And this particular moment is so wholesome to me, because Duke doesn’t get vulnerable and he doesn’t get scared, at least not where people can see, and he’s fallen silent faced with the finality of the reality that was his life. He remembers how he died, how for the first time he was not fast enough or smooth enough. Worse still, he’d been killed.
Duke was drowned doing the thing that he loved the most, by the person he trusted the most. He didn’t just drown in water, he drowned in the noise of adoration that drowned out his cries for help.
Drowned by the weight of the eyes that watched as he died and drowned by the smile he’d once trusted to always be there for him. It’s an awful way to die.
He’s so wet puppy coded when he remembered how he died, and then sinks into a despair that lasts for the scenes that follows until Lenore proves to him that they will survive.
That’s when Duke is reinvigorated. That’s when he begins to live again. 🥹❤️