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“No. If I had, it would have been harder for me to stay hidden, and my methods relied on that.” They might have wanted to make a ritual of doing something to the bodies. “You wanted to be seen.”
They gesture to their own file. “Let me know what you think.” If sees himself as irredeemable, will he also see them that way?
His feelings about his own sins are too emotional and guilt-ridden to be objective at all, but Avalon's are... a large pile of bodies, even if it's stretched over a longer time than he's been alive. If the Admiral thought that warranted redemption, maybe he's not totally lost, either.
“You never stayed in one place for long,” they guess. They might be wrong, but his relationship with a home sounds almost like their relationship with their body.
If there was no hope for Zakalwe, the Admiral would have left him to die, the same way he would have left them to die.
“What do you think you need to graduate?” He might not have all the pieces, but if one of his goals matches one of the Admiral’s goals for him, they can start there.
“Maybe the Barge can be a good place to start.” He might not be here forever, but most graduations take at least a year.
“You have yet to kill anyone here.” At least, as far as they know. “You have enough separation from it to be here without killing.”
“The events could be a source of stability in and of themselves. They seem to be predictable.”
“How did it feel to do that?” His file had said something about needing a wider range of emotions. His emotions feel like how Rawne had described his, like Zakalwe has forced himself to feel a few emotions in order to avoid feeling something else.
“How are Breaches for you?” They think he was here when everyone was turned into animals.
"They're strange." Though he's only really seen one. "I don't like being someone else like that."
“It was important for you to do what your handler wanted.” Since it was his job, it makes sense, but it seems like he let her dictate everything. “What about what you wanted to do?”
“Would you have dropped the ship if she had told you to win?”
“I think your handlers were wrong to view you as a psychopath,” Avalon says, after a moment. “If you were a psychopath, others’ thoughts on what you did would mean nothing to you, and you would never have worked so hard to avoid guilt.”
Sma had judged him just for his propensity for violence and ruthlessness.
“Does anyone on the Barge know about the Chair?”
“Do you think it could help you connect with someone, or show you that not everyone who knows will think of you as a monster?” As far as they know, he was rejected by the only other person who knows about it. They might not think of him as a monster, but being his warden is one of the reasons for that.
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