Dodgy Eggs

Gen eats dodgy eggs

Pippin knew. Pippin knew why he was obsessing. Pippin �" would stop him if she could �" would put her hand on his shoulder and say softly “Do you really want to get killed today, ninja?” But Pippin wasn't here. Pippin was comforting a drunk Seneka in her room. Seneka was drunk because Pippin was injured. Pippin was injured because his bro�"Sven had done this to her. There was only one solution: to do what he had been planning since he was eight; kill Sven. (So that the ghosts don't haunt him anymore, won't crawl into his head at night and whisper sweet threats into his ear unless he promises to avenge them. (Hatred only goes so far, after all.)) But this is �" different. This time he is doing it for Pippin. Isn't that different somehow? Isn't it?

He ignores the voice in his head that tells him that it isn't, wanders into Aksum and hires some mercenaries to infiltrate Sven's fortress. He has no qualms about killing all of them himself if he has to. (No qualms. He keeps telling himself things like this. He keeps lying to himself like this.)

He tells himself that he doesn't regret anything when he is sitting on a block of straw in a cell in Sven's fortress, waiting to be tortured. He tells himself that when Snow comes to rescue him, he doesn't care whether or not his bro-- Sven �" kills him or not. He pretends that the reason the cell stinks with the smell of his vomit is because of the dodgy eggs he ate this morning, not because of the fear roiling in his gut.

He knows why does does it. He knows it is irrational. He doesn't care.

Author's Note

Gen's older brother Sven killed his whole family when Gen was eight.