Loyalties

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

No, Alfred, I understand about divided loyalties.

That's what I didn't say. First of all, because to refer to Mr Alfred Taylor as Alfred would be painfully intimate and I am not actually trying to seduce the man. Secondly, because my own divided loyalties are none of anyone's business and I've no intention of talking about them.

I can't remember what I did say. I tried to listen, I think. He had a Carthian paramour (a Brood paramour as it later turned out. I very rarely find myself overwhelmed with gratitude for Dre's comparatively upstanding moral nature, but I think I did on that occasion), alliances within London, and a Covenant breathing down his neck.

I didn't think too much about myself at the time. Well, I did a little. I know I'm self-centered. It's the only way people like me survive. A nicer girl would have died decades ago. But I didn't dwell overly. It was only later that I began to dwell on it, sorting each of my loyalties into columns, trying to assign numbers and values to them, as if I were keeping accounts in my heart.

What can I name as a loyalty? Do I start with the big loyalties or the small ones? The personal or impersonal? That which I chose or that which chose me?

Start with the loyalty I talked to Taylor about.

Invictus.

I didn't chose to be Invictus, really. It was one of the choices Jack made for me, in much the same way as Les 'ti Bon Anges. I was a Riley, and he wanted me to be a Harpy (G-d knows why) and so I was Invictus. At first, I hated them. I thought they were ridiculous with their titles, stuffy in their manners and I suspected them all of being anti-Semites which made me prickle. But when they wanted things, they were willing to pay.

So I stayed Invictus. I always insisted I was a bad Invictus, the worst Invictus out there. I am not sure when that changed. I don't think I noticed when it did. I knew I liked being 'Lady Riley', because when you've been 'Oi! Jew bitch', you learn to appreciate these things. As for the rest of it? Somehow, they happened. And one night I was a Guild Meister, a Baroness, and I knew, all of a sudden, that I wouldn't let go of the structure that had given me that; had given me standing, security, safety. And I realized that after the War, after losing every single scrap of power, respect and security I could have had, I did value the one thing the Invictus claim to offer a true understanding of. I value temporal power.

And for that, I'll hold on to the Invictus.

Do I love my covenant? Don't be ridiculous. What is there to love in us? I don't think I've met a loveable Invictus yet. But I value my covenant and I value what it gives me more than almost anything.

Does this mean the Invictus are my primary loyalty?

Not a bit of it. But it does mean I'll do my damndest to make sure that I give as few indications as possible that this is not the case, and I'll keep the things I love private. For that is something else I've learned over the years. There are some things that don't belong in public space.