Quoted By:
"I was nearly at the conclusion, Charlotte. Consider this interplay, then consider what you are doing. You are placing yourself at the confluence of somebody else's mind and somebody else's body. It is as if you are dropping a boulder into the meeting-place of two mighty rivers. You would not ask 'if' the boulder will be eroded, or even 'when.' Only 'by how much.' Are you following?"
This is him being concise. You know very little about rivers. Did your father actually talk like this, or was it the snakeifying that made him flowery and boring?
Richard flicks your cheek. "Be civil. I'm sure I was voluble before this, given my former profession. Besides, I am attempting to ease you in."
How about he get on with it, instead? Then he can give you the A-OK on the plan, and you can go on back to the group, and Gil can stop glancing your way quite so often.
"Patience is not one of your better qualities, is it." Richard rubs his forehead up and down. "Very well. I will call it what it is, then. 'Possession' is, at a fundamental level, an extended flirtation with death. It is a two-step danced at the edge of the abyss. It is the <span class="mu-i">surrender-art.</span> If accomplished well, it is a liberation and an intoxicant without peer. If accomplished poorly, you may well cease to exist. I assume you would like to accomplish it well."
Um, you would like to keep existing. Yes.
"I'm happy to hear it, primrose. Then, know this." He sits up straighter. "To do such a thing for a short amount of time— all it takes is a degree of viciousness. To maintain it for days on end; to sleep and wake and sleep again as another and still hold in your heart yourself; this requires of a person incredible levels of tenacity, self-possession, insight, vigor, and above all else <span class="mu-i">will.</span> It is the weak-willed who falter in their step, who are washed as gravel down the stream, who are crushed under the heels of the horse, who are lost and who die and who in turn kill their charge. It is the strong who lead, who hold fast, who ride, who thrive. Who let the <span class="mu-i">little death</span> roost inside them and still emerge, whole and dripping, as if new-hatched once again... isn't this awful, Charlie? Isn't it wonderful?"
If you didn't know better, you'd say <span class="mu-i">Richard</span> has been possessed: he is up on his feet, pacing and gesticulating and quivering with alien enthusiasm. He doesn't look or sound much like your father, carrying on like this, but neither does he seem all that Richard-y— there's no trace of condescension or contempt in his speech or manner. He just likes... this. He wants to tell you about... this. Perhaps he's been wanting to tell you for a long, long time. You are beginning to doubt this plan.
Does <span class="mu-i">he</span> consider himself to have a, um, strong will?
"I am here, am I not?"
(4/6?)
