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The humans have a saying: Revenge is a dish best served cold. (Of course, they stole it from us.) I dare say it is true, at least for those instances when I avenged myself on someone else. Given the life I have lead, though, I have been the object of somone else's imagined or actually performed revenge far more often, and there was quite a bit of passion involved.
I heard G'Kar tell some other Narn about the futility of revenge and the endless cycle of hatred the other day. Later, I said to him: "You are a better person than I am."
"I know that, Mollari," he said, predictably.
"And yet I dare say revenge was essential for you to become the insufferable saint you are now."
"My whole life was necessary for this," he said cagily, but he knew very well what I had meant. You see, from the moment G'Kar invited me to a drink and toasted the Emperor while I sat frozen, knowing that there was an attack I had organized on a Narn outpost even as we spoke, from that moment onwards I had expected his retaliation. If he had been a Centauri, he would have challenged me to a duel, or slipped poison in my drink, depending on his temperament, and that would have been that. (Despite what certain humans call my "boastful nature", I know very well I would never have survived a physical fight with G'Kar. Why do you think I accepted Delenn's idea of making him my bodyguard?) I waited, and waited, and waited, and during all this time, I was afraid as well as, well, ashamed. I remember very well when I stopped fearing G'Kar. It was the day he took a drug that made him a telepath for a few hours, showed up at my quarters, proceeded to throw me through the room and then turned my mind inside out.
In a way, it was far worse than if he had killed me. But even while it happened, I knew it was what I had been waiting for. Afterwards, I never feared G'Kar again, even before I found out the entire incident had resulted in what he termed an epiphany for him. The next time I saw him, it was to arrange a revenge of my own, on Lord Refa, for which I needed his help. He asked me whether I really expected him to risk returning to Narn on my say-so, when it could be a trap for him as well as Refa.
"Yes," I said, and I did. Not just because he gained the freedom of two thousand Narn as well as Refa's death by this. Because we were even now, and knew each other too deeply to ever attempt deception again.
"To revenge and its uses," I said during the other, more recent conversation with G'Kar, raising my glass to him, and regarding me with the one eye Cartagia has left him with, he returned my toast, emptying the glass he held till the very last drop.
I heard G'Kar tell some other Narn about the futility of revenge and the endless cycle of hatred the other day. Later, I said to him: "You are a better person than I am."
"I know that, Mollari," he said, predictably.
"And yet I dare say revenge was essential for you to become the insufferable saint you are now."
"My whole life was necessary for this," he said cagily, but he knew very well what I had meant. You see, from the moment G'Kar invited me to a drink and toasted the Emperor while I sat frozen, knowing that there was an attack I had organized on a Narn outpost even as we spoke, from that moment onwards I had expected his retaliation. If he had been a Centauri, he would have challenged me to a duel, or slipped poison in my drink, depending on his temperament, and that would have been that. (Despite what certain humans call my "boastful nature", I know very well I would never have survived a physical fight with G'Kar. Why do you think I accepted Delenn's idea of making him my bodyguard?) I waited, and waited, and waited, and during all this time, I was afraid as well as, well, ashamed. I remember very well when I stopped fearing G'Kar. It was the day he took a drug that made him a telepath for a few hours, showed up at my quarters, proceeded to throw me through the room and then turned my mind inside out.
In a way, it was far worse than if he had killed me. But even while it happened, I knew it was what I had been waiting for. Afterwards, I never feared G'Kar again, even before I found out the entire incident had resulted in what he termed an epiphany for him. The next time I saw him, it was to arrange a revenge of my own, on Lord Refa, for which I needed his help. He asked me whether I really expected him to risk returning to Narn on my say-so, when it could be a trap for him as well as Refa.
"Yes," I said, and I did. Not just because he gained the freedom of two thousand Narn as well as Refa's death by this. Because we were even now, and knew each other too deeply to ever attempt deception again.
"To revenge and its uses," I said during the other, more recent conversation with G'Kar, raising my glass to him, and regarding me with the one eye Cartagia has left him with, he returned my toast, emptying the glass he held till the very last drop.
