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It's harder to notice the scenery changing when everything's a blur, so you're surprised when you zoom at last into a substantial clearing. There's some stuff ahead of you you're too nearsighted to discern, so out of an abundance of caution you coagulate and regain your footing. Oh, shit. It's that clearing.
The one with the sea god in it. Also, the one with Ramsey in it. Also, the one with the unimaginably massive stone snake jutting straight from it. Have you mentioned the stone snake yet? Probably not, because nobody else seems to care about it: allegedly it's been here in the Fen, a local landmark, for god-knows-how-long. Like a big hill, if a big hill were a miles-high snake, and if that snake were the corpse of your girlfriend. Oh, right. That's why you don't mention it.
There's also a temple here, you guess, though it's been half-demolished on account of the snake jutting from it. On account of Lottie jutting from it, you should say. A snake came out of her, then that snake turned to stone, then you woke up. A snake came out of her, then she died, and you woke up. The snake casts such a lengthy shadow over the entire Corcass that people use it to tell the time. That's her.
You're so goddamn screwed. You flip the fish the bird. Unconcerned, it swishes through the doors of the temple.
And what do you do from there? You follow it. You follow it, and there's no fish inside the temple: did it escape out a crevice? Was there ever a fish? Teddy would fuck with you like that. It doesn't matter, because in the uncrushed half of the temple there's an altar, and atop the altar is a guy.
A guy with dark hair and glasses. A guy in sort of an ugly checkered sports jacket. "Holy <span class="mu-i">shit,</span>" you say. "<span class="mu-i">Richard?</span>"
Richard gurgles, an improvement over whatever response he was planning, but it doesn't sound good all the same. You scurry up to the altar and look him over. He looks bad. His eyes are unfocused, and he's gasping more than he's breathing— the water isn't agreeing with him. And something else is weird. It takes you a second to put your finger on it, but he looks wet.
Visibly. And yes, he's underwater, but so's everybody, and most people don't go around soggy— or they do, but it's nigh-impossible to perceive. (Unless you're Wind Court and get off on that kind of thing.) The principal exception is for the freshly drowned, who haven't quite caught on yet. Has <span class="mu-i">Richard</span> just drowned? Worse: is he drowning right now?
Not everybody survives it, after all. If the water doesn't get all the way into his lungs, or if he resists it, or is too weak for it— corpses float down too. Clearly he's not a corpse, but for how long? And is it even worth doing anything? He's such a piece of shit: a liar, a manipulator, an abuser. He got a little nicer later, when Lottie had the upper hand, but you're not sure how that makes up for it. You were glad he was dead.
(4)
