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Your manse: the same as last time, all red and eerie, sunlight lancing through the windows like bloodied blades. It's silent except for your footsteps, the tinkling of the font, and the rustling of Gil as he keeps his grip. The manse's tall columns are overgrown with hairy webs of red vines, like dodder.
It doesn't feel like a place for you anymore. Did it ever, though? You don't think you ever made your manse— if you did, it was a different you. You can't remember that you. Or else it was Richard, who always comes so close to understanding you, and always falters.
Anyways, it's fine. It's not unsafe in here, any more than it's unsafe in your own head— the walls are strong and marble, and they keep the sun locked out there. You wish you could fix the ugly ravine in the floor (thanks a lot, Yellow-Eyed Thing), but it is what it is. And there is a place carved out near it, isn't there? You scramble down the side of the ugly ravine, shedding beetles as you go, and walk along the creek at the bottom of it. Underneath the marble tile is black earth. It's always earth. And at the end of the creek is a little space with dense dark-leaved trees and moist humus and a pool of water. It's not very attractive, nor is it thematically appropriate, but at least it's not red here.
You guess Gil likes the spot too, because about half of him leaves you and settles in the lower boughs of the largest tree. You look up at him. "Gil?"
No response.
"Are you okay? Can you talk? You can talk now if you want— they're gone. Richard isn't even here."
No response, except for the beetles swirling.
"If you won't talk to me, I'm going to get really worried. I'm going to have to go into your mind again and see all your embarrassing secrets... I mean, all the ones I didn't already see. Also, I— I'd like to talk to you as a human being, if you don't mind. Not that there's anything wrong with beetles. They just don't have faces. And I— I want to see your face."
Gil slurs something so thickly you have to parse it out several seconds later. "'No you don't'— yes I do! I'm glad you can talk, but— yes, I do want to see your face. That's my right, as your, um— as your lady." You scootch your knees to your chest. "You wouldn't disobey me, right? And also... uh... if you're a person, I think you'd be able to smoke a cigarette without it putting you into a coma. Just saying."
(3/4 jk)
