"A talking book?!" Lorene blurted immediately, before any other thought could process. He let out a groan. He was right--today was one of those days. "Fuck my life. Gods, why is it always me?!"
But there were other thoughts to process. Many other thoughts to process. The fact that the book wasn't just self-animated, but sapient seemed to be the least of his worries--and he immediately responded as such. He stopped holding the grimoire like a clumsy middle-schooler with a death-grip on a football, and handled the book a bit more gently. It seemed to be a person, after all--or at least the extension of one.
"Yes, I've seen the world around us," Lorene answered, again, without much thought--and with a hefty amount of deadpan sass. "I've even traveled the Multiverse. The facts of your weirdness are not the problem, here. I've seen weirder than a talking book, for sure. The problem here is that most of the people who were born in Spirale have no concept of the kind of weirdness we regularly deal with--hence why we're here, talking in a fucking alleyway, where they can't see us." Another groan left the Elven Prince. "Days like this I wish I could drink." He could've used one.
Skittish, then, was the correct diagnosis. Also, just overwhelmingly done with the Multiverse, and the Gods, and the Fates, fucking with him left and right. Skittish and done.
And yet, seemingly determined to see this through--because a grave silence descended over Lorene at Malchior's last statement.
"Did you say archmages?" The Asgardian took a moment to collect himself. A war of emotions skittered across his expression--disgust, fear, judgement. He shoved them all away. "I really hope you don't mean the type of Archmage that I'm thinking of, and that you're just using the word in the general sense to mean 'a really powerful, high-ranking mage'. Because if you mean the Archmages I'm thinking of, we are going to have a very different conversation."
He didn't want to explain. Talking about the Cataclysm that set off the chain of events that turned the First World into an entire Multiverse was, at bare minimum, difficult to explain to someone who hadn't been born on the First World like he had. The sins of the Archmages had repercussions that spanned across all eons and across all corners of reality. And there had only been fourteen of the damn bastards.
"But anyway." Eager to change the subject, Lorene did his best to get his storm of emotions under control.
"You said you need help? You need a mage's help, specifically. ...With what? ...What kind of mage, exactly, do you think I am?"
