in his head, and she had accepted his offer in many of them, but every time had left him feeling like something was lacking. It was because he knew Eliane that it was easy to imagine her saying those words. As easy as it was to imagine her putting one of those knives on the table right between his shoulderblades the second he turned his back. Yet she spoke and he felt something that each and every simulation had lacked, her conviction. That sense of will that he had been unable to induce in her clone.

"Proving that it is possible to overcome the psychological barriers that Lady Duvalier placed upon the four of you will be a fundamental basis of our case. There is no better place for this to be recorded than internally. And there are more people out there in similar positions to your sisters that need someone to stand up for them too."

He preached redemption and self-reinvention, so to see it take hold in Eliane of all people was a brief moment of pride for the Grandmaster. This was only the very first step, though. He was trusting her with his dream, as insane as that might have sounded to the Alastair of yesterday, and he genuinely wanted to believe that she would rise above the challenges they would undoubtedly face.

"So thank you for placing your trust in me. I imagine there is no small amount that we can both teach each other, to insure that you might get the most out of this experience."

"There are. It'll be a long time before her claws are pulled out, I think, maybe longer than either of us will be alive. But I'll do my best."

Not that Eliane thought that the two of them would be dying prematurely; she simply knew the scope of what it was Claudia had done. She knew, too, that even with all her knowledge of the situation, with all of the intelligence she'd had access to, it was probably a mere sliver of what was out there. That was why, after a few moments, she spoke again.

"Truth be told, Mr. Eisfluch, I wonder if her death wasn't all part of her plan. She was careful. One of the only people I've ever met that I didn't really know how to read. She had plans in place for her death, you know that. But those plans don't quite sit right with me."

Things didn't add up. And Eliane, her eyes still on Alastair, tapped her fingers idly against the table as she thought about them. No, it wasn't that they didn't add up. They added up just right. It was all very...clean.

"I wonder why she left FRUITS to Arlette. Why she left animal rescues to Antonetta. She wouldn't have cared about us being happy after she was gone. But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself for now."

It was a small thing, to be sure. Inconsequential. But there was simply no reason to do it.

"Your best is all that I could ask for and more."

The prospect that Claudia had planned for her own demise in such meticulously cruel detail was hardly an unlikely occurrence, and that leaving each of them a specific portion of what was once her international empire was done with ill intent too. Alastair did want to believe that he had been able to reach her at the end, but she would not have been able to action much that evening prior to her death, so what had happened afterwards was as she had planned for at least some time. It all made little sense, even after they had been given months to trawl through those assets and attempt to uncover any of those darker machinations to little avail, but there was one fact that Alastair had never lost sight of. Even death would not stop Claudia Duvalier from attempting to achieve her goal.

"If nothing else, I will agree that she definitely had countermeasures in place and we must remain vigilant for them waiting around every corner. There were plans that neither you nor I were ever intended to be aware of, terrible things that would have done little good for the image she created for herself."

Alastair had seen that look in her eyes on that last night, as she conceded to him that she was prepared to give it all up for his sake, that spoke of a darkness so great that she might have doubted even he could forgive her. But even after all that he had learned about her since then, he remained certain that he would speak those same words to her still if only she were still here to hear them.

"It seems oddly fitting for us to end up chasing Lady Duvalier's ghost together. Even if it takes a lifetime."

"Now that she's dead, she doesn't have to worry about any of it, and I think whatever she planned is going to go through without any concern for how it reflects on her. That image was just a means of getting away with things while she was alive. It's why I've never trusted people who only come across as good-natured, who don't have anything but kindness behind their eyes."

There was a brief moment of pause, and then Eliane offered Alastair a small smile, a degree of that more typical playfulness that defined Eliane's whole existence coming through. But even now, it was still not at the expense of someone else; she was still making herself uncomfortable, still being more honest than was ever natural for her.

"It's why I'm still willing to put my faith in you, even with everything going the way it has. This isn't quite the freedom I wanted, or the life I would have liked to give to my little sisters. But you're not so obsessed with being kind that you pretend like it is. You're honest, in a way I think some people might call cruel. It's nice."

Not that Eliane necessarily wanted to start psychoanalyzing the man. She could have, certainly, but there wasn't any point to it. He was straightforward enough that it felt unnecessary, and had been kind enough that it would only have been mean. But it was better, she felt, to vocalize her thoughts. The alternative, after all, was to simply wear that mask that had been on her face since she was born.

"Since you're already here, I don't suppose you want to join me for lunch? We've never exactly had a normal conversation, you know, and I'd like to try and get to know a little bit about my future employer."

"I can imagine that she was ready to weaponise anything as soon as it lost its value to her, even herself. Not to mention that tarnishing her image would also tarnish the Vandenreich's by association, which would likely suit her goals all the same."

Much as she slipped a little into her more whimsical nature, Alastair too shifted back to his baser instincts as she offered him that compliment of sorts. That moment where his passion had shone through soon vanished behind a stoic visage as he shrugged it off with little reaction beyond an accepting nod, unwilling perhaps to truly admit to such a thing despite its truthfulness. But it was a fleeting moment, the conversation drifting past him and he relaxed again.

"I would be happy to join you for lunch and attempt to engage in normal conversation—or at least to provide you with a little amusement in our attempt at such. I will admit that I want to know you better and that I am surprised to be saying those words."

He settled into his seat a little more as the prospect of actually dining at this bistro suddenly became a reality. It did feel quite odd to be sat opposite Eliane even after all the time they had known each other. In many ways, they were strangers, connected only through work and only when wearing their appropriate facades, so to peel away that mask was perhaps the first step to inviting a connection. Not that Alastair had any true idea what lay beneath.