I can’t stop thinking about Lucius’s dream with Siaska, and just the love and care and thought Mark obviously put into it... Under the cut for discussion of Lucius’s suicidal thoughts.
So back in Ep. 116, when Lucius encountered Hadar so directly, we had that discussion from Trott on how at some level, Hadar seemed like an option to Lucius, like giving up would be easier than fighting - and I wonder if Mark’s been waiting ever since for the opportunity to bring it up within the narrative? Or if he just remembered it when planning these dream sequences? Either way, he did it so well, every little detail!
The way at first, only Lucius can see the darkness and the red light, how everyone else is happy but he’s suffering and in pain... How it calls out to him - and Trott was so good here too, with Lucius admitting that it would be easy, but knowing that the void isn’t an answer (I wonder, did Mark have a plan for if Lucius had said yes? Or is this one of those instances of Mark knowing Trott so well he knew he wouldn’t?) - And then! When Lucius rejects it, how he doesn’t have to fight it off alone! The echoes of the Titans in Siaska, his own prismatic magic, and above all his friends, driving it back... How his friends are shining lights holding the darkness away...
Then there’s Siaska’s speech, which is so so good - Lucius has felt himself less important than his friends with their responsibilities and destinies, but here Siaska (who he’s probably the most devoted to out of the party?) is telling him that every minute he tries is important, that he doesn’t have to be a leader or a warrior, that his artist’s soul, the way he sees beauty, they matter! And his family surrounding him, his father being proud of him...
It was all so perfect and beautiful, and it made me cry, and I love it so much.
