Quoted By:
>Well I didn't need you anyway >:(
"So you were totally useless," you say. "Wow. Thanks. I guess I'll have to ask <span class="mu-i">Gil</span> to do it, since you can't even handle stupid Ellery."
"You trust Beetles to handle this?" Richard arches his eyebrows. "He hasn't been very <span class="mu-i">loyal</span> lately, as I recall."
"And you have?"
"I am always loyal." He is unsmiling. "Moreover, I fail to see what good your pet will do here. If anybody is more useless than I, he—"
"He knows how to get into—" You kick Ellery's leg. "He— he jacked manses for a living. He probably has all sorts of tips and tricks to..."
"He 'jacked' old, decrepit manses without a whisper of proper security. This could not be more dissimilar."
You fold your arms. "Okay, if he's so bad, and <span class="mu-i">you're</span> so good, go ahead and unlock it. I'll wait right here."
Richard says nothing.
"<span class="mu-i">Okay.</span> So shut up about Gil. I'll talk to him, he'll do it easy, and maybe you can learn a few things. Are we just leaving Ellery here?"
"Did you have other plans for him?"
You consider this. "Um, not really. Okay. If you're going to be stupid and useless, I guess you can go back to being a snake, since you—"
He checks his wristwatch. "It hasn't been ten minutes, Charlie. Far from it. I'm pleased to hear that you prefer my natural state, however, free of any adulturation from meddling little—"
"I didn't say that," you say uncomfortably.
"No?"
"No. Um, I think I'll— I shall embarketh to see the fair Eloise, who shall knoweth... things, um, and I don't <span class="mu-i">care</span> if you come along. Because I don't need you, and I've— I've never needed you, and—"
"Very well." Richard folds his hands.
"—and you can't <span class="mu-i">stop</span> me anymore, because I'm going to do what I want, and I have magyckal powers, by the way, so—"
"I'm not stopping you, Charlotte."
He isn't. He's not standing in front of the door or anything. <span class="mu-i">Why?</span> He was grumpy 5 minutes ago. He was nasty before Headspace. He was horrid this morning. Is he <span class="mu-i">up</span> to something? "I— I know. I was just saying. And now I am... going."
-
You leave Ellery exactly where he is and trek out into the late-afternoon sunlight, whereupon you realize you have no idea where Eloise is. She's been all over the place today. You glance at Richard instinctively (he is running his hand over the rough canvas of the tent) before remembering not to. Ahem. The best place to <span class="mu-i">start</span> would likely be her tent—
—which is easily spotted from a distance owing to the abstract swirls and daubs of dye brightening its outside. It was clearly your preternatural intuition at play as well, because the door is untied and Eloise is hunched over some sort of birdsnest of sticks and white shells and spikegrass. "What's that?" you say.
"Hello, Charlotte." She hover her hand over the nest-thing, pries out a stick, and tucks it back in a different location. "This is <span class="mu-i">Looming Dread Of Things Unknown.</span> Or will be when I'm done. What do you think?"
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