Ser, if you please, or knight-enchanter, [if I'd sat my vigil, Myr doesn't amend, foregoing his usual tidy precision to keep the joke rolling. It's a weird, white-knuckled kind of humor, when he's picking up on Everett's dread loud and clear and stomping ahead in the face of it anyway.
Even his consideration of others has got its limits, once he's pressed to them.
He unpacks the basket he's brought with crisp precision before reaching--reaching--ah, there it is, a chair to pull out and gesture Everett toward.]
Sit. Let's talk.
[He'll be producing the last of what he's brought--simple tumblers for the brandy; you didn't learn to appreciate alcohol right in the Circles--and pouring them both drinks.]
Let's... [he only echoes that far, sighing and taking a seat. A slip of his glasses off his nose to rub at the bridge, before returning and straightening them out. No being sullen, now, that's only childish. Though, that's just how he had been acting, refusing to face whatever questions Myr might have. Their bond is too strong and earnest, he knows lying or dodging the truth won't go over.
But he's not exactly offering anything upfront. Everett takes the tumbler to sip the brandy.]
Myr takes his own glass and a seat, arranging himself close enough to Everett to touch. He considers his questions a moment before giving an internal shrug and charging straight at the looming problem:]
What are you afraid's going to happen if you talk about Sherwood, dearheart?
I... I would not say afraid. Merely that I'm- I am still unsure what to say on the matter. Where to begin, that you will not feel unduly burdened.
[difficult to know what to say and where to start. Myr holds some adoration towards Everett's people, instilled in him by Everett's stories and fondness shared. This, however, could so handily spoil that. It spoiled much for Everett, even, who loved his people so dearly and... he believed, unconditionally. All love need condition, doesn't it? Love without boundary is merely a poison?
Or is that his people's way of seeing it? As an illness. Another of their toxic beliefs?]
[Myr dips his head in acknowledgment of this sentiment; that's one he does understand, that--and the current of uncertainty and anxiety beneath it in the Bond.
He reaches out across the table, turning his hand palm-up and holding it out to Everett. To take, or not, as the mood strikes him.]
At the beginning, I'd say, with what you first knew of him. [A breath's pause.] Nothing I can take off your shoulders is an undue burden. We are in this together.
That we are. I trust you to be as brilliant and compassionate as ever, yet... I know these matters are of particular sensitivity to you, my darling. If you don't wish to know, I would not insist.
[he knows necromancy is close enough in concept to the blood magic Myr so hated. It's best to be sensitive to that, though of course, it's not his only reason to hold this back.]
I suppose I'll start with my connection to him and how I once understood it. In Myddvai, souls return to the world tree upon death. We renew within it and return in time as a new person. Souls are often mixed about, like shuffling together many decks of cards. We rearrange and many breeds of beings do not return entirely as they once were. [he sips his brandy, humming]
But the Springtide are banished to the Below Lands... as are our very souls. Those important in our culture do often return in whole or in larger parts. Sherwood was the Founding Druid of the Springtide... and if I were to say I'm a full deck, I would be fifty part his soul and two wildcard my own.
[A twitch of the lips, a twitch of the ears signals Myr's faint wry amusement at that. He appreciates Everett's wishing to spare his sensibilities--given his own distress at many of Aefenglom's "commonplace" magical practices, how could anyone who loved him act any less? But he's had any number of lessons lately that seeking the truth of those around him, those he loves, requires pushing back that distress. And so--
Here they are.] I do appreciate it, dear heart.
[He will insist, though, and so laces fingers together beneath his chin to listen to another story of the Springtide. The metaphysics are--strange, to say the least of it, entirely unlike Thedas, but then Myddvai's about as far from Thedas as one got. Wonderful to contemplate for all that.
Though...something about the way Everett relates this puzzles him, unnerves him. His ears set back a little as he chews on the problem. He'll get it in a moment... But while he's doing that--]
You'd said Vaughan adopted you out of fondness for his old master, [he says, thoughtfully,] so it's expected that the more you're made up of someone's soul, the more you're like him?
That is the idea, yes. The cohesive traits of a soul often bind and the conflicting parts break away, rearrange, try to be new. I have always thought... that in such a metaphor, I am the two wildcard. Everett Vaughan is distinct from Sherwood by that distinct alone. [it was comfort to him, now, something he held onto as a mark of his individuality. Something that separates them, makes them truly different. Still, it nags at him, how that bit of difference is perhaps only details, pointless, nothing that change him at the core.
He's not a man who can be inherently good, he's too many parts rotten.]
Sherwood is a celebrated figure, to the Springtide. I've enjoyed my life of privilege through carrying his legacy, even if I did not become a Druid myself. Yet... as I'm sure you suspect. It's been revealed to me that he was not a man to be glorified. You... my darling, would believe him despicable. [but for more reasons than Everett does, maybe, which also tugs his heart down to the depth of dread and loneliness]
[Myr bites at his lower lip now, nigh on a frown of concentration as he listens to Everett's explanation--as he feels the underlying distress through the Bond. Ah, so: This is what had been shadowing them for so many months; he recognizes it now that it's out in the open. It grieves him doubly to feel it so: One, that his Bonded, his beloved is suffering; and two, that someone so gloriously, beautifully confident in himself was being eaten hollow by such a wound.
Perhaps not unjustly, if that confidence was part-founded in a lie Everett had been told by those who owed him the truth. But if he'd grown up believing all along that he was the reincarnation of a monster, doomed by the Springtide's beliefs to carry on what he'd begun in a past life...
No. No, that would not have done either.
Myr unfolds his hands, extending them across the table to Everett. More, he leaves himself open to their Bond; while there is some part of him reserved, quietly fomenting with thought as he works through the implications of what's been said, all the love he bears his Bonded is still there, unshaken.]
Andraste's mercy, dearheart--little wonder you'd shy from that.
[Breath in, breath out.] I'd hear more of him, [which he knows is surely not what Everett wants to hear, or share, with the looming possibility that something in Sherwood's past might turn Myr away from him,] but I'd like you to answer two questions for me first.
[Everett's less terrified that something of Sherwood will pull Myr away from him, but some of Everett's own feelings towards the figure. After all, it's not the necromancy necessarily that Everett has a problem with. It's what that necromancy was used for. How Sherwood was disloyal, as he also is, using up all who loved him as tools to serve until they are no longer useful.
Myr is surely not going to appreciate that Everett has no real qualms with the base practice, only Sherwood's actions with those practices. He tries to joke a bit, if lightly, for once not fully dodging away with his humor]
I would say yes, anything, my darling... but do allow me my hesitancy. I will do my utmost best to answer. [a rat gets all too defensive if cornered, he'd rather not be driven to that]
Of course, [Myr is swift to reassure, with a softening to his expression.] You hardly need ask.
[Or perhaps he did, given Myr cornered him here after weeks of that same hesitancy... But they're talking now, and Myr truly does not wish this to be any more distressing than it's already been.
On to the questions, then.]
Your friend, the mermaid. What would Sherwood have done with her, in the same situation?
[Even though Myr cannot see the way Everett's eyes round and his lashes bat rapidly, his shock is clear in the bond. His stunned silence clear in the air. His answer, quiet]
I... am not certain. Perhaps. Just the same. [is that good? Bad? He can't wrap his mind fully around the idea.]
There was a charm to Sherwood, that much is clear. He was not a man driven by cruelty, but... he did not value those who loved him. [and there's the dread. Is Everett any better than that? He's far from altruistic, after all. He leaves people over and over out of fear and selfishness, not wishing to be hurt.]
[So Sherwood's was the cruelty of abandonment and neglect, not deliberate malice. Which is a little surprising to Myr--he'd asked the question on a hunch about the conclusion he'd wanted to draw--but...it is not, necessarily, a bad surprise.
He is quiet as he considers that, and the renewed flux of dread across the Bond. He did not value those who loved him.
Well. In Myr's estimation, that's certainly not a trait Everett shares, but he can extrapolate from his own experiences where the seeds of dread might begin. There is no use in hastening to offer false reassurances--no, dearheart, of course you'd never do that--when he hasn't full information on what Everett holds up as his own failings; that does not change his own unstinting affection and concern for the man across from him.]
And how did he think of the Springtide themselves? What bound him to them?
[The next question is... easier. Or rather, Everett has stronger feelings towards it, has thought on it already. Those thoughts hadn't been put down or spoken in any manner, so he does consider before answering, a sternness in his tone.]
Necessity... and survival. Sherwood negotiated the banishment of his remaining follows to save them and himself. Vaughan would have been apart of that, the Vampires sought to continue living at any cost. [which was why they led the aristocratic families, those with the wealth and drive to continue to thrive even in the caves and the dark]
Majesty Ygrayne had great mercy to send them to the Below Lands. Even she had some fondness of the man. Despite... his known flaws. [a mystery, that, Everett couldn't fully understand that, not with what he knew of the Land Dragon and her strict manner. Perhaps that influence was apart of the Springtide, appeasing her sensibilities for them to be proper and orderly, should they wish to continue living]
[That's more in-line with what Myr had expected to hear, from Everett's level of dismay about his spiritual ancestor. But because it is, he's prompted to another question:] Did he love them as much as you do?
[It did not do to be over-certain about this. He's learned a great deal since coming to Aefenglom about checking his own assumptions, his own need to tidy people into boxes.
Sherwood, no less than Everett, couldn't be enclosed so simply, it sounds.]
I don't... believe that he loved anything or anybody. I think he saw most actions and most people as curiosities. He perfected a magic that turned souls, quite literally, into objects. Incarnate, he called them.
[he sighs again, feeling a deep well of pity and the name bubbles up again.]
Maker and Lady, [Myr breathes, involuntarily. He leans back in his chair, shuddering as if someone's walked over his grave; his fur's all on end with the heart-chilling horror of such a thing.
It isn't a magic wholly unknown on Thedas. There were rumors...
Faintly,]
His own wife? [...He recognizes the name.] You--you mistook me for her once, didn't you? Back during the mist...
That I had... she's also a reverent figure to my people. It's a common decoration to dye black a skull of a deer or elk, decorate it in white carnation and golden twine and stars. An Adelheid's ward, like the one I keep above the door out front.
[it's rather soured, now, that gesture he made to remember her. His fondness, what he always thought was some part of Sherwood still in him, drawing him to her visage and making him fascinated with her as more than just any figure of lore... It felt disingenuous now. Like he'd been tricked him believing there was some special connection he had to her, when there was only betrayal]
Her legacy was of self sacrifice, as she was who slayed Enki, ended her reign over the Unquestioned. I did not realize Sherwood's part... and that he could have saved her, but did instead refuse.
[Even without knowing the whole story--of Everett's upbringing or of Sherwood and Adelheid--Myr can grasp at the edges of how the other Faun is feeling. To have learned such a thing about the previous bearer of one's soul and how he'd acted against someone reverenced, someone Everett held in obvious high regard... As if Myr had woken up to find he was somehow, some way a reincarnation of Maferath.
Awful to contemplate.]
How did it come to that, between them? [A pause.] And why--how is it you learned all this, counter to what you knew growing up with the Springtide?
Ah, well... some time ago, when the objects from home came through the mirrors. A book appeared through mine, a collection of historical notes written by Sherwood himself. I was the third to read it, as Lord Viren discovered the bound volume and Sokie some stray pieces.
[which was irritating, but also... he'd not have had the courtesy to keep himself from reading such a thing, if the roles where switched. Stones, glass houses, something to that effect.
Everett, also, can't much stay mad at those two. They're gremlins just like he is.]
Sherwood wrote everything down. His journals are a cornerstone of Springtide culture, kept in utmost regard and under intense protection. They are too precious to allow any read should they not be a Druid. As his reincarnation, especially, I was forbidden ever be close to them. [so he promptly read it, like, five times and suffered. Everett sometimes suffers some real only really wants cookies if told not to touch the cookie jar impulses]
[Oof. Myr winces a little sympathetically; not that Viren and Sokie were the worst people to find such a thing and read it--in fact, they're probably the best of all the options--but being suddenly known to the people one loves the way Everett loves those two... That would not be the best feeling.
The very fact of those journals, and how they'd been kept from Everett... That's strange, though. That's very strange.]
So of course you did, once you could, [with gentle, wry humor. Yes, Myr knows you.] Why--why d'you think they kept them from you? They set him up in such high esteem but you make it sound as if they were ashamed of who he was.
[Or, more generously, trying to keep his reincarnation from the path he'd walk. Maker, what would expectations like that do to a child? To a man? Well, Myr, witness here your beloved and the result of that.]
Of course, I had. [he chuckles, albeit sadly to admit. He's predictable, in that way, too curious for his own good. All the warnings in the realm couldn't stop him from reading that tome, knowing finally what Sherwood was.
Even if the answer was unsatisfying, Everett wished to know that terrible truth, even if he'd prefer not to be living with it]
It was always said to be improper. That one shouldn't relive the past, in such a way. And... Vaughan always insisted I need be my own man.
A man he'd been fond of, but didn't want you to emulate? [Interesting. Very interesting. And--entirely academic, really, to the far more important subject of the weight of dread and guilt Everett's been carrying with him over the subject.
Myr considers approaches, gently pushes aside his own curiosity and the desire to dig deeper yet into the history of the Springtide. Ample time for that later--maybe even tonight, depending how the rest of the conversation goes and where they end up at the close of it.]
Are you afraid you've come to be too much like him anyway?
Afraid... well. [this would completely escape Myr, obviously, obviously it would. He could lie through omission with such ease!
It takes so much of his better judgement to share]
I know I'm much like him. As a matter of fact. [he doesn't like it, but it is. A fact with evidence.]
The Springtide can tell a reincarnation through matching handwriting. We're taught young to read and write so the comparison can be made. When young, it matches closest, since life experience has not had much influenced. [so, it follows, Everett's handwriting should be different now that he's older, if he is so different]
Mine is still the same. [he has the direct comparison to study and. Urg. It's bleak.]
[It is a fact that Myr's immediate impulse is to contest--because he's not Springtide and the matter of someone's handwriting seems petty and inconsequential. Everett is the sort of man who'd weep for a near-stranger's sorrow and keep a grieving mermaid company through the night. What did handwriting signify in the face of that?
And yet--and yet. Everett's also a man with a gift for stepping inside someone else's troubles and taking on the weight of them himself, however bizarre and removed they might seem from his own experiences. How could Myr do any less than follow his Bonded's example in this?
It seems such a small thing as to hardly matter, but it matters so much to Everett, and that's what's truly important.
(The emotions across their Bond roil and simmer as Myr works through this, settling on a quiet sort of worry.)]
Do you think that dooms you to committing all his same sins, dearheart?
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faithlikeaseed) wrote2019-08-01 12:00 am
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Even his consideration of others has got its limits, once he's pressed to them.
He unpacks the basket he's brought with crisp precision before reaching--reaching--ah, there it is, a chair to pull out and gesture Everett toward.]
Sit. Let's talk.
[He'll be producing the last of what he's brought--simple tumblers for the brandy; you didn't learn to appreciate alcohol right in the Circles--and pouring them both drinks.]
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But he's not exactly offering anything upfront. Everett takes the tumbler to sip the brandy.]
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Myr takes his own glass and a seat, arranging himself close enough to Everett to touch. He considers his questions a moment before giving an internal shrug and charging straight at the looming problem:]
What are you afraid's going to happen if you talk about Sherwood, dearheart?
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[difficult to know what to say and where to start. Myr holds some adoration towards Everett's people, instilled in him by Everett's stories and fondness shared. This, however, could so handily spoil that. It spoiled much for Everett, even, who loved his people so dearly and... he believed, unconditionally. All love need condition, doesn't it? Love without boundary is merely a poison?
Or is that his people's way of seeing it? As an illness. Another of their toxic beliefs?]
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He reaches out across the table, turning his hand palm-up and holding it out to Everett. To take, or not, as the mood strikes him.]
At the beginning, I'd say, with what you first knew of him. [A breath's pause.] Nothing I can take off your shoulders is an undue burden. We are in this together.
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[he knows necromancy is close enough in concept to the blood magic Myr so hated. It's best to be sensitive to that, though of course, it's not his only reason to hold this back.]
I suppose I'll start with my connection to him and how I once understood it. In Myddvai, souls return to the world tree upon death. We renew within it and return in time as a new person. Souls are often mixed about, like shuffling together many decks of cards. We rearrange and many breeds of beings do not return entirely as they once were. [he sips his brandy, humming]
But the Springtide are banished to the Below Lands... as are our very souls. Those important in our culture do often return in whole or in larger parts. Sherwood was the Founding Druid of the Springtide... and if I were to say I'm a full deck, I would be fifty part his soul and two wildcard my own.
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Here they are.] I do appreciate it, dear heart.
[He will insist, though, and so laces fingers together beneath his chin to listen to another story of the Springtide. The metaphysics are--strange, to say the least of it, entirely unlike Thedas, but then Myddvai's about as far from Thedas as one got. Wonderful to contemplate for all that.
Though...something about the way Everett relates this puzzles him, unnerves him. His ears set back a little as he chews on the problem. He'll get it in a moment... But while he's doing that--]
You'd said Vaughan adopted you out of fondness for his old master, [he says, thoughtfully,] so it's expected that the more you're made up of someone's soul, the more you're like him?
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He's not a man who can be inherently good, he's too many parts rotten.]
Sherwood is a celebrated figure, to the Springtide. I've enjoyed my life of privilege through carrying his legacy, even if I did not become a Druid myself. Yet... as I'm sure you suspect. It's been revealed to me that he was not a man to be glorified. You... my darling, would believe him despicable. [but for more reasons than Everett does, maybe, which also tugs his heart down to the depth of dread and loneliness]
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Perhaps not unjustly, if that confidence was part-founded in a lie Everett had been told by those who owed him the truth. But if he'd grown up believing all along that he was the reincarnation of a monster, doomed by the Springtide's beliefs to carry on what he'd begun in a past life...
No. No, that would not have done either.
Myr unfolds his hands, extending them across the table to Everett. More, he leaves himself open to their Bond; while there is some part of him reserved, quietly fomenting with thought as he works through the implications of what's been said, all the love he bears his Bonded is still there, unshaken.]
Andraste's mercy, dearheart--little wonder you'd shy from that.
[Breath in, breath out.] I'd hear more of him, [which he knows is surely not what Everett wants to hear, or share, with the looming possibility that something in Sherwood's past might turn Myr away from him,] but I'd like you to answer two questions for me first.
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Myr is surely not going to appreciate that Everett has no real qualms with the base practice, only Sherwood's actions with those practices. He tries to joke a bit, if lightly, for once not fully dodging away with his humor]
I would say yes, anything, my darling... but do allow me my hesitancy. I will do my utmost best to answer. [a rat gets all too defensive if cornered, he'd rather not be driven to that]
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[Or perhaps he did, given Myr cornered him here after weeks of that same hesitancy... But they're talking now, and Myr truly does not wish this to be any more distressing than it's already been.
On to the questions, then.]
Your friend, the mermaid. What would Sherwood have done with her, in the same situation?
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I... am not certain. Perhaps. Just the same. [is that good? Bad? He can't wrap his mind fully around the idea.]
There was a charm to Sherwood, that much is clear. He was not a man driven by cruelty, but... he did not value those who loved him. [and there's the dread. Is Everett any better than that? He's far from altruistic, after all. He leaves people over and over out of fear and selfishness, not wishing to be hurt.]
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He is quiet as he considers that, and the renewed flux of dread across the Bond. He did not value those who loved him.
Well. In Myr's estimation, that's certainly not a trait Everett shares, but he can extrapolate from his own experiences where the seeds of dread might begin. There is no use in hastening to offer false reassurances--no, dearheart, of course you'd never do that--when he hasn't full information on what Everett holds up as his own failings; that does not change his own unstinting affection and concern for the man across from him.]
And how did he think of the Springtide themselves? What bound him to them?
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Necessity... and survival. Sherwood negotiated the banishment of his remaining follows to save them and himself. Vaughan would have been apart of that, the Vampires sought to continue living at any cost. [which was why they led the aristocratic families, those with the wealth and drive to continue to thrive even in the caves and the dark]
Majesty Ygrayne had great mercy to send them to the Below Lands. Even she had some fondness of the man. Despite... his known flaws. [a mystery, that, Everett couldn't fully understand that, not with what he knew of the Land Dragon and her strict manner. Perhaps that influence was apart of the Springtide, appeasing her sensibilities for them to be proper and orderly, should they wish to continue living]
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[It did not do to be over-certain about this. He's learned a great deal since coming to Aefenglom about checking his own assumptions, his own need to tidy people into boxes.
Sherwood, no less than Everett, couldn't be enclosed so simply, it sounds.]
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[he sighs again, feeling a deep well of pity and the name bubbles up again.]
Even his own wife, Adelheid.
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It isn't a magic wholly unknown on Thedas. There were rumors...
Faintly,]
His own wife? [...He recognizes the name.] You--you mistook me for her once, didn't you? Back during the mist...
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[it's rather soured, now, that gesture he made to remember her. His fondness, what he always thought was some part of Sherwood still in him, drawing him to her visage and making him fascinated with her as more than just any figure of lore... It felt disingenuous now. Like he'd been tricked him believing there was some special connection he had to her, when there was only betrayal]
Her legacy was of self sacrifice, as she was who slayed Enki, ended her reign over the Unquestioned. I did not realize Sherwood's part... and that he could have saved her, but did instead refuse.
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Awful to contemplate.]
How did it come to that, between them? [A pause.] And why--how is it you learned all this, counter to what you knew growing up with the Springtide?
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[which was irritating, but also... he'd not have had the courtesy to keep himself from reading such a thing, if the roles where switched. Stones, glass houses, something to that effect.
Everett, also, can't much stay mad at those two. They're gremlins just like he is.]
Sherwood wrote everything down. His journals are a cornerstone of Springtide culture, kept in utmost regard and under intense protection. They are too precious to allow any read should they not be a Druid. As his reincarnation, especially, I was forbidden ever be close to them. [so he promptly read it, like, five times and suffered. Everett sometimes suffers some real only really wants cookies if told not to touch the cookie jar impulses]
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The very fact of those journals, and how they'd been kept from Everett... That's strange, though. That's very strange.]
So of course you did, once you could, [with gentle, wry humor. Yes, Myr knows you.] Why--why d'you think they kept them from you? They set him up in such high esteem but you make it sound as if they were ashamed of who he was.
[Or, more generously, trying to keep his reincarnation from the path he'd walk. Maker, what would expectations like that do to a child? To a man? Well, Myr, witness here your beloved and the result of that.]
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Even if the answer was unsatisfying, Everett wished to know that terrible truth, even if he'd prefer not to be living with it]
It was always said to be improper. That one shouldn't relive the past, in such a way. And... Vaughan always insisted I need be my own man.
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Myr considers approaches, gently pushes aside his own curiosity and the desire to dig deeper yet into the history of the Springtide. Ample time for that later--maybe even tonight, depending how the rest of the conversation goes and where they end up at the close of it.]
Are you afraid you've come to be too much like him anyway?
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It takes so much of his better judgement to share]
I know I'm much like him. As a matter of fact. [he doesn't like it, but it is. A fact with evidence.]
The Springtide can tell a reincarnation through matching handwriting. We're taught young to read and write so the comparison can be made. When young, it matches closest, since life experience has not had much influenced. [so, it follows, Everett's handwriting should be different now that he's older, if he is so different]
Mine is still the same. [he has the direct comparison to study and. Urg. It's bleak.]
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And yet--and yet. Everett's also a man with a gift for stepping inside someone else's troubles and taking on the weight of them himself, however bizarre and removed they might seem from his own experiences. How could Myr do any less than follow his Bonded's example in this?
It seems such a small thing as to hardly matter, but it matters so much to Everett, and that's what's truly important.
(The emotions across their Bond roil and simmer as Myr works through this, settling on a quiet sort of worry.)]
Do you think that dooms you to committing all his same sins, dearheart?
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