Quoted By:
>Memory hole
The thing is, you're not lying to him, or conducting a charade, or anything at all. With your pure and honest heart, how could you? It's far more likely that Henry's the one lying— making you believe that your magyckal abilities are somehow "wrong," or "abnormal." Though it is true that you've manifested them rather late, having evinced no sign of magyckal heritage during your childhood. (As much as you'd wished otherwise.) And it's also true that— well— they aren't all that <span class="mu-i">typically</span> magyckal. You don't get to shoot fire out of your fingertips, as much as you wish otherwise. Or even emit any glowy light, like stupid Gil, who doesn't even appreciate what he's got. But that doesn't mean it's abnormal, just that, um...
Henry is expectant; you bounce your heel. Damn him! Just because you don't have a clear explanation, you're branded a liar and a fraud? He should consider it a good thing you don't know about the Wyrm, a great thing, because it means you're an upstanding member of society— not a creepy skulking cultist like him. Like your father. Like your father <span class="mu-i">was,</span> before he sensibly quit— you mean, Henry says he quit— you wouldn't know. You can't remember! You can't even remember when the magyckal abilities first turned up, either: not before you drowned, but when after? Recently? That's the easy response, but if you think critically on it: was there ever a true precipitating event, an a-ha! trigger? When did you <span class="mu-i">learn</span> what you sometimes do? It feels instinctive. Gut. But you haven't had those instincts forever, so clearly...
Lucky claims you were a deserter. That your gooplicate was a deserter, but there never was a gooplicate. Only you, and years shaved off that you can't remember, and surgical cuts of minutes and hours and days elsewhere. It makes you ill to think about, and it's Henry's fault. You hate Henry. He says he hasn't seen you in years, but you have no way to know if he's lying. You have no way to know if Lucky's lying. You have no way to know if Jesse was lying, when he was alive. Jesse showed you his tattoo like it meant something to you. What was it?
Henry is impatient. A spiral? A funny-looking spiral, scratched there in red. Right by his collarbone. He was bleeding out, gored by, er, you. Hypothetically. It didn't happen, in retrospect. What did he say about it? Just a few words. A non-sequitur. "Still going," or was it— "it's still going"?
Spirals on Management's notice and Henry's robes and Horse Face's creepy statue and on the seal. Red on Annie and in your head and leaking out of Jesse's torn-up neck. What's 'it'?
The cult?
Henry is annoyed. Doesn't say anything, but his lips are set the way Richard's lips are (were) usually set. You pull at the skin between your fingers. "Um—"
"Yes?"
(1/3)
