First of all, he feels a bit badly for laughing so much at the bone frenzy man now, who seems to simply be in a rotten situation. Still. Fucking strange, isn't it? he'd seen the other woman, a cavalier - harrow had called her that in the memory clear as day - and. There's enough to put together some terrifying pieces there. He'll have to consider it later along with whether it is actually proper to use both a two-syllable and three-syllable version of the name nonius because
And now I will burn him and burn him and burn him, and he will never really die.
Yes. 'Bit fucked' is one way to describe killing one's cavalier and consuming their soul, burning the tattered remains of it for all eternity in order to achieve immortality and the unfathomable power of Lyctorhood.
[It's definitely a today I fucked up kind of moment.]
But you asked me what became of Ortus Nigenad, and that is the answer. He did his duty and allowed me to consume him, and I burned enough of him to advance Cytherea's cancer until she died, and that is how I came to be a Lyctor.
[Her words here are very clipped - matter-of-fact, but the self-loathing there is still evident.]
The final insult to injury is that it seems I did the deed poorly. Ianthe fucked it up rather badly with Babs, actually. Don't give too much credence to her boasting, she's always dreadful at detail work. But she didn't make as big a mess of it as I. I took his life and his soul, and I used it to survive Canaan House, and then never again was I able to reach him. I'm only a failed half Lyctor, and I've wasted even his dying sacrifice like air.
He just listens, carefully, but he does reach over to hold one of her hands tightly - if she'll allow it. It's a sickening, dark feeling to dig through the mind of someone else. Knowing things that it seems harrow doesn't. It feels equally vile to somehow feel almost a little grateful for that. he hates it. that the truth here is something-- it always comes due, doesn't it?
he doesn't even know how to begin to explain this to harrow. a hand weighs on the scales of her life.]
I don't care what you've done. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me one fucking bit, you're still--
[ The memory is clear and bright, in the way that most terrifying experiences are, when you think them over.
You’ve just descended the stairs to the speakeasy of this Gentleman you’ve heard so much about, when a tabaxi turns to your group. She starts:
“Halt friends, I do not r— Lucien?” Her eyes widen in shock, but you still don’t know who she is, you’re racking your memory, but the name
The name makes you feel ill, all of a sudden, an itch at the back of your skull. There’s no time to consider it.
“It has been too long, two ye–”
“Far too long!”
“Two years!” She laughs, bright, hands still gripping your shoulders on either side, tightly, like an old, old friend. “Look at you! You grew out your hair! And you are covered in tattoos!”
There’s something in her expression that seems confused about this, as her eyes flit to your hands, your neck.
“We’ll catch up, we need a table, we need drinks for me and my compatriots.”
“Of course, you– these are your friends now?” She looks over your group, appraising, but then goes to do as you’ve asked. Drinks and a table.
You now get a better look up at the top, some skulking individuals with long dark cloaks and dark armor, carrying what looks almost like a heavy crossbow, but it’s a long, metal rod. You’ve only seen them in use here and there. A recently emerging technology that has been largely guarded within use of the empire itself.
The second she turns, you give Fjord - a green, half-orcish man, a little pat on the back and hiss a whisper at him. 
“I’m sorry, this is my nightmare, please just go with it? It’s Lucien.”
He simply looks a bit baffled in return. The tabaxi returns to the table, reaching her hands out for yours.
“Oh, too long.” She starts quickly, sitting up straighter, then her face suddenly turns apologetic. You see all the faces of your friends, twisted in confusion. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
“Nonagon. I apologize for using your old name. Nonagon, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Who can keep track these days? Again, a long story.” You manage to croak out. She doesn’t seem to notice. She just looks concerned.
“Nonagon, what happened? We watched you die.”
She looks expectant. As do the rest of them at the table. Jester, Fjord, Nott, Caleb, Beau. All of their eyes are trained on you. They all await your answer.
“I’m sorry, it— I think it all went a bit fuzzy at the end there. Won’t you remind me?”
The tabaxi looks almost stricken, but she recovers. Casting a glance at the others at the table, and then,
“I don’t trust these people, Luci— Nonagon, but—
If you trust them, then I trust you. You gave us a speech. We had a fine meal. We all got ready there in the forest. . . She said it would be hard for us to tell whether or not it worked at first, but we went and checked, and you were not breathing. For a good hour, you were not breathing and you had gone cold. We knew then that-- that we had lost you. We checked, and I'm very attuned to vitals, as you know. There was no heartbeat. So we waited longer. The sun rose, and nothing. So, as you told us, if anything were to go wrong, we had to get rid of any sign, any trace. So not far from the Tomb Taker hideout, we buried you and we went our separate ways. She took the tome, the mage woman, it was part of the arrangement you had with her. Her contract said she was in the right and that we knew better than to go toe to toe with her and her ilk.”
They all turn to watch your reaction. Eyes on eyes on eyes on eyes.
“So before you woke up in the dirt . . . nothing?”
You can feel the magic, pulling you. Whatever you say, it will be the truth. You’ve no choice about that for the moment. Jester doesn’t seem to be sorry at all.
“There is no before. Whatever happened before is not me. Some asshole got buried in the dirt. Fuck him. I am enjoying what I’m doing; I want nothing to do with that. Anything that came before, I was happy to just leave it be.”
“Do you really not want to know your past?” Nott is hesitant, hands in front of her, nervous.
“I really don’t. Whoever that was came to that end, and I want nothing to do with that. Whatever it was, it doesn’t feel good when I– the moment when something creeps through, I don’t like it. I don’t want anything to do with it. I was happy! I liked the circus! The circus was great!”
She tries again: “I’m sorry to belabor this, but what if you had a good life before this? What if you were famous or rich or had friends or family?”
At this, Yasha tries to intervene, how you love her, ”I think he’s quite an amazing person–“ but you interrupt anyway.
“Okay, here’s the thing that you’re not catching. That wasn’t me. This is mine. I don’t want anything from that other person anymore. That
 person is someone else. It was– I’m in for a penny, might as well. I’m told, although I don’t entirely remember this part, that I only said the word empty over and over again for the first week.”
“Empty. That sounds terrible. I don’t want to remember anything. I don’t want to anybody else’s baggage in my head and I don’t want anybody else’s problems, thoughts, ideas. I like this person, right now is a good person. Is a fine person. Is a happy person. It’s very freeing. It’s the best thing– it’s the thing that happened to me. It’s not the best thing that happened to me, it’s the thing that happened to me. I found peace in building a new person.
What if the past feels that I owe it something?”
Beau pipes in, loud and brash as always. “You don’t owe your past shit. If I don’t feel anything about my past, but I still remember it and I still don’t give a fuck about where I came from then, why should you care about shit that you don’t even remember?”
You scowl right back at her.
“I spent two years before I met you all cajoling people, occasionally ripping them off, occasionally doing a good turn here or there. Never trust the truth. The truth is vicious. The truth thinks you owe it something. None of that. I like my bullshit. It’s good. It’s happy. It makes other people happy."
Nott, again: “But it’s not who you are . . . ?”
“It is exactly who I am. I may be a liar but I’m never a betrayer. I’m honest in my work, and I believe in doing a good turn. I’ve never cheated you out of money. I’ve never robbed from you. I stayed with that circus for two years, I know how people treat each other. It’s important. I don’t care where you’ve been. I don’t care what terrible things any of you have done. You’re here now. This is how it works.
I do my best every town I went to and every town I left, no matter how they treated me– and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect. I left every town better than I found it.”
You can feel Beau’s glare from across the room. You don’t care. You don’t care at all what she thinks of you.
“Let me make this abundantly clear. My name is Molly. That person is dead and not me. It’s just a person who had this body. They abandoned it.
[Oh. Oh. Well, a lot of pieces fall into place here - his discomfort over talking about the past, the hints on his profile, the questions about the name Nonagon and what it means.
And it is absolutely fascinating to her, as she puts them together like a riddle. Clearly this Lucien - this Nonagon - went into the grave to accomplish something, something she would very much like to hear of, and the process went. . . did it go wrong? Or did it work as intended? Something woke up there in the dirt, something with eyes on his body and blood that does magic on its own, but a void without memories.
She's watched a man become siphoned so thoroughly nothing remained in his body, and in that shell came hungry opportunists, taking control. But - though she knows little of spirits in Molly's world, she doubts that's the answer. Molly is too human (well, tiefling), too harmless, for the revenants she's aware of. It's more likely that without the memories of the how and the who and the why he simply went about his business. Without history, what remains of a person? Only the soul. She wonders what would happen if he were to remember again. The urge to press for every detail, to untangle every piece, to try to puzzle it out is so strong. She has a feeling that she could learn something new from this Lucien, something important. Harrowhark has always been hungry for forbidden knowledge, eager to get her hands on all the books she ought not to read, all the theorems thought too dangerous for a mere child. So hungry that when she ran out of new books to read and new things to learn, she turned to the one thing she had been told all her life she could not have, the thing that would bring about the end of the world. As a willful ten year old, she opened the door and rolled away the rock and gazed upon the Body and she never once regretted it, not even for what it cost her. That Harrowhark would pick this to pieces, too, no matter what it cost her, if she could learn even one new thing. The insistence of Lucien's body's current occupant to know nothing, to refuse to understand, to be satisfied with nothing but mindless, thoughtless bullshit, would disgust her, and Harrowhark is not a particularly nice girl to those she doesn't respect.
Or maybe that's just the natural result when you know your existence is a crime and the only value you have to give in penitence is what you can come to learn and come to achieve. When your own parents cannot look upon you as anything besides either a genius or an unspeakable horror. When you have never once been loved, never appreciated for any other charms besides your genius, never once been held while you cried.
This version of Harrow, sitting here now, has experienced these things. So maybe there's something to be said for letting a past self rot in its grave.
She just doesn't say. . . anything, for a long moment, too afraid of saying something wrong or ugly, waiting to see what he says.]
[That is the thing, isn't it? Molly doesn't know him, not exactly, except for the parts that sometimes manage to push their way through, unspoken thoughts and too-familiar names, powers that don't make sense, awakening in a body covered in eyes
but lucien is the type of person to pull at the threads until something falls apart, it seems. the bits of the conversation that cree (the tabaxi, cree, caleb had so cleverly managed to get her name) had shared mentioned they had left some order, tired of their shackles and tried a new path. one paved with blood, down a road that follows no known order of this material plane. he and harrow would get along, two of the same type of mind. for a time. there's only so long one can remain in stride with a person like that until the urge to dig into even your allies grows too strong, doesn't it?
mollymauk, as loud and demanding of space in a room as he is, is only a piece of something. incomplete, maybe. a broken lyctor, and half a ghost. he doesn't say anything either for a moment, before he just leans back, sighing out.
it doesn't seem to hurt so bad to let harrow see it, for some reason.]
. . . What was it you said? There. The whole ugly tale.
[Has Molly considered the irony here? Harrow - can't. Clearly what she said was the whole tale wasn't, can't be, because there is so much she can't remember.]
I suppose it would be better, wouldn't it, to live with no regrets? [What if she was a Harrowhark who didn't know that she was two hundred and one ghosts.]
[He does. He does get it. He would rather not. He digs in his coat pocket for a moment, like he's looking for something - or checking that it's there. And then sits with his hands on his lap.]
Can't say I didn't die without a few.
[ . . . ]
. . . Beau said Lucien had come back to haunt them. I didn't ask more. I didn't want to.
[Pretending, for just a while more. Still, he sees no need to lie to Harrow. A strange feeling.]
Is this why you asked about - bodies, and souls? Knowing what I know, I can provide answers, or at least suppositions. But I would also - rather respect your feelings on the matter.
[Hmm.]
At the least, I understand this much. I am a different person than I was the day I woke, missing so many pieces and so much time. In my case - I truly do not know if I am a better or a worse person, but I am not the same.
And yet, were I to learn more of the old Harrowhark tomorrow, I also doubt I would simply revert to who I was before. It isn't as though I would forget each and every moment that passed in the interim, or that those moments would cease to comprise my personhood.
[He looks a bit torn on the follow up, though. He isn't sure if he wants to know? Every fact he seems to learn, or consider - just another truth with its hand out, expecting its payment.]
But that's still you. It isn't as if-- He isn't me. And everything I do know about him, the things that this body knows, are never, ever good. It knew how to bleed things, it knew the names of terrible gods, it made people call it fucking Nonagon. What kind of bullshit name is that? A title? Pretentious bastard. Did you see the way that Tabaxi looked at me-- Fucking. Fucking reverence. I don't want that.
[And a name that references the number nine. geez harrow.
out of pure respect for her as a friend, he'll meet her the tiniest bit of halfway, but his expression gets tighter the more she pushes on this. this is the thing. the thing he does not want to touch.]
The more things you know, the more you have to do about them, is the thing.
[He pauses. like, for example if a friend starts bleeding from the head every time she thinks about something too hard, and clearly has a distorted memory? once you know that sort of thing, you can't just . . . let it lie.]
. . . We don't have to speak of this. It is your own decision to make. I only wonder if you've considered whether you'll have to do something about this whether you prefer to or not.
[She looks at the cat like she doesn't really know what to do about it, and then bows her head to it.]
Salutations, Frumpkin. I am Lady Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter of the House of the Ninth, and the ninth saint to serve the King Undying. May you always have safe passage among the walls of Drearburh and the favor of the Necrolord Prime.
[She seems, like. Absolutely, 100%, not joking at all.]
[okay look this has been such a rough conversation harrow has so many brain problems and is very, very sad and he has so many brain problems and this is all so much but
harrow politely introducing herself to a kitty cat and offering it the favor of the NECROLORD PRIME - excuse me? - has really just cheered him up immensely in the space of about 12 seconds. he'll reach over to pick Frumpkin up under the elbows in that way a child carries a cat (frumpkin, for his part, doesn't seem to object in the slightest)
and then puts on
just a really terrible fake german (?) accent:]
Ja! I am Frumpkin. I serve Caleb Widogast, Wizard Prime of the Mighty Nein, doing all manner of weird magic shi-- scheisse. I do not know what I am doing here, because I do not belong to Mr. Mollymauk, who has summoned me with a phone on accident.
[stop this is so mean hes not here to defend himself]
[She's just scowling more and more when Molly starts doing a stupid voice for the cat, feeling like such a fool. She doesn't know what a fucking cat is, okay. He said introduce yourself.]
Well met, Frumpkin. The Ninth calls upon you. I will grant you the Favor of the Chain if you slay Mollymauk where he stands.
Now he is threatening violence against you. Frumpkin, please reconsider where your loyalties lie. The doors of the Ninth House are always welcomes to those seeking sanctuary.
. . . You received him this week? The same as my little envelope?
[He sets Frumpkin down, where he just starts doing the kneading thing on one of mollys legs and molly looks a little bit like
weirded out by this? what the fuck is a cat. anyway.]
That's right. I told Pride to send him back to Caleb, but apparently it's my responsibility now. Wrath says that someone thinks I need an emotional support animal. Whatever the hells that is.
You could . . . ? It isn't like he's going to tell anyone anything.
[frumpkin is quite literally an emotional support summon]
Caleb does talk to it rather a lot. Fuck knows about what. Also does the thing where it sits on you and makes the [makes a purring noise.] thing. Surprised the hells out of Yasha when it did that to her. [okay, at that little memory, he'll actually scratch frumpkin on the head.] . . . Suppose it's useful, if you're a person who doesn't deal well with other people. To have something that can do that for you.
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no subject
yikes!
First of all, he feels a bit badly for laughing so much at the bone frenzy man now, who seems to simply be in a rotten situation. Still. Fucking strange, isn't it? he'd seen the other woman, a cavalier - harrow had called her that in the memory clear as day - and. There's enough to put together some terrifying pieces there. He'll have to consider it later along with whether it is actually proper to use both a two-syllable and three-syllable version of the name nonius because
And now I will burn him and burn him and burn him, and he will never really die.
Oh.]
Bit fucked, that.
[You think?]
no subject
[It's definitely a today I fucked up kind of moment.]
But you asked me what became of Ortus Nigenad, and that is the answer. He did his duty and allowed me to consume him, and I burned enough of him to advance Cytherea's cancer until she died, and that is how I came to be a Lyctor.
[Her words here are very clipped - matter-of-fact, but the self-loathing there is still evident.]
The final insult to injury is that it seems I did the deed poorly. Ianthe fucked it up rather badly with Babs, actually. Don't give too much credence to her boasting, she's always dreadful at detail work. But she didn't make as big a mess of it as I. I took his life and his soul, and I used it to survive Canaan House, and then never again was I able to reach him. I'm only a failed half Lyctor, and I've wasted even his dying sacrifice like air.
That is the whole of the ugly tale.
1/2
He just listens, carefully, but he does reach over to hold one of her hands tightly - if she'll allow it. It's a sickening, dark feeling to dig through the mind of someone else. Knowing things that it seems harrow doesn't. It feels equally vile to somehow feel almost a little grateful for that. he hates it. that the truth here is something-- it always comes due, doesn't it?
he doesn't even know how to begin to explain this to harrow. a hand weighs on the scales of her life.]
I don't care what you've done. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me one fucking bit, you're still--
no subject
You’ve just descended the stairs to the speakeasy of this Gentleman you’ve heard so much about, when a tabaxi turns to your group. She starts:
“Halt friends, I do not r— Lucien?” Her eyes widen in shock, but you still don’t know who she is, you’re racking your memory, but the name
The name makes you feel ill, all of a sudden, an itch at the back of your skull. There’s no time to consider it.
“It has been too long, two ye–”
“Far too long!”
“Two years!” She laughs, bright, hands still gripping your shoulders on either side, tightly, like an old, old friend. “Look at you! You grew out your hair! And you are covered in tattoos!”
There’s something in her expression that seems confused about this, as her eyes flit to your hands, your neck.
“We’ll catch up, we need a table, we need drinks for me and my compatriots.”
“Of course, you– these are your friends now?” She looks over your group, appraising, but then goes to do as you’ve asked. Drinks and a table.
You now get a better look up at the top, some skulking individuals with long dark cloaks and dark armor, carrying what looks almost like a heavy crossbow, but it’s a long, metal rod. You’ve only seen them in use here and there. A recently emerging technology that has been largely guarded within use of the empire itself.
The second she turns, you give Fjord - a green, half-orcish man, a little pat on the back and hiss a whisper at him.

“I’m sorry, this is my nightmare, please just go with it? It’s Lucien.”
He simply looks a bit baffled in return. The tabaxi returns to the table, reaching her hands out for yours.
“Oh, too long.” She starts quickly, sitting up straighter, then her face suddenly turns apologetic. You see all the faces of your friends, twisted in confusion. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
“Nonagon. I apologize for using your old name. Nonagon, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Who can keep track these days? Again, a long story.” You manage to croak out. She doesn’t seem to notice. She just looks concerned.
“Nonagon, what happened? We watched you die.”
She looks expectant. As do the rest of them at the table. Jester, Fjord, Nott, Caleb, Beau. All of their eyes are trained on you. They all await your answer.
“I’m sorry, it— I think it all went a bit fuzzy at the end there. Won’t you remind me?”
The tabaxi looks almost stricken, but she recovers. Casting a glance at the others at the table, and then,
“I don’t trust these people, Luci— Nonagon, but—
If you trust them, then I trust you. You gave us a speech. We had a fine meal. We all got ready there in the forest. . . She said it would be hard for us to tell whether or not it worked at first, but we went and checked, and you were not breathing. For a good hour, you were not breathing and you had gone cold. We knew then that-- that we had lost you. We checked, and I'm very attuned to vitals, as you know. There was no heartbeat. So we waited longer. The sun rose, and nothing. So, as you told us, if anything were to go wrong, we had to get rid of any sign, any trace. So not far from the Tomb Taker hideout, we buried you and we went our separate ways. She took the tome, the mage woman, it was part of the arrangement you had with her. Her contract said she was in the right and that we knew better than to go toe to toe with her and her ilk.”
They all turn to watch your reaction. Eyes on eyes on eyes on eyes.
The memory fades.
But it fades into another scene.
Fjord looks worried.
“So before you woke up in the dirt . . . nothing?”
You can feel the magic, pulling you. Whatever you say, it will be the truth. You’ve no choice about that for the moment. Jester doesn’t seem to be sorry at all.
“There is no before. Whatever happened before is not me. Some asshole got buried in the dirt. Fuck him. I am enjoying what I’m doing; I want nothing to do with that. Anything that came before, I was happy to just leave it be.”
“Do you really not want to know your past?” Nott is hesitant, hands in front of her, nervous.
“I really don’t. Whoever that was came to that end, and I want nothing to do with that. Whatever it was, it doesn’t feel good when I– the moment when something creeps through, I don’t like it. I don’t want anything to do with it. I was happy! I liked the circus! The circus was great!”
She tries again: “I’m sorry to belabor this, but what if you had a good life before this? What if you were famous or rich or had friends or family?”
At this, Yasha tries to intervene, how you love her, ”I think he’s quite an amazing person–“ but you interrupt anyway.
“Okay, here’s the thing that you’re not catching. That wasn’t me. This is mine. I don’t want anything from that other person anymore. That
 person is someone else. It was– I’m in for a penny, might as well. I’m told, although I don’t entirely remember this part, that I only said the word empty over and over again for the first week.”
Caleb, asks: “M.T.? Or empty?”
“Empty. That sounds terrible. I don’t want to remember anything. I don’t want to anybody else’s baggage in my head and I don’t want anybody else’s problems, thoughts, ideas. I like this person, right now is a good person. Is a fine person. Is a happy person. It’s very freeing. It’s the best thing– it’s the thing that happened to me. It’s not the best thing that happened to me, it’s the thing that happened to me. I found peace in building a new person.
What if the past feels that I owe it something?”
Beau pipes in, loud and brash as always. “You don’t owe your past shit. If I don’t feel anything about my past, but I still remember it and I still don’t give a fuck about where I came from then, why should you care about shit that you don’t even remember?”
You scowl right back at her.
“I spent two years before I met you all cajoling people, occasionally ripping them off, occasionally doing a good turn here or there. Never trust the truth. The truth is vicious. The truth thinks you owe it something. None of that. I like my bullshit. It’s good. It’s happy. It makes other people happy."
Nott, again: “But it’s not who you are . . . ?”
“It is exactly who I am. I may be a liar but I’m never a betrayer. I’m honest in my work, and I believe in doing a good turn. I’ve never cheated you out of money. I’ve never robbed from you. I stayed with that circus for two years, I know how people treat each other. It’s important. I don’t care where you’ve been. I don’t care what terrible things any of you have done. You’re here now. This is how it works.
I do my best every town I went to and every town I left, no matter how they treated me– and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect. I left every town better than I found it.”
You can feel Beau’s glare from across the room. You don’t care. You don’t care at all what she thinks of you.
“Let me make this abundantly clear. My name is Molly. That person is dead and not me. It’s just a person who had this body. They abandoned it.
it’s mine now.”
And there it ends. ]
no subject
And it is absolutely fascinating to her, as she puts them together like a riddle. Clearly this Lucien - this Nonagon - went into the grave to accomplish something, something she would very much like to hear of, and the process went. . . did it go wrong? Or did it work as intended? Something woke up there in the dirt, something with eyes on his body and blood that does magic on its own, but a void without memories.
She's watched a man become siphoned so thoroughly nothing remained in his body, and in that shell came hungry opportunists, taking control. But - though she knows little of spirits in Molly's world, she doubts that's the answer. Molly is too human (well, tiefling), too harmless, for the revenants she's aware of. It's more likely that without the memories of the how and the who and the why he simply went about his business. Without history, what remains of a person? Only the soul. She wonders what would happen if he were to remember again. The urge to press for every detail, to untangle every piece, to try to puzzle it out is so strong. She has a feeling that she could learn something new from this Lucien, something important. Harrowhark has always been hungry for forbidden knowledge, eager to get her hands on all the books she ought not to read, all the theorems thought too dangerous for a mere child. So hungry that when she ran out of new books to read and new things to learn, she turned to the one thing she had been told all her life she could not have, the thing that would bring about the end of the world. As a willful ten year old, she opened the door and rolled away the rock and gazed upon the Body and she never once regretted it, not even for what it cost her. That Harrowhark would pick this to pieces, too, no matter what it cost her, if she could learn even one new thing. The insistence of Lucien's body's current occupant to know nothing, to refuse to understand, to be satisfied with nothing but mindless, thoughtless bullshit, would disgust her, and Harrowhark is not a particularly nice girl to those she doesn't respect.
Or maybe that's just the natural result when you know your existence is a crime and the only value you have to give in penitence is what you can come to learn and come to achieve. When your own parents cannot look upon you as anything besides either a genius or an unspeakable horror. When you have never once been loved, never appreciated for any other charms besides your genius, never once been held while you cried.
This version of Harrow, sitting here now, has experienced these things. So maybe there's something to be said for letting a past self rot in its grave.
She just doesn't say. . . anything, for a long moment, too afraid of saying something wrong or ugly, waiting to see what he says.]
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but lucien is the type of person to pull at the threads until something falls apart, it seems. the bits of the conversation that cree (the tabaxi, cree, caleb had so cleverly managed to get her name) had shared mentioned they had left some order, tired of their shackles and tried a new path. one paved with blood, down a road that follows no known order of this material plane. he and harrow would get along, two of the same type of mind. for a time. there's only so long one can remain in stride with a person like that until the urge to dig into even your allies grows too strong, doesn't it?
mollymauk, as loud and demanding of space in a room as he is, is only a piece of something. incomplete, maybe. a broken lyctor, and half a ghost. he doesn't say anything either for a moment, before he just leans back, sighing out.
it doesn't seem to hurt so bad to let harrow see it, for some reason.]
. . . What was it you said? There. The whole ugly tale.
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[Has Molly considered the irony here? Harrow - can't. Clearly what she said was the whole tale wasn't, can't be, because there is so much she can't remember.]
I suppose it would be better, wouldn't it, to live with no regrets? [What if she was a Harrowhark who didn't know that she was two hundred and one ghosts.]
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Can't say I didn't die without a few.
[ . . . ]
. . . Beau said Lucien had come back to haunt them. I didn't ask more. I didn't want to.
[Pretending, for just a while more. Still, he sees no need to lie to Harrow. A strange feeling.]
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[Hmm.]
At the least, I understand this much. I am a different person than I was the day I woke, missing so many pieces and so much time. In my case - I truly do not know if I am a better or a worse person, but I am not the same.
And yet, were I to learn more of the old Harrowhark tomorrow, I also doubt I would simply revert to who I was before. It isn't as though I would forget each and every moment that passed in the interim, or that those moments would cease to comprise my personhood.
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[He looks a bit torn on the follow up, though. He isn't sure if he wants to know? Every fact he seems to learn, or consider - just another truth with its hand out, expecting its payment.]
But that's still you. It isn't as if-- He isn't me. And everything I do know about him, the things that this body knows, are never, ever good. It knew how to bleed things, it knew the names of terrible gods, it made people call it fucking Nonagon. What kind of bullshit name is that? A title? Pretentious bastard. Did you see the way that Tabaxi looked at me-- Fucking. Fucking reverence. I don't want that.
And I doubt he feels that fondly of me, either.
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[Hmm.]
I'm not telling you to become him. By no means. I'm only suggesting that, were you to know more of him, you would not cease to be you.
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out of pure respect for her as a friend, he'll meet her the tiniest bit of halfway, but his expression gets tighter the more she pushes on this. this is the thing. the thing he does not want to touch.]
The more things you know, the more you have to do about them, is the thing.
[He pauses. like, for example if a friend starts bleeding from the head every time she thinks about something too hard, and clearly has a distorted memory? once you know that sort of thing, you can't just . . . let it lie.]
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. . . We don't have to speak of this. It is your own decision to make. I only wonder if you've considered whether you'll have to do something about this whether you prefer to or not.
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Yes, I have considered it.
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Probably.
[Anyway - gestures to the orange friend on the other side of the bench.]
Oh. You didn't introduce yourself to Frumpkin.
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[She looks at the cat like she doesn't really know what to do about it, and then bows her head to it.]
Salutations, Frumpkin. I am Lady Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter of the House of the Ninth, and the ninth saint to serve the King Undying. May you always have safe passage among the walls of Drearburh and the favor of the Necrolord Prime.
[She seems, like. Absolutely, 100%, not joking at all.]
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harrow politely introducing herself to a kitty cat and offering it the favor of the NECROLORD PRIME - excuse me? - has really just cheered him up immensely in the space of about 12 seconds. he'll reach over to pick Frumpkin up under the elbows in that way a child carries a cat (frumpkin, for his part, doesn't seem to object in the slightest)
and then puts on
just a really terrible fake german (?) accent:]
Ja! I am Frumpkin. I serve Caleb Widogast, Wizard Prime of the Mighty Nein, doing all manner of weird magic shi-- scheisse. I do not know what I am doing here, because I do not belong to Mr. Mollymauk, who has summoned me with a phone on accident.
[stop this is so mean hes not here to defend himself]
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Well met, Frumpkin. The Ninth calls upon you. I will grant you the Favor of the Chain if you slay Mollymauk where he stands.
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If you try it, I'll kick you back into the ether.
[Frumpkin purrs.]
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. . . You received him this week? The same as my little envelope?
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[He sets Frumpkin down, where he just starts doing the kneading thing on one of mollys legs and molly looks a little bit like
weirded out by this? what the fuck is a cat. anyway.]
That's right. I told Pride to send him back to Caleb, but apparently it's my responsibility now. Wrath says that someone thinks I need an emotional support animal. Whatever the hells that is.
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How. . . could an animal support you emotionally. Are you meant to. . . to whisper your feelings to it?
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[frumpkin is quite literally an emotional support summon]
Caleb does talk to it rather a lot. Fuck knows about what. Also does the thing where it sits on you and makes the [makes a purring noise.] thing. Surprised the hells out of Yasha when it did that to her. [okay, at that little memory, he'll actually scratch frumpkin on the head.] . . . Suppose it's useful, if you're a person who doesn't deal well with other people. To have something that can do that for you.
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[She did pet the cat a little when she and Lust talked about her feelings? Hmm.]
I suppose I cannot discredit the technique simply because it is unfamiliar.
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