Quoted By:
"Of course not, Charlie." The mental-image smiles at you. You don't trust the smile, and you don't trust Richard, who is doing <span class="mu-i">something</span>— why? What were you just on about? Something something, reality's slippery, something something, gumption/sparkiness... it's something important, whatever it is, and Richard is doing something to stop you from it. You're positive. Which means you... you... well, you don't know what the details are, but surely if you focus said gumption/sparkiness really hard his nefarious machinations will be thwarted? Un-machinated? You are after all no ordinary person, but a, a, a heroine, with magyck blood, and you are proofed against curses and spells of all kinds (because of the blood and also your innate goodness), so if you can just <span class="mu-i">invoke</span> that—
>[-1 ID: 4/12]
—then yes! Your thoughts run quicksilver— you <span class="mu-i">know</span> what Richard looks like, he's thin and severe and greying, with a nose like yours and bones like yours and eyes a little like yours, only less greenish. Because he is your father or the closest thing you have to one, which makes your head hurt worse than it was, but mourning for someone you never really knew is not a productive (dare you say heroic) way of approaching the matter. You should be striving to rectify it.
You turn a cold eye on Richard.
«Cease.»
You're not doing anything wrong. You are as a matter of fact restoring him to his rightful-and-much-better state.
«Nothing could be further from the truth.»
You can see him now, actually. No whip-body, no paddle-tail, no unblinking reptile eyes or porcelain reptile teeth: just a man standing right there amidst the stacks of books and sheafs of paper. Frowning.
You frown too, and tilt your head. Richard flickers. You watch. He flickers more, and faster, until he vanishes. You watch.
A man appears.
"YES!" you say, and "HA!", and "WOO!" and you pump your fist and your other fist and would dance around were your legs still not basically shot.
>[+5 ID: 9/12]
>[+1 MAX ID: 9/13]
Richard fails to comment on your lack of dignity, being preoccupied with himself: he's patting his own cheeks like he's applying blusher. You think he ought to be more concerned about his outfit, which is odd: a rumpled checkered jacket, a black button-up, a red tie.
"Why is your tie red?" you say, in an admirable display of sportsmanship (discarding, for instance "Ha-ha, I made you wear a tie").
Richard looks down at his tie, mumbles something inaudible, wipes his mouth of something black, flickers, and vanishes. Shoot, you think, but not even a moment later he's back and besuited. He looks frazzled.
"You didn't have to change it." He did, sort of, but you have decided to be magnanimous.
He purses his lips and stretches his fingers out. "I could say the same to you, frankly."
Excuse you? "<span class="mu-i">I'm</span> not the one with the ugly tie, so—"
(4/5)
