So it is done: Jonathan Goodman (Patreon)

Neo loved her life.

She knew that after her schooling she would go to the Hunter Academy. Unlike many others who wondered what they should do in their adult lives, Neo was absolutely certain that she would become a Hunter. Though, she then would have to go into the army… still, as a matter of fact, why not? It might actually be fun!

She also liked that she didn't have to worry about money. The clothes that came in her sights? A restaurant visit for all her friends? A nighttime limo ride? Not a problem!

Except there might have been a concern with the latter if Jonathan had found out that she had gone to Trifa’s house that night…  But Pink had kept quiet! And Jonathan himself had stayed at work longer that day, so, all in all, it had ended positively.

All in all, Neo's life was good, both in general over the years, and in particular at the moment.

And at the moment, Neo was lying on Trifa's bed, lazily looking at the magazine in front of her. It was the very picture of a bored high school girl, with just one detail wrong.

“Neo," Trifa's voice distracted her from the magazine's contents, "I know you’re weird, but tell me one thing. Why are you reading a weight lifting magazine?:

Neo didn't even dignify that silly question with a response, as far as she could respond with silence, just rolling her eyes. Now, would she tell Trifa about the fact that you wouldn't find figures like these hunks in any of those young adult magazines!

Trifa, after waiting a few more seconds and getting no answer, just rolled her eyes, "Look, couldn't you just buy them yourself? Or ask Cinder, or His Maj…”

After these words, and Neo’s raised eyebrow, Trifa hesitated before continuing. "Jonathan.”

When everyone around him calls him by his title, it can be difficult to change one’s way to address him, even if he was the one to ask. Especially when he asks to be called that!

Neo still occasionally remembered how Trifa used to blush and then immediately turn pale when she first met Jonathan! Though the latter only happens when Jonathan was with Cinder.

“So, what do you think?" Trifa's voice reminded Neo that she had asked her a question, but Neo was too lazy to remember what she had asked. So, she just waved her hand in the air, hoping that the other person would interpret the gesture somehow to her liking.

“You just missed my question, didn't you?” Unfortunately for Neo, Trifa knew her friend's tricks. Neo replied by waving her hand in the air once more, not meaning anything in particular.

“I see," Trifa sighed, giving up on getting an answer to her question, "Do you want some pizza? We've got a couple more slices left, and I’m too lazy to put them in the fridge…”

Neo thought hard about that suggestion before she nodded. Trifa was about to respond to the gesture before she stopped when she heard the sound of the doorbell ring, "Hmm? Father was supposed to come home later…”

Neo tensed for a second, Mr. Neurath, Trifa’s father, was certainly timid in front of her father, as a career soldier should be, but he was still a strict man, also as a career soldier should be. And Neo or Trifa hadn’t exactly told him about Neo’s unscheduled visits…

Besides, the magazine she'd taken earlier belonged to Mr. Neurath's own hobbies. Weightlifting, that is, not half-naked, oiled muscular men.

And Neo wasn't quite sure how he would react to her own actions toward his belongings.

So Neo, upon hearing these words, rushed urgently across the room, then the hallway, and into Mr. Neurath's office to put the magazine back where she had found it. And then to the leftover pizza and especially the box, trying to think of where to hide the large and unwieldy box. All this was done, of course, while Trifa approached the front door very slowly, giving Neo as much time as possible to conceal the evidence.

Trifa couldn’t stall forever, however. And so when Neo couldn't think of anything, she was forced to use her aura to leap through a window from the second floor house. Leaping through the air, Neo throws both the leftover pizza box out, then jumps back to the second floor with haste.

Aura always came in handy for all sorts of things, even if that thing was covering up evidence of an unplanned sleepover.

Eventually, when Neo jumped inside the house again she tried to make herself look presentable, not giving away what had happened earlier at all with her appearance.

“Dad, I have Neo visiting," Trifa turned toward Neo, causing her to wave back.

Mr. Neurath was a man of decent build and stature, and it was hard enough to guess that he was actually an arachnid faunus. Unlike his daughter, there were no special markings on his body, while her daughter had one resembling a spider net. The only similar features to his daughter were his silver-gray hair and a round, kind face that made him look more like a cook than a military man.

However, his muscles, visible even under his shirt, did make up for it.

“Good afternoon,” As it should be, his military training had permanently imprinted the rules of chain of command in his head. And from his point of view, Neo, as the daughter of the most senior officer, possesses a rank above him.

Not that such a gesture displeased Neo, on the contrary in fact, but the appearance of a grown man standing in attention in front of a small girl just looked strange and made Neo uncomfortable.

Judging by the way Trifa herself uncomfortably began to wring her hands, not just

Neo.

In the end, Neo decided to end the awkwardness first after all. Truth be told, Trifas’ father wasn't as adept at understanding her gestures and facial expressions as Trifa herself, so Neo had to exaggerate her actions. First by looking at her watch and pantomiming her marvelling at the time, then point at her wrist and point to the door, broadcasting the thought that, surprise, it turns out she urgently needed to be anywhere but here.

“Oh, are you in a hurry?" Trifas' father immediately figured out the obvious message before doing something entirely unnecessary.

"I can give you a ride…” Volunteering to drive Neo, inevitably interacting more with Neo, the last thing she wanted. It was just way too awkward!

Neo just shook her head before she started down the stairs, eager to get out of the place before things got even more awkward.

Trifa, in turn, after glancing at Neo and making sure she was planning on leaving her house without her help, finally addressed her father, "You're early today. Did you manage to get the weekend off?”

Trifa's father paused for a moment, before shaking his head. “No, I… I've come to get my things, I might be going on a trip…”

“Another training camp?" Trifa raised one eyebrow.

“Hm…” Mr. Neurath glanced at Neo, before answering. “Something like that. I don't know, we don't know if we'll be sent yet, but they told us to bring our things, so who knows… I've already told your mother, and I'll probably be home in a week.”

“Yeah,” Trifa nodded and then looked into her father's eyes seriously. “Just don't get any frostbite while you’re there…”

At these words, Mr. Neurath threw a meaningful look at Trifa, and Neo pretended that she was definitely not here.

But it was hard to do.

It's not every day you hear a story about how a man managed to fall asleep while sitting in a snowdrift, and then having had his ass warmed off in the infirmary before it could freeze off.

***

Neo generally liked walking the streets of Glenn, but not in this weather. Wet snow and rain were probably the only conditions in which she could think of preferring being in Vacuo. It didn't snow at all in Vacuo.

But one plus didn't outweigh the hundreds of minuses of the place, so even in those conditions, Neo didn't seriously consider it.

So after leaving Trifa’s house and walking to the end of the street, Neo called her driver and just a couple of minutes later was sitting inside the warm leather interior, shaking off the droplets of melted snow. Normally, of course, she wasn't supposed to do that to preserve the interior, but Jonathan had given this limousine to her, and as the owner, Neo found that she could forgive that transgression.

Only for her, though.

Neo was able to fit her short stature in the back seats quite easily, and the air conditioner was working as hard as it could, so she wasn’t in any danger of freezing. But still, she wasn't planning on staying in the limousine for long, so once she was inside she pushed the button labelled ‘one’ on the built-in monitor, which symbolized the first route, namely, returning home.

It was purpose built convenient so that the mute Neo didn't have to type out where she was going every time.

The silent driver, who saw the directions on his own monitor, only nodded silently before he pressed on the gas pedal, Neo simply looked away and stared out the window barely acknowledging the driver.

If it hadn't been for the nasty weather, Neo could even say that the scenery before her was beautiful.

Dozens of random passersby, wandering somewhere, even in such disgusting weather.

Neo yawned, her body swaying in time with the leisurely crawl of the limousine through the streets.

Small stores, shining through the dim sun with their inner lights…

Neo yawned again.

The occasional car crept leisurely through the slush…

Neo slumped back in her seat, closing her eyes.

For a few minutes…

***

It was physically difficult for Jonathan to get Neo out of her seat, her body slumping like dead weight, so he had to enlist the help of the driver.

The consequences of earlier decisions.

The driver then carried Neo to the couch in the living room, and left her there, and after getting a ‘thank you’ from Jonathan, went away.

Jonathan closed the door behind him and returned to Neo, who continued to sleep peacefully on the couch in the living room, while still in her outdoor clothes… He could undress her, of course, but for all their long-standing familial ties, he was… well, a little shy about that.

After all, Neo wasn't exactly a child anymore, and she was of the opposite gender…

So he just left her sleeping there with her clothes on but taking off her shoes for obvious reasons.

Sleeping with her outdoors clothes on wouldn't be the most pleasant thing to do, but at least the shower always worked, and Neo always had a change of clothes around thanks to Cinder…

Jonathan still sometimes wondered if, after his refusal to make Cinder a magical seal that makes sleep redundant, that she had somehow managed to make one herself. Jonathan could find no other reason for her abilities and the amount of work she did.

She does too much, and you do too little, it works out just right for the two of you.

Jonathan never gave her such an order.

‘Put all forces on high alert’, did you not specifically say that?

Not a rejection or agreement, an intermediate state between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

What comes next after ‘high alert’? ‘Full alert’? And then ‘absolute combat readiness’?

Jonathan couldn't just give the order.

But he could not, not give it, either.

He went around in circles, step by step, doing nothing and not admitting to himself that he had reached a dead end.

Do you need an argument, a reason, or an excuse?

At any given moment, a few trusted RATS could be flung into the thick of Vacuo and an army could be raised in short order. Or he could get transport up in the air, eight hours for the entire army, and Vacuo would not fall. Or he could go himself, or even decide everything from the comfort of his own office.

You know what the funny thing is?

Jonathan stopped and suddenly realized that he had already gone into his office and sat down at his desk, looking deeply into a small mirror placed on his desk, while deep in thought.

That this was a war between two people and who needed to die. To sacrifice Vacuo's people or Glenn's people, that's the question. Who's closer and more kindred to you, who are you willing to sacrifice, and who you cannot?

I don't divide people into such tribal parties.

Don't you, Jonathan? Then why not trade Cinder for one, no, ten refugees from Vacuo?

Jonathan's face creased.

Why be so confused about prioritizing someone more than others? That's fine, that’s normal. Some people are close to us, some are not. Our tribe and not theirs, it's absolutely common practice all over the world, primitive tribalism has ruled humanity since its inception and will continue to do so after its demise.

I don't want to decide which people are worthy of salvation and which are not.

You don't.

The reflection smiled sadly at Jonathan.

But do you have a choice?

***

Neo woke up in her wrinkled and sweaty clothes, uncomfortably clingy to her body, only realizing a few seconds later that she seemed to have fallen asleep in the car and was now home.

Neo sighed before she got up from the couch, correctly assessing the surroundings as the living room of her house, and shrugging her shoulders at the discomfort, quickly scooting toward the shower. She hadn't glanced at her watch, but judging by the darkening sky it was definitely already late, and the only thing that saved her was the fact that tomorrow was a Sunday. So she didn’t need to worry about waking up early.

The only way she could tell it was actually ten P.M. was when she got out of the shower and had changed her clothes for a new set, the same jeans and white T-shirt she always wore.

Next, Neo faced a very important question.

What exactly was she supposed to do now, with her free time?

There were no lights on the first floor, and she couldn't hear anything upstairs. And since Cinder was probably still awake by this time, most likely she was in the basement, training. Or maybe in the same basement, but reading books in the home library, most likely what Jonathan could remember of his past life, compiled into a single body of collections.

Neo sometimes wondered how Cinder even found time for sleep.

Neither of these were something Neo could help Cinder with, and she clearly wasn't in the right state of mind to be practising or reading anything right now herself.

Well, maybe Cinder just wasn't home because of her ‘order’, it was rare, but it happened, too.

Jonathan, on the other hand.

Hmm, Jonathan…  Now, that’s an idea

Neo, dumping all her dirty clothes in the laundry basket, went up the stairs, trying not to make a sound, intending to test her hunch. And after a few dozen seconds, she did make it to the perpetually closed door of Jonathan's office.

Not that Neo wasn't at all interested in Jonathan's records and the newest prototypes of artifacts, but Jonathan very lucidly showed her what sometimes happened in the case of just one random intrusion into the mage's personal workshop.

Of course, the more dangerous experiments Jonathan did were not at home, but Neo didn't want to test anything anyway.

So she tiptoed to the door, leaned her ear against it just right and listened, trying to pick up sounds from beyond it. The dim light of the desk lamp was streaming in from a crack under the door, clearly indicating that this was where Jonathan was right now, but what exactly he was doing right now, Neo didn't know.

Neo listened to any possible sounds from outside the door, trying to catch any sound before she did hear the quiet tapping of his fingers on the table.

A habit that Jonathan picked up whenever he was immersed in deep thought, something that happened more and more frequently recently.

Usually it didn't lead to anything good.

Neo wondered for a second what she should have done before she heard a voice from behind the door, "Neo?”

Neo inwardly cursed, Jonathan had a habit of occasionally checking his surroundings with magic, a legacy from the failed assassination attempt. But the fact that he did it now, immersed in his thoughts, could be called nothing but a product of Neo’s shitty luck.

“I'll be right out," Jonathan called out again, and Neo heard the sound of a chair being pushed aside, and footsteps coming closer towards the door, so Neo immediately pulled away from the door and took a few steps back.

A second later, the door flew open and Jonathan appeared from behind it.

At a glance, Neo could see that his current thoughts were anything but joyful. There was an uncertainty in the depths of his eyes and his shoulders slumped no matter how hard he tried to look happy, as if he was suffering from a toothache. “Neo, did you need something?”

Neo had to shake her head from side to side at these words.

“So…” Jonathan said suddenly in a very upset voice a moment later, as if he hoped that Neo needed something from him, as if he needed to take his mind off of his thoughts for even a second.

Neo, unable to stand it, pointed her finger at him and shook her head. ‘And you?’

“Me?" Jonathan, who could communicate with Neo at heights beyond the reach of mere mortals, only blinked, then shook his head. "No, not at all.”

That would have been the end of the conversation, but Neo couldn't take Jonathan’s sad expression anymore, pressing on. ‘Are you sure?’

“Neo, I…” Jonathan said, then suddenly stopped mid-sentence and suddenly lowered his head. “I want to ask you something… You once told me that I was a ‘good person’… ”

Neo nodded confidently at that. Was Jonathan worrying about something stupid again? ‘And I don't deny those words, you're a good person!’

“Thank you, Neo.” Jonathan smiled, a little sadly. “But… I want to ask you. When does a ‘good’ person become a ‘bad’ person?”

Neo blinked at the strange question, then looked up into Jonathan's face for signs if he were joking, but apparently his question was quite sincere, so Neo was forced to think about it.

Jonathan is too obsessed with this philosophical reasoning.

I guess a good man became a bad man when he didn't do good things and did bad things instead? That’s what she wanted to say, something simple and trivial. But Jonathan was never satisfied with the answers lying on the surface, so Neo was forced to sigh and think even harder.

“Let's go sit down for a while,” A moment later Jonathan disappeared right before her eyes, as he does all the time, and judging by the sounds had appeared on the lower floor, leaving Neo alone for a few seconds.

While moving downstairs, Neo pondered. Jonathan liked to get to the bottom of things, to lay out concepts clearly. ‘Which act is a good one’ or ‘in what is measured the 'badness' of an act’, Neo could ask herself the same questions that Jonathan probably would have asked.

A good person becomes bad… He didn't become so in an instant, did he?

But, on the other hand, if a good person did something incredibly awful overnight, wouldn't he instantly become a bad person?

That's always the way with Jonathan, you ask about the weather, you get a philosophical dilemma for the rest of your life!

When she arrived downstairs, Neo saw Jonathan already making tea, and so she sat silently at the dining table, looking at the basket of biscuits already on the table.

Neo thought seriously about Jonathan's question, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of a good answer. She couldn't make sense of the concepts and break it down into the clear truths that Jonathan was always going for. So, even after a few minutes, when Jonathan had already poured the tea into cups and set it out in front of her and himself, she couldn't find a satisfying answer to the question he had asked.

‘I don't know,’ She finally gave up. ‘I guess we simply have to look at each person more specifically, with examples of their actions and maybe even reasoning?’

Neo's facial expressions and hand movements could not really be understood by someone less familiar with her, but Jonathan had had years of close contact with her to learn to perceive her words without words, and so he just sighed,

"I suppose it’s not something easy to answer… No need to fret over it, it's nothing. It's just… It's just a curiosity, I'm killing time thinking about it.” Neo didn't have to be the smartest person in Remnant to realize that Jonathan wasn't telling her the full truth.

He certainly sometimes liked to really spend time pondering ridiculous things, but he definitely didn't seem as free as to waste time in frivolities. Just looking at how much work Cinder is undertaking, not to mention the fact that he hadn't had any free time at all for the past week… Jonathan absolutely didn’t have the free time to be ‘lost’ in thought.

So clearly, this sudden odd question was clearly more than just something he did to waste time.

Jonathan took a sip of his tea, looking thoughtfully all the while, his eyes not really seeing anything, as if he wanted to find answers to the questions that plagued him in the distance.

A moment later, though, someone's hands rested on Jonathan's shoulders, before they slid slightly forward, crossing over Jonathan's chest. It was Cinder.

And Cinder, still a little wet from the shower, pressed herself against him while looking at Neo curiously. “What are you talking about?”

“Just philosophy,” Jonathan sighed, not even trying to get Cinder's hands off of him.

Neo watched as Cinder slowly and steadily took over Jonathan's personal space and moved with the relentless tenacity of a glacier toward her long-held and cherished dream.

Neo didn’t really have anything to say… Well, strictly speaking, she was aware that this was not a ‘normal’ development at all. One could simply remove the word ‘adopted’ and then such actions by Jonathan's ‘daughter’ would take on an entirely unhealthy demeanor.

But Neo had no plans to do anything about it.

As much as Jonathan, like Cinder, was far from being ‘normal’, so why should their relationship be ‘normal’ as well? And Neo herself didn't really care about that kind of thing.

And she just wanted the both of them to be happy, whatever form that happiness took.

“I doubt it,” Cinder ended up hugging Jonathan some more, before letting him go. “No study of philosophy of yours is being conducted just for fun.”

Jonathan sighed at such a claim, and Neo had to agree. If he couldn't fool Neo, then there was no chance of fooling Cinder in the first place.

“I was just asking Neo a question.” Jonathan didn't end up offending Cinder with his refusal to speak, though Neo doubted that he could have done anything to offend her at all, and answered. “At what point does a ‘good’ person become a ‘bad’ person?”

“Hmm," Cinder thought about it for a moment, before picking up the still-hot kettle, quickly making herself some tea. "It depends entirely on whom we consider 'good' and 'bad' people. For some, Ka Belladonna is a heroic symbol who created an association of faunus to defend their rights. And for some, he is a dodgy serpent, and it is both possible that he is a danger against humanity, and that his actions had crushed the sprouts of other revolutionary faunus movements that could, in theory, achieve more.”

As expected of Cinder, she didn’t really know restraint. Easily speaking of an ally badly, even in hypotheticals, is usually considered a faux pas.

“Isn't there some kind of ‘good’ that would be good for everyone?” Jonathan wondered. “Or at least come close to it?”

“In the ancient coyote faunus tribes, cannibalism was considered a sign of honor and respect. And in their tribe, a woman who got married had one ear cut off as a matter of course.” Cinder answered with a fact that Neo was predictably unaware of, and judging by his look of surprise, neither did Jonathan.

“Morality is multifaceted and depends a lot on conditions and even people.”

“And yet, even considering all that…" Jonathan didn't give up in the end, asking again, "Who then would be considered the closest thing to a ‘good’ person?”

“Hmm, that is a good question.” Cinder settled down next to Jonathan and across from Neo, forcing Jonathan to turn toward her. Not that Neo was planning on interfering with the dialogue at all, already thinking about the easiest way for her to go to her room, the mental strain and philosophizing were making her insufferably sleepy.

"Perhaps the closest thing to that would be… um, perhaps the term ‘god’ would suit it best? Something unbelievable and beyond human consciousness, fundamentally unknowable.”

Jonathan thought about these words, and Neo didn't even try to follow them.

“We can project our perception of the world onto other people, even onto animals, with a rough understanding of their thinking. Therefore, we could judge, according to our understanding, whether he is 'good' or 'bad’." Cinder paused before continuing her thought after a sip of her tea.

"And since for different people the concept of 'good' and 'bad' can be diametrically opposed, as long as different people have differing perceptions of a person, their judgments about him will differ. So, to concretely judge what is a ‘good’ person, we must either adjust all people's versions of what is ‘good’, or use something to which human understanding and perception cannot change.” Another sip, and Neo officially has lost the entire plot.

“In the first case we get propaganda, and in the second case we get religion. God as a metaphysical concept, a pure abstract concept of the ‘unknowable’, of which we cannot judge by the framework of our perception, but can only condition it to be something ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Really, there’s no simple answer to what concretely can turn a good person bad. A person can be both a butcher and a hero, depending on who is looking.”

Neo realized that she was finally sinking into sleep at the point where she almost dropped her head on the table in front of her. And after another moment she straightened up and, quickly tossing her well-wishes to Cinder and Jonathan, immersed in their conversation, headed for her room.

She didn't plan to listen to a lecture on philosophy, she planned to exercise her right as the occupant of this house and the owner of her own room, and go to sleep the second she did!

Climbing quickly up the stairs, Neo preferred not to think about Cinder and Jonathan's high-minded reasoning; all those talks about gods, religions, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ were not in her circle of interest. She didn't even bother to learn magic when it turned out that instead of a cool list of spells, she needed to learn something like this instead.

And that was literally magic! The coolest thing in the world!

And so nothing could tempt her to listen to a lecture about something as useless as philosophy! Perhaps she would live another day in ignorance of yet another philosophical concept, and not regret it at all!

***

Jonathan regretted the fact that he was not a god.

Regardless of omnipotence, as a god he clearly wouldn't be concerned with his current questions and reasoning right now. Although, if a god was truly unknowable, then he couldn't imagine the problems that would await him if he were a god either.

We are not God, Jonathan. Alas, we are not a god.

But instead he was forced to see only the difficulties that existed before him, before the man, before the magician, before Jonathan Goodman…

If you are still Jonathan Goodman, that is.

Cinder looked at him, watching, probably expecting some kind of reaction from him, maybe hoping that he would praise her, or continue her thought.

But Jonathan could not praise her, or continue her thought.

If we are not God, Jonathan, why do we need to know what God is?

Jonathan couldn't make up his mind.

Help or silence? Troops or magic? Sacrifice or danger?

Jonathan just wanted to be a good man.

No one said it would be easy.

How? For whom? To what end?

Jonathan took another sip of tea and set the cup aside, sighing. He had come no closer to achieving clarity on his planned actions, yet the time to think has run out.

"Cinder… Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

Cinder only smiled at the implied request.