asmywitness | IC Inbox

[Hmm. Dislike. It's not like he didn't assume Solus was smart enough to make the connection, but he'd been rather hoping he hadn't. Or at least wouldn't use his own opportunity from learning stuff about Solus's history while he was blitzed against him later. Probably that last one was a bit much to hope for.

(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.

[Sorry, Tyler. But you get nothing for free from Solus. Not unless you're his friend, and you are, decidedly, not that. But hey, at least they're not enemies, either!]

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.]

[He hates this mostly because it makes him feel like he's going behind Steven's back. Even if he's not saying anything directly about Steven or his own relation with his Fetch.]

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.

You would not need much to do such. Even a shard of a soul can retain the memories and thoughts of its original self, scarcely diminishing the emotional capacity. The crucial aspect is merely not killing the subject during the process. A difficult task to achieve! Though, admittedly, shattering a soul is oft a sure way to kill an individual. Should one be practiced in such a way, well! It would be a fair easy task, I would think.

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.

Edited (phone tagging etc) 2020-07-24 10:10 (UTC)

I appreciate how you think one of us would be able to return to our homes afterwards.

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.

[There's a long pause before he replies. Maybe he fell asleep? It is rather late! But no such luck, because after that pause, in comes a reply.]

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.

It's a common enough scenario to serve as a well-aged warning tale. A friend of mine didn't heed it and went to investigate, only to see the truth of it herself and be nearly crushed by the despair of losing her fathers to it.

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.]

Well, then. I can only assume that your own experience with such is far too horrific to share, if you are willing to share something so tragic as that of your friend's, but not your own. My sympathies to her, truly.

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.

I'm only loose with my friend's story because she makes no secret of it herself back home. I take pains to not tell anyone of my own life - you're not anything special in regards to my withholding information.

[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.]

How curious. Does it pain you to speak of it, or do you think such obfuscation will somehow protect them or yourself? I ask for curiosity's sake, naught more, for I know well the personal importance of keeping certain intimate details to oneself.

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.]

I don't think it's anyone's business, for the most part. My current life as it stands has little correlation with that of the one before my Durance, and I see no real reason to dredge up the past and torment myself with it for someone else's curiosity.

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.]

Well, at least you realize the irony in such a statement without my saying so. But I do suppose we are all a little guilty of hypocrisy in one way or another.

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.

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