and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy

"Everyone thinks of me as severe. But I'm not."

Of course, Perceval said nothing. He was happy to continue studying Gorg's noble profile in silence, at peace with the knowledge that what wished to be revealed did not require awkward encouragement.

What Gorg wanted to say, he would say. What he wished to hide would show itself in its own course.

(What Gorg betrayed as awkward had only his own unswaggering charm to blame.)

"I just have no patience for stupidity," came the anticipated amendment, in characteristic cadence.

"Stupidity, or stupid people?" A natural clarification, not so much as a leading question unloading the assumption of the other.

"They're all too often the same," Gorg sniffed.

"Then you are willing to overlook displays of stupidity in those you respect. Counterintuitively, this is often a trait of those who would consider themselves severe and discerning. They have their own...special rules."

No blanket policies would ever do. No statues which surrounded themselves would ever evolve beyond flightless gargoyles.

Gorg grumbled. "I suppose there is a price to all ignorance."

What you pay. What you are willing to pay. What you are complacent and complicit to receive when it is requested that one cloak oneself, and act out of turn.

What Perceval requested: not Gorg's severity, but his unequivocal determination. His tare-d scale. His even balance. His immovable sweet-tooth asceticism.

Be disciplined. Be indulgent. Be decadent. Be inculcant. Whatever you are; be you.

All ignorance, conscionable or not. All sins, past-present and future. The demon Perceval did not beg favors.

"And you would have me buy yours?"