Equillibrium Ficlet
Title: Revelations.
Fandom: Equillbrium.
Pairing: John Preston/Errol Partridge.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, I do but play with them.
Summary: A year on, Preston learns some of the Undergound's secrets. Set after the film, so here be spoilers.
Dedication: To deannawol, in the hopes it brightens the Monday morning after Con. *hugs*
Libria, First Anniversary of the Revolution.
Jurgen raised his glass, smiling demurely at the toast offered in his honour. The exclusive party was muted - allowing the select company to listen to the wild celebrations outside. All Libria has thrown itself into a delirious celebration of the war's end and the dawn of new era of reason and emotion.
Jurgen moved away from the group and spared a nod to the black-clad Clerick who unobtrusively hovers behind him. He hides the sudden smile by taking another sip of his wine. A year ago, this hall would have been filled with blood and screaming as the Clericks slaughtered the hated sense offenders. Instead, they stood silent vigil over the remainder of those who had once been their hated enemies.
Jurgen wondered how fast Dupont was spinning in his non-existant grave and swallowed the wine, savouring the tart taste. He had spent his entire adult life working to destroy Prozium and all it represented but the drug had left a most useful legacy. The rebels had won over more than eighty percent of the Grammaton Order over the five months it had taken for the last reserves of Prozium to run dry and withdrawal had cast the Clericks into a nightmare of hallucinations and nightmares. Aid and compassion had won them to the Revolution's cause by the hundred and every black-clad figure in this room believed with the fantatisim of a convert in the Revolution's cause. Of course, the lion's share of credit for such a daring plan was due to the one leading rebel conspicuous by his absence at the dual celebration.
Jurgen's smile vanished and his lips tightened as his mind returned to the Grammaton Conseul, General of the Revolution and Slayer of Father. Clerick John Preston.
The younger man played only the barest of public roles; most of his energy devoted to fighting the war with a zeal and determination that put the older members of the revolution to shame. He was a driven man. Across Libria, he and his Clericks hunted rogue Clericks down as they had once hunted sense offenders. To Jurgen, such men were pitiful - clinging to the old ways of Father and EC-10. Preston saw only a threat.
He was the reason the war - which should have lasted for years of blood and terror - had been all but won in just over ten months. He had been their foremost tactician, constantly improving their attacks. Yet, tonight - when all the world celebrated their victory - he was ensconsed in his office.
Not that Jurgen was complaining. Preston had been so new, so alien to them - a stranger garbed as a Clerick, a symbol of all that they hated and with the blood of unknown hundreds of their families and friends staining his hands. It had been easy to set him the suicidal task of killing Father. Appallingly easy in retrospect. Jurgen stared into his wine, the red wine showing him a darkened reflection of himself. They had wanted Preston to kill Father but they had also wanted him to die in the course of the tyrant's execution.
It would have been perfect...tailor-made to suit their cause. The martyr Clerick. One of Father's most devout servants, crucified on the bullets of his fellows. A man so disgusted with the false prophet of Prozium that he died to commit the unthinkable act of regicide.
When he thought of it, as he did more frequently these days, Jurgen was appalled at the ease with which they had manipulated Preston into agreement...and yet, he could not truly regret the sentiment. Even after seeing the casualties, knowing that without John Preston the bodies would have been stacked ten times higher, Jurgen could not suppress the wish that Preston had died that day. He was not alone in such thoughts.
Every rebel in this room shared them. They had never discussed it, simply falling into wordless conspiracy and unable or unwilling to drag themselves free. They might respect Preston's tactics, his martial prowess...even grudgingly admire him for it. But not a single soul in the entire surviving inner circle liked John Preston.
And Jurgen knew, as he made his excuses and withdrew from the party, that it was time to tell Preston why.
Clerick John Preston sat in his office, scanning through a treatise on the physical effects of Prozium. It had been written by the Resistance's first leader - as had most of Preston's recent reading. The tone was detached, analytical and damning. The whole piece was structured in reasoned arguments, polemic prose and a burning belief in the sentiments underlying the arguments that inspired and enflamed in equal measure.
The man had been a genius. Preston had become his post-mortem voice, bringing the dead man's words to the people they had been intended for. The power of his words made fanatics out of cynics. The earliest rivaled then came to surpass the eloquence of Father's propaganda.
The more Preston read, the more he wondered about the man who had written such texts. All his writings bore "The Son" in the author field. Almost nothing was known of the man - all Jurgen had ever told Preston was that the Son had been killed by a clerick shortly before the Revolution. So Preston was forced to extrapolate from the man's writing.
The Son had been a man, unwed and without children and his writings spanned a twenty year period. His first text had been written within a year of his first time coming off the dose. He had been put on the dose as a child. His fall from Prozium-induced conformisim had come when he was sixteen years old. He had been extremely pragmatic.
More intriguing however were the unwritten details learnt by reading between the lines. The choice of the psuedo-name for example - an obvious reference to Father but what exactly did it signify? Did the anonymous author see his ideals as arising from Father's or as a replacement? Was it a hint of something else?
Another mystery - Preston was the first Clerick in (recorded) history to sucessfully become a renegade without being discovered in a very short time. Even so, his rebellion had only lasted so long because he had been a pawn in Dupont's sadistic game of cat-and-mouse. Yet the Son's writing was littered with references to the most mundane details of Clerickal life.
From the current tract for example - "Physical Release Therapy or P.R.T. is perhaps the greatest concession to the failure of Prozium as anything more substantial than an aid to propoganda.
That even the Grammaton Clericks - the paragons of Librian ideals and the regime's most endoctrinated supporters - suffered sexual tension while under its influence to the extent that the Conseul of the the Grammaton Order were forced to address it in the weekly rejuvinating processes shows the failure of Prozium in its one fundamental function. If Prozium truly suppressed the underlying needs which gave rise to emotion, P.R.T. would be superfluous and unnecessary."
A good argument but Preston doubted that, even today, more than a handful of non-Clericks even knew that P.R.T. existed, much less what it consisted of. It had been phased out - replaced with the enforced and 'productive' marriages just as Preston left the Monastary.
He owed his own unusually extensive knowledge of it to the fact that he had partnered Errol Partridge for nearly ten years. The older Clerick had been "too old" to settle harmoniously into marriage and so Preston had been asked if he objected to partnering the older man in P.R.T. He had been emphatic in assuring them that it was not a problem.
Partridge had been the ideal to which Preston and his peers aspired. The blond Clerick's reputation as an efficent and skilled Clerick would have been sufficent to ensure any number of partners had Preston objected to sharing his bed for the weekly therapy. But Preston remembered the flash of what he now recognised as pride when he had been assigned to Partrige and he knew that it was jealousy that had prompted his insistence. He had cited worries that it would weaken their partnership and at the time it had seemed a valid concern. The very first mission they had undertaken as a team had been a sucess, despite a clumsy mis-step on Preston's part. He had only survived the near-fatal consequences of that mistake because Partridge intervened to save him.
Mortified, he had forced himself out onto the practice mats as soon as the medics allowed him out and despite his injuries. He had been miserably certain that Partridge would request reassignment...
He pivots, eyes unfocusing with pain. The katana swishes through the air-and thwacks into another sword. He blinks and follows the blade up and along the arm to meet quizzical jade green eyes and freezes. "Clerick Partridge?"
"Clerick Preston." The older man acknowledges. "Should you not be resting?"
"I...need the practice more than I require rest."
"Oh?" Partridge studies him for a moment then nods. "Well then Clerick, since I too require practice, you will perhaps indulge me in a sparring session?"
"A-as you wish, sir." Preston falters, licking dry lips as Partridge smiles for the first time in their brief aquaintance.
"Since we are likely to be partnered for some time, John Preston, I think it would be best if we learnt to...anticipate each other. With that aim in mind, I believe we can forgo certain...formalities."
Preston blinks then shakes his head sharply to clear it. "Yessir."
Partridge takes up a ready stance opposite him. "Shall we begin then, John?"
The resulting sparring match had been little more than a series of stretching exercises. It was a trick Partridge would use often in the future - whenever Preston insisted on pushing his limits to dangerous extremes.
Preston reached up to caress the frayed ribbon looped around his neck. His charm against all harm. Others believed it was a memento of Mary and the brief time they shared. Only he knows that it is truly a reminder of Errol. A faint trace - almost completely gone now - remained of his partner's scent. A treasure...and a scourge.
He knew now that he had been intensely attracted to Errol from the first. Something his body had recognised almost immediately but that his mind had been regretably lax in realising. Their third mission together had nearly ended in tragedy thanks to his then-inexplicable physical reaction to his partner.
Errol had moved like a panther, all smooth, economical grace that in no way belied the awesome power of hard muscles under the black coat. Preston had been mesmerized, as stiff as a sense offender confronted by an entire team of Clericks, right up until a bullet pierced Errol's defences.
The sudden shock of crimson spraying into the shadowy world of greys and blacks had seemed almost blasphemous. Errol had stumbled, then resumed fighting as if nothing had happened while guilt spurred Preston to his side. By the time they had eliminated the last of the resistance, Errol had lost a considerable amount of blood and he collapsed as they left the building to the sweeper teams. Preston hauled him to the medics in a flurry of guilt and worry.
He had made his stilted apologies and confessed the full extent of his failure to Errol while the elder Clerick recuperated in a hosptial bed. To his surprise, Errol had not blamed him for the near disaster, taking the blame on himself. He also won the then Vice-Conseul's consent to starting P.R.T. with Preston, as soon as his wounds permited.
The sound of approaching footsteps snapped Preston back to the present and his hand dropped to the hilt of the katana under the desk. He turned to face the door, sparing a quick glance to ensure that his guns were near at hand. The door swung silently open as Jurgen attempted to knock. Preston relaxed fractionally and nodded the other man towards the empty chair The older man was flushed, sweating slightly and his body language all but screamed of nervous resolution. Preston's hand tightened around the hilt of the sword as he wondered idly if the man meant to try to assasinate him.
Jurgen sat down and they stared at each other. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. Preston waited paitently for the reason Jurgen had broken the habits of the past year and come to see him. He was neither blind nor a fool and he knew that the Resistance leader was uncomfortable being in the same room as him.
Jurgen sighed and looked away. "We need to talk."
Preston raised an eybrow and leant back in his chair. He allowed a fractional smirk to cross his lips, inviting Jurgen to continue. Jurgen fidgeted and the silence grew still more oppressive. The Clerick watched and waited. Jurgen fought a brief battle against his impulses. For a second, he seemed on the verge of simply leaving then he deflated and finally began to speak.
"You have been reading the texts left by the Son, haven't you?" Preston nodded. "You know he was our leader? The one who created the Resistance as it was when you found it?" Another nod. "You know he was killed by the Clericks?" Slower nod. "What else do you know?"
Preston considered not answering then shrugged. "I know he was intelligent, charismatic....and a Clerick."
The last admission was a gamble - one that paid off as Jurgen's expression changed. He looked surprised then his eyes dropped and he took a deep breath. He reached into a pocket and took out a small wooden box. It was old - dating to at least a full century before the last world war. The dark and gold inlays were smooth and clean - an abstract celtic design. The older man set it on the desk, hands lingering on it for a moment.
Jurgen looked down at it and rose to his feet. "That..is for you. When you've finished reading, I'll be in the library."
Preston frowned but the other man was already moving to the door. He looked back at the box, reaching out to trail his fingers along the smooth metal. It was smooth and the warmth imparted by Jurgen's body lingered. He still thought of touch as the forbidden fruit. The true sense crime and the only physical offence. It was a ceaseless distraction, the tiny imperfections of the wood grain in his desk, the ridged grip of his katana and the soft flesh of another's hands. Perhaps if he had grown up with such tactile pleasure he would have grown accustomed to it. As it was, the feel of the world was seductive and alluring - a temptation that grew harder to resist with each indulgence.
He could not afford such luxuries. He had much to do, much to atone for and he reached for the clasp of the box, angry at his cowardice. The box clicked open without any resistance to reveal a couple of old envelopes with "John" written on them. In the corner was the sunburst emblem of the Son. Preston felt his mouth dry up. He knew that writing. He could not quite call the memory to mind but something was familiar enough to make his hands tremble.
He unfolded the topmost letter, and scanned the neat curved letters and thought his heart had stopped.
"Dear John,
If you are reading this, then Libria is free and I imagine you played a pivotal role. Of course, if you are reading this, I am dead and you know only half the story. You knew me, as Clerick, perhaps as a rebel. As I said, you know only half the story. I was not always Errol Partridge...once I was Errol Princeton...Father's youngest and only survivng son.
When I took the name Partridge, I rejected all he had come to espouse...and I took another, more secret name. The Son to Father's words - one who remembered the man instead of the tyrant..."
Fandom: Equillbrium.
Pairing: John Preston/Errol Partridge.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, I do but play with them.
Summary: A year on, Preston learns some of the Undergound's secrets. Set after the film, so here be spoilers.
Dedication: To deannawol, in the hopes it brightens the Monday morning after Con. *hugs*
Libria, First Anniversary of the Revolution.
Jurgen raised his glass, smiling demurely at the toast offered in his honour. The exclusive party was muted - allowing the select company to listen to the wild celebrations outside. All Libria has thrown itself into a delirious celebration of the war's end and the dawn of new era of reason and emotion.
Jurgen moved away from the group and spared a nod to the black-clad Clerick who unobtrusively hovers behind him. He hides the sudden smile by taking another sip of his wine. A year ago, this hall would have been filled with blood and screaming as the Clericks slaughtered the hated sense offenders. Instead, they stood silent vigil over the remainder of those who had once been their hated enemies.
Jurgen wondered how fast Dupont was spinning in his non-existant grave and swallowed the wine, savouring the tart taste. He had spent his entire adult life working to destroy Prozium and all it represented but the drug had left a most useful legacy. The rebels had won over more than eighty percent of the Grammaton Order over the five months it had taken for the last reserves of Prozium to run dry and withdrawal had cast the Clericks into a nightmare of hallucinations and nightmares. Aid and compassion had won them to the Revolution's cause by the hundred and every black-clad figure in this room believed with the fantatisim of a convert in the Revolution's cause. Of course, the lion's share of credit for such a daring plan was due to the one leading rebel conspicuous by his absence at the dual celebration.
Jurgen's smile vanished and his lips tightened as his mind returned to the Grammaton Conseul, General of the Revolution and Slayer of Father. Clerick John Preston.
The younger man played only the barest of public roles; most of his energy devoted to fighting the war with a zeal and determination that put the older members of the revolution to shame. He was a driven man. Across Libria, he and his Clericks hunted rogue Clericks down as they had once hunted sense offenders. To Jurgen, such men were pitiful - clinging to the old ways of Father and EC-10. Preston saw only a threat.
He was the reason the war - which should have lasted for years of blood and terror - had been all but won in just over ten months. He had been their foremost tactician, constantly improving their attacks. Yet, tonight - when all the world celebrated their victory - he was ensconsed in his office.
Not that Jurgen was complaining. Preston had been so new, so alien to them - a stranger garbed as a Clerick, a symbol of all that they hated and with the blood of unknown hundreds of their families and friends staining his hands. It had been easy to set him the suicidal task of killing Father. Appallingly easy in retrospect. Jurgen stared into his wine, the red wine showing him a darkened reflection of himself. They had wanted Preston to kill Father but they had also wanted him to die in the course of the tyrant's execution.
It would have been perfect...tailor-made to suit their cause. The martyr Clerick. One of Father's most devout servants, crucified on the bullets of his fellows. A man so disgusted with the false prophet of Prozium that he died to commit the unthinkable act of regicide.
When he thought of it, as he did more frequently these days, Jurgen was appalled at the ease with which they had manipulated Preston into agreement...and yet, he could not truly regret the sentiment. Even after seeing the casualties, knowing that without John Preston the bodies would have been stacked ten times higher, Jurgen could not suppress the wish that Preston had died that day. He was not alone in such thoughts.
Every rebel in this room shared them. They had never discussed it, simply falling into wordless conspiracy and unable or unwilling to drag themselves free. They might respect Preston's tactics, his martial prowess...even grudgingly admire him for it. But not a single soul in the entire surviving inner circle liked John Preston.
And Jurgen knew, as he made his excuses and withdrew from the party, that it was time to tell Preston why.
Clerick John Preston sat in his office, scanning through a treatise on the physical effects of Prozium. It had been written by the Resistance's first leader - as had most of Preston's recent reading. The tone was detached, analytical and damning. The whole piece was structured in reasoned arguments, polemic prose and a burning belief in the sentiments underlying the arguments that inspired and enflamed in equal measure.
The man had been a genius. Preston had become his post-mortem voice, bringing the dead man's words to the people they had been intended for. The power of his words made fanatics out of cynics. The earliest rivaled then came to surpass the eloquence of Father's propaganda.
The more Preston read, the more he wondered about the man who had written such texts. All his writings bore "The Son" in the author field. Almost nothing was known of the man - all Jurgen had ever told Preston was that the Son had been killed by a clerick shortly before the Revolution. So Preston was forced to extrapolate from the man's writing.
The Son had been a man, unwed and without children and his writings spanned a twenty year period. His first text had been written within a year of his first time coming off the dose. He had been put on the dose as a child. His fall from Prozium-induced conformisim had come when he was sixteen years old. He had been extremely pragmatic.
More intriguing however were the unwritten details learnt by reading between the lines. The choice of the psuedo-name for example - an obvious reference to Father but what exactly did it signify? Did the anonymous author see his ideals as arising from Father's or as a replacement? Was it a hint of something else?
Another mystery - Preston was the first Clerick in (recorded) history to sucessfully become a renegade without being discovered in a very short time. Even so, his rebellion had only lasted so long because he had been a pawn in Dupont's sadistic game of cat-and-mouse. Yet the Son's writing was littered with references to the most mundane details of Clerickal life.
From the current tract for example - "Physical Release Therapy or P.R.T. is perhaps the greatest concession to the failure of Prozium as anything more substantial than an aid to propoganda.
That even the Grammaton Clericks - the paragons of Librian ideals and the regime's most endoctrinated supporters - suffered sexual tension while under its influence to the extent that the Conseul of the the Grammaton Order were forced to address it in the weekly rejuvinating processes shows the failure of Prozium in its one fundamental function. If Prozium truly suppressed the underlying needs which gave rise to emotion, P.R.T. would be superfluous and unnecessary."
A good argument but Preston doubted that, even today, more than a handful of non-Clericks even knew that P.R.T. existed, much less what it consisted of. It had been phased out - replaced with the enforced and 'productive' marriages just as Preston left the Monastary.
He owed his own unusually extensive knowledge of it to the fact that he had partnered Errol Partridge for nearly ten years. The older Clerick had been "too old" to settle harmoniously into marriage and so Preston had been asked if he objected to partnering the older man in P.R.T. He had been emphatic in assuring them that it was not a problem.
Partridge had been the ideal to which Preston and his peers aspired. The blond Clerick's reputation as an efficent and skilled Clerick would have been sufficent to ensure any number of partners had Preston objected to sharing his bed for the weekly therapy. But Preston remembered the flash of what he now recognised as pride when he had been assigned to Partrige and he knew that it was jealousy that had prompted his insistence. He had cited worries that it would weaken their partnership and at the time it had seemed a valid concern. The very first mission they had undertaken as a team had been a sucess, despite a clumsy mis-step on Preston's part. He had only survived the near-fatal consequences of that mistake because Partridge intervened to save him.
Mortified, he had forced himself out onto the practice mats as soon as the medics allowed him out and despite his injuries. He had been miserably certain that Partridge would request reassignment...
He pivots, eyes unfocusing with pain. The katana swishes through the air-and thwacks into another sword. He blinks and follows the blade up and along the arm to meet quizzical jade green eyes and freezes. "Clerick Partridge?"
"Clerick Preston." The older man acknowledges. "Should you not be resting?"
"I...need the practice more than I require rest."
"Oh?" Partridge studies him for a moment then nods. "Well then Clerick, since I too require practice, you will perhaps indulge me in a sparring session?"
"A-as you wish, sir." Preston falters, licking dry lips as Partridge smiles for the first time in their brief aquaintance.
"Since we are likely to be partnered for some time, John Preston, I think it would be best if we learnt to...anticipate each other. With that aim in mind, I believe we can forgo certain...formalities."
Preston blinks then shakes his head sharply to clear it. "Yessir."
Partridge takes up a ready stance opposite him. "Shall we begin then, John?"
The resulting sparring match had been little more than a series of stretching exercises. It was a trick Partridge would use often in the future - whenever Preston insisted on pushing his limits to dangerous extremes.
Preston reached up to caress the frayed ribbon looped around his neck. His charm against all harm. Others believed it was a memento of Mary and the brief time they shared. Only he knows that it is truly a reminder of Errol. A faint trace - almost completely gone now - remained of his partner's scent. A treasure...and a scourge.
He knew now that he had been intensely attracted to Errol from the first. Something his body had recognised almost immediately but that his mind had been regretably lax in realising. Their third mission together had nearly ended in tragedy thanks to his then-inexplicable physical reaction to his partner.
Errol had moved like a panther, all smooth, economical grace that in no way belied the awesome power of hard muscles under the black coat. Preston had been mesmerized, as stiff as a sense offender confronted by an entire team of Clericks, right up until a bullet pierced Errol's defences.
The sudden shock of crimson spraying into the shadowy world of greys and blacks had seemed almost blasphemous. Errol had stumbled, then resumed fighting as if nothing had happened while guilt spurred Preston to his side. By the time they had eliminated the last of the resistance, Errol had lost a considerable amount of blood and he collapsed as they left the building to the sweeper teams. Preston hauled him to the medics in a flurry of guilt and worry.
He had made his stilted apologies and confessed the full extent of his failure to Errol while the elder Clerick recuperated in a hosptial bed. To his surprise, Errol had not blamed him for the near disaster, taking the blame on himself. He also won the then Vice-Conseul's consent to starting P.R.T. with Preston, as soon as his wounds permited.
The sound of approaching footsteps snapped Preston back to the present and his hand dropped to the hilt of the katana under the desk. He turned to face the door, sparing a quick glance to ensure that his guns were near at hand. The door swung silently open as Jurgen attempted to knock. Preston relaxed fractionally and nodded the other man towards the empty chair The older man was flushed, sweating slightly and his body language all but screamed of nervous resolution. Preston's hand tightened around the hilt of the sword as he wondered idly if the man meant to try to assasinate him.
Jurgen sat down and they stared at each other. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. Preston waited paitently for the reason Jurgen had broken the habits of the past year and come to see him. He was neither blind nor a fool and he knew that the Resistance leader was uncomfortable being in the same room as him.
Jurgen sighed and looked away. "We need to talk."
Preston raised an eybrow and leant back in his chair. He allowed a fractional smirk to cross his lips, inviting Jurgen to continue. Jurgen fidgeted and the silence grew still more oppressive. The Clerick watched and waited. Jurgen fought a brief battle against his impulses. For a second, he seemed on the verge of simply leaving then he deflated and finally began to speak.
"You have been reading the texts left by the Son, haven't you?" Preston nodded. "You know he was our leader? The one who created the Resistance as it was when you found it?" Another nod. "You know he was killed by the Clericks?" Slower nod. "What else do you know?"
Preston considered not answering then shrugged. "I know he was intelligent, charismatic....and a Clerick."
The last admission was a gamble - one that paid off as Jurgen's expression changed. He looked surprised then his eyes dropped and he took a deep breath. He reached into a pocket and took out a small wooden box. It was old - dating to at least a full century before the last world war. The dark and gold inlays were smooth and clean - an abstract celtic design. The older man set it on the desk, hands lingering on it for a moment.
Jurgen looked down at it and rose to his feet. "That..is for you. When you've finished reading, I'll be in the library."
Preston frowned but the other man was already moving to the door. He looked back at the box, reaching out to trail his fingers along the smooth metal. It was smooth and the warmth imparted by Jurgen's body lingered. He still thought of touch as the forbidden fruit. The true sense crime and the only physical offence. It was a ceaseless distraction, the tiny imperfections of the wood grain in his desk, the ridged grip of his katana and the soft flesh of another's hands. Perhaps if he had grown up with such tactile pleasure he would have grown accustomed to it. As it was, the feel of the world was seductive and alluring - a temptation that grew harder to resist with each indulgence.
He could not afford such luxuries. He had much to do, much to atone for and he reached for the clasp of the box, angry at his cowardice. The box clicked open without any resistance to reveal a couple of old envelopes with "John" written on them. In the corner was the sunburst emblem of the Son. Preston felt his mouth dry up. He knew that writing. He could not quite call the memory to mind but something was familiar enough to make his hands tremble.
He unfolded the topmost letter, and scanned the neat curved letters and thought his heart had stopped.
"Dear John,
If you are reading this, then Libria is free and I imagine you played a pivotal role. Of course, if you are reading this, I am dead and you know only half the story. You knew me, as Clerick, perhaps as a rebel. As I said, you know only half the story. I was not always Errol Partridge...once I was Errol Princeton...Father's youngest and only survivng son.
When I took the name Partridge, I rejected all he had come to espouse...and I took another, more secret name. The Son to Father's words - one who remembered the man instead of the tyrant..."