[Another noise like an answer. Like the knife he wishes he had— or had the good sense to use at the time. A sort-of laugh that isn't one at all, and when it dies on his lips, there's nothing else left but empty air and the wafting noise from Leto's end of the line; the coffin lid's closed. There's nothing but dead air and deader memories, and the nagging, restless pressure of a phantom that's long gone.]
I know you would.
[Again: warm. Again, it's that bruised quality that's more tender than guarding. Something that swears even in its clumsiness I know you would, and I'm grateful for it— but the rub is that even with all their secrets shared, he's still not used to this sort of vulnerability. He might never be, not in any way that lets him make this a clean transition. One without stop-start faults where anyone listening in could clearly hear every moment where he has to spur himself into giving Leto the truth, bit by scattered bit.
Which is different than fear or pain, for whatever it's worth.]
I was hunting for Cazador when it happened— I can remember that much. [A beat, his lips a little too dry to go without licking them.] The rest was....just a nightmare.
When they imprison you, after the torture of implantation, they have to keep tabs, you see. So there's this glass— [He's trying with his hand to convey the barrier itself in order to find the word, but it doesn't really come, and honestly doesn't really matter, either.] thing. A pod— and they leave you there in it awaiting your inevitable fate, feeling that hellish little death sentence squirming behind your eye. Watching them do the same, turning willful creature after willful creature into a mindless slave or a waiting monster.
—and then, out of nowhere, their ship crashed. I was free. Alive. [A scoff.] Albeit temporarily.
Thedas put that right.
[And again: he owes that world too much to truly ever resent whatever ugliness it held. Even words like knife-ear or rattus only ever stung once he'd been there long enough to dull old dread.]
But then Thedas had the idea of very briefly letting my path cross with a man who swore he knew who I was, and seemed distraught that the same wasn't true in turn.
He told me he had one, too. A tadpole. That we'd met after the crash, our goals aligned in freeing ourselves from its grip. Like most Rifters, he soon vanished after that. But afterwards I knew I couldn't keep pretending that it was just one long, protracted nightmare tailing my master's routine commands, and preceding my arrival here.
[Tsk.]
Anyway, to keep it simple: two rules, my love.
Never open the door at night when I'm not there to keep you safe. And two— you stay far the Hells away from those tentacled beasts and their ilk.
no subject
I know you would.
[Again: warm. Again, it's that bruised quality that's more tender than guarding. Something that swears even in its clumsiness I know you would, and I'm grateful for it— but the rub is that even with all their secrets shared, he's still not used to this sort of vulnerability. He might never be, not in any way that lets him make this a clean transition. One without stop-start faults where anyone listening in could clearly hear every moment where he has to spur himself into giving Leto the truth, bit by scattered bit.
Which is different than fear or pain, for whatever it's worth.]
I was hunting for Cazador when it happened— I can remember that much. [A beat, his lips a little too dry to go without licking them.] The rest was....just a nightmare.
When they imprison you, after the torture of implantation, they have to keep tabs, you see. So there's this glass— [He's trying with his hand to convey the barrier itself in order to find the word, but it doesn't really come, and honestly doesn't really matter, either.] thing. A pod— and they leave you there in it awaiting your inevitable fate, feeling that hellish little death sentence squirming behind your eye. Watching them do the same, turning willful creature after willful creature into a mindless slave or a waiting monster.
—and then, out of nowhere, their ship crashed. I was free. Alive. [A scoff.] Albeit temporarily.
Thedas put that right.
[And again: he owes that world too much to truly ever resent whatever ugliness it held. Even words like knife-ear or rattus only ever stung once he'd been there long enough to dull old dread.]
But then Thedas had the idea of very briefly letting my path cross with a man who swore he knew who I was, and seemed distraught that the same wasn't true in turn.
He told me he had one, too. A tadpole. That we'd met after the crash, our goals aligned in freeing ourselves from its grip. Like most Rifters, he soon vanished after that. But afterwards I knew I couldn't keep pretending that it was just one long, protracted nightmare tailing my master's routine commands, and preceding my arrival here.
[Tsk.]
Anyway, to keep it simple: two rules, my love.
Never open the door at night when I'm not there to keep you safe. And two— you stay far the Hells away from those tentacled beasts and their ilk.