Of Vice and Virtue

Envy's first narrative. I put her in a sympathetic light for some reason.

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“I remember Lust once telling me of his thoughts. During one of our innumerable attempts at overthrowing a king through lust and jealousy, I recall him proclaiming to both me and the empty air his boredom, his exhaustion. He had grown tired of his countless lives, weary of ageless existence. His passion for sins of the flesh fled from those sapphire eyes, replaced for little more than a brief moment with a pleading gaze I had never seen before and most likely shall never see again. Though my words were gentle, my emerald eyes soft, I took pleasure in his words. It was indeed the only time I can remember ever feeling as though I had something Lust did not, satisfaction.

I’ve hardly introduced myself and yet, I am already delving into a tale. My name, or rather one of many, is Envy. As Lust has undoubtedly told you, I am not simply named after a bane upon humanity. I am personally responsible for every shred of jealousy you feel. That nagging feel of despair and inadequacy in the back of your mind, that burning shiver when you see him with her; all stem from me. Of course, I was granted, if you could call it that, a relatively weak influence. I serve as gateways to the other Vices, little more than a road to Lust, and a passage to Greed. It is a marvelous life, isn’t it?

Yet I digress. I have come here to tell you of the events that transpired among the Vices and Virtues, a tale I am sure you simply cannot wait to hear. The overthrowing of the king (Hans or Harold or Henry, I forget which) worked without flaw, and Lust and I went our separate ways. He never did tell me where he went off to after our silent victory. He most likely went back to her. I never understood what he saw in that vengeful cow… Yet again, I stray from the subject. It was the last time I saw Lust for centuries. Though our sins often crossed, I never did see him.

Pride was the only connection I had to Lust’s world during our centuries apart. As a paranoid defensive measure against some nonexistent threat posed by Lust, Pride kept a close watch on his fellow Vice. According to him, Lust was spending in an inordinate amount of time in libraries forgotten by the common populace. I had expected him to be knee-deep in harems, not books. However, Pride’s “infinite” knowledge of Lust’s activities failed to explain just why the passionate Vice spent his time in musty libraries to begin with, a fault Pride vehemently denied. Though the actual subject of Lust’s research remained a mystery, he seemed to be pursuing it with a fervent passion he had rarely, if ever, shown me or any other Vice.

I often wondered what Lust did in his seclusion, curious as to why he chose to spend it in solitude rather than with me. Surely, isolation could not compare to my company. He was meant for constant interaction, not perpetual dislocation from the world, was he not? So, I waited. Years went by, made innumerable and eternal by the constant passage of time. He was my obsession, an object of my endless envy. According to Pride, I simply waited because Lust had something I didn’t. Yet still, I waited.

Always,
~Envy