Tyler Tian Huang | 黄泰勒田 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pm
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pmEntry tags:
IC Inbox
[[Tyler screens his calls - anyone who tries to actually call him, he'll text back in reply.]]
asmywitness) wrote2020-03-03 05:40 pm
text; 7/23 evening
I do so hope I am not interrupting aught for you, but in the event I am not, I had a question for you. Pray, by all means answer at your leisure, it is not of a dire nature or aught so dramatic, but I could not help but notice a bit of a hole in the explanation of your—and by extension Steven's—means of becoming a changeling. Or rather, a lack of explanation on part of the circumstance thereof.
See, I would assume that if someone were to be abducted, close friends or family would certainly grow concerned with their absence. Most, I would presume, would seek to find them, but you nary mentioned a single word about aught of that sort! It is a very curious—if not intriguing—detail to be overlooked.
Now, perhaps it is uncouth of me to spring questions upon you concerning possible sensitive matters, and I should apologize for doing so, but I suppose upon reflection, such sensitive matters are not quite outside of bounds.
Wouldn't you agree?
no subject
(As delightfully as using Fatemaking on Dirk had turned out, he's rather wondering now if he shouldn't have applied that energy elsewhere.)
It takes him a few hours to get back to it - not that he's forgotten it, but he decides to ignore it until he goes to bed and answers it there, at 2am - and while he severely doubts Solus is waiting and staring at his phone for a reply that doesn't mean he can't tell the man is eager. If he wasn't, he would have found a way to work it into an actual conversation and not put him on blast.]
I didn't mention it at the time because it wasn't relevant to the narrative in which I was trying to explain my circumstances to you.
[uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggghghghghghhh the man is such a fucking pain.]
But moreover, they don't look. They have no need to - when a Changeling is taken, their Keeper often leaves a replacement behind, visually flawless in a world that does not openly comprehend magic. A family of a Taken one would have little to no reason, at best, to suspect foul play.
no subject
How very interesting.
So theses doppelgangers of sorts, I must wonder exactly how the Keeper is capable of making such a perfect double. Appearance is fine, that much is easy enough to sculpt from flesh, but so too would the memories and the mind must needs be replicated.
Would these fiends have the ability to split your cognitive aether, perhaps? Or, dare I wager, your very soul?
[Maybe to some it might seem like a lucky guess, but this sounds oddly familiar, and not too unlike things that can and have happened in his own world.]
no subject
It depends solely on how much the Keeper wishes to make pretence of the fact the person isn't missing. Some are impossible to detect as a fake, even to the people who know them best. Others, more commonly, are... lacking, some part of them wholly deficient to the role they were made for.
As to what they're made from, I'm not inclined to say our souls specifically. The Gentry feed on human emotional energy, to diminish that so comprehensively in one blow seems counter-intuitive. To my knowledge they're often made of enchanted scraps of forest detritus, or whatever else the Keeper found on hand. There's likely some manner of Contract the Gentry use that allows the Fetch to copy us.
no subject
The components do sound like the typical fae nonsense, however. And, fae have proven to have some command over the souls of mortals, though in my experience it is often not in such a delicate means. Though, I do suppose that may be the difference between your fae and mine.
Now, then. You escaped, yes? I am not foolish enough to guess that your family felt blessed to have two of you, a decent man you may be, but I think for most one of you is quite enough. I cannot help but wonder what you did with this half-man of yours.
no subject
Entertain the notion for a moment that you were just a normal, mundane person with no preconceptions of magic. Perhaps your child, or lover, or good friend, has been distant or a bit unusual as of late, but it's nothing outside the bounds of their typical behaviour - or if it is, it's easily forgiven, since there must be something distracting them. Nothing magical, just mundane stresses.
Then imagine someone storming in, scarred and messed and beyond distressed, claiming to be yours returned and threatening to attack your very present loved one, who has been with you as they ever have. Who would you believe?
And how do you think it would feel to be the person who suffered for an impossible-to-know period, with the hope of seeing your face their driving force for sanity, and being rejected outright for a replacement?
The lucky ones escape unscathed. The smart don't approach. The reckless try anyway, and risk being killed for their efforts - these replacements are a far more pure distillation of Lordly energy than us, and can often kill us outright.
no subject
It is not a situation too hard to imagine, believe it or not. In a strange way, I know it a little too well. Not exacts, but equivalent, not that any such impostors could contend with an ancient being like myself.
Oh, how the parallels stack.
You have my sympathies, I would hazard a guess that the scenario you've given is a fabricated one, or at least not your own. I'm sure I have likely used up what gracious generosity you had in answering queries of this personal nature, yes?
All the same, you have my thanks.
no subject
So, you're welcome.
[As much as he answered Solus's questions, he's been extremely careful to reveal nothing about himself. He's quite good at that, really.]
no subject
Though, now that I think on it. Mayhap that is a better analogy to the situation I face in my own world. Our realities are ones of abstract yet objectively similar laws overlapping one another, and as a result our terms and definitions are mockingly similar, yet different. However, with this new found understanding of your situation, I feel that it might shed a little bit of light on my own for you.
Now, I do not quite know with what moral lens you view these "fetch" creatures, nor if they are even considered within your personal moral philosophy. However, from what I understand they are far more the accurate equivalent to the mortals of my world to myself and my people, than your world's mortals are. You are not a piece of some greater being, correct? Well, as far as you are aware, yet they are a fragment of your true existence.
What mockery it makes of you matters little in such distinction, for the mortals of my world do much the same. I suppose, in simpler terms, I am one of three whole persons in a reality filled with fetch-adjacent beings. Take from that, and what I have told you thus far, as you will.
no subject
[Even his girlfriend and best friend don't know how many fucking siblings he has, he's not even considering talking about the hard stuff to them until circumstances draw it out.]
Though I will admit that using that as a comparison is a much more... I suppose visceral image of what it must be like living with the people of your world. I do honestly find that much easier to wrap my head around, and I can't say I like the image of that alone - nor do I want to imagine what that must be like as reality for you.
[He knows Solus doesn't want his pity any more than he really wants to give it, but that probably says as much.]
no subject
Regardless of all that, yes. It is rather horrible to behold. I confess that I have a bit of a habit applying my expectations and experiences with them onto the mortals here whom are unrelated, but in my defense there are a lot of similarities.
[Honestly, he can deal with unspoken pity. Well...sympathy, at least. If it helps one further understand the situation, he isn't so proud to deny what may aid in such, but there is a point where even his pride can only take so much pity. As usual, Tyler seems to have figured out the best way to deal with him in such regards.]
no subject
Though I suppose saying that to you is some rather rich irony.
[But still, he has taken care to not talk about his personal life pre-Durance with Solus, even when he ends up somewhat forcing the man's hand in making him reveal his own.]
no subject
I will not press for further details, they are yours to hold safe to your bosom, after all it is rather cruel to press for information that cuts so deep when little do you aim to heal the wound that's there with such knowledge.