Pointless Cosmic Horror Godstuck WOO!
She remembers being human very well. Remembers the search through endless volumes of occult lore, looking for the release. Remembers endless hours scouring bookstores for the good shit, only to run several of them out of business with her aggressive search. Remembers the slow unlocking of the gates in her mind, until she was right there, right at the cusp, her mind about to flay open - and then he was there, foiling everything. For a second. Just long enough for Rose to put out both his eyes with knitting needles. And then she completed the rituals, and the dark came in, and in, and in, and she was one with the dark, and pierced by it, and drowned by it, and one with it… And then all was dark. But not. And then it split. And she poured out. The eye and the light and the skeins and the path and she was glorious.
And glorious.
And glorious.
She is the Seer. And she remembers being Rose Lalonde. And she can still be her; it's often convenient to be her. It takes a little effort. That’s all.
And she will make the effort today.
She has an appointment to keep.
-o-
She remembers being human.
Honestly most of the time she can’t believe that she isn’t human anymore.
He did not pursue the path; the path was in front of him, and taking it was the quickest way to (save them all/save herself/change everything/change herself/kill the bastard) and so as she pursued the path it never occurred to her what was at the end.
Really it should have.
He was she before the first third of the path was completed. She was one with the storm by the halfway point. When did she lose her skin? Doesn’t matter. Easy to form new. Better skin. People will never know that they’re just touching wind.
The god thing? That’s fun. She is the storm that speaks, lightning in a bottle, the flux manifest, the trickster rabbit. But at the end of the day, she’s still June Egbert.
Because she wants to be.
-o-
She remembers being human.
Sort of.
She was quite young, you understand. And when you’re that young, and you’ve crossed the Pale Gate and into the Realms Past and into lands you can’t go if you have a voice or breath in your lungs or blood in your veins then - well.
Well.
I mean what do you do?
You press on, because that’s your only option.
You know what you’re losing each time, and you keep going, because you’ve lost too much, you can’t get it back, all that’s behind you is a crypt, all that’s in front of you is… you don’t know. But something.
Something.
Did she laugh when she saw the Green Sun for the first time?
Maybe. No - no, she didn’t (no air in the lungs), but she could have. As she saw it she knew what was going to happen. It was impossible. It was also impossible not to. When she opened her mouth wide, wide, wolf-wide, impossibly wide, and swallowed the endless fire. When she became the Sun, the Wolf-Mother, the Spark and the Void, the Emptiness in All, the Green.
And then she could breathe again.
Yes, she remembers being human. And she isn’t anymore, but she can fake it for a while. Because she doesn’t think it’s really so different from just being herself.
Now if only Jade Harley was a little better about remembering to hide the ears…
-o-
He doesn’t remember being human.
Honestly, he thought he was, but he knew deep inside that he wasn’t. A gnawing, terrible ache of knowledge even as he pretended to be.
He tried to cut himself once and his skin refused to break.
Again, and nothing.
Again, and it did, but there was no blood, just a trace of oil, and the skin sewed itself shut in instants.
He was too fast, too graceful, too… just too.
Too hungry.
Ate everything in the kitchen, whenever there was anything. HE stopped stocking the kitchen, started eating outside. Forced him to smuggle food into his room, to hide it, so he could try to ration it, to slowly fight the hunger within.
Again, and oil.
Again, and oil.
Again, and he saw the cogs within. Wheels within wheels within wheels. He crawled inside his own arm, and explored for weeks, and when he emerged, he knew what he was.
He burned the apartment down when he left. The crows followed. The crows would always follow.
Human? He doesn’t know how to be human. He’s Dave Strider. He is Iron-sharp, Tempo-perfection, the Pulse-and-Flow, the Last Knight, Crow-Friend, the Burning.
Mostly he’s the first one on that list.
And he’s late for lunch. Again.