[ It feels inevitable to cast his mind back to the moment before his end, high above a ruined world in the place where all suffering and fear were not only visible but condensed into a single point-- a single mind. How broken had the Archivist been there? How deep had his despair spiralled to lead him to the decision he had made? To bring him to the point of accepting that he would live out his existence alone with the Fears in a dead world that he had killed?
He wonders idly if Jon would be quite so willing to share this present moment with him if he had lived through that one. It's unlikely. So he files the thought away, to think on and to ponder how he can use it. For now-- he can indulge the Archivist. He wants to feel less alone? Elias can be seen to empathise with that.
Elias holds his Archivist's gaze for a moment, then turns his head. When he speaks, it's quiet and thoughtful. ]
I still remember the moment that I realised the vast gulf that existed between myself and the others Smirke had gathered.
Oh, we knew a great many things about the Powers; Smirke better than any of us had a talent for parsing out their idiosyncrasies. But one night as I looked around our circle, cigar smoke heavy in the air, letters from contacts around the continent spread about us, eagerly discussion these stories of encounters with the unnatural and the seemingly occult, all of us with our own theories of where these creatures might have come from and what, exactly, it was they wanted from us.... I saw that to them it was simply a puzzle to be solved. A serious puzzle, one impressed on us with a serious and deadly importance-- but at it's core a puzzle. A curiosity. A quirk that our world should have these entities to contend against.
And I knew in that second, right to the core of my being, that they would all succumb to the powers in one way or another. Because they were unwilling or unable to See what I-- what we-- can.
[ It would be too much to seem regretful. Even if Elias can imagine the regret he might feel. Even if he did once feel it. But he lets a sigh escape him, bringing the cigarette to his lips. ]
no subject
He wonders idly if Jon would be quite so willing to share this present moment with him if he had lived through that one. It's unlikely. So he files the thought away, to think on and to ponder how he can use it. For now-- he can indulge the Archivist. He wants to feel less alone? Elias can be seen to empathise with that.
Elias holds his Archivist's gaze for a moment, then turns his head. When he speaks, it's quiet and thoughtful. ]
I still remember the moment that I realised the vast gulf that existed between myself and the others Smirke had gathered.
Oh, we knew a great many things about the Powers; Smirke better than any of us had a talent for parsing out their idiosyncrasies. But one night as I looked around our circle, cigar smoke heavy in the air, letters from contacts around the continent spread about us, eagerly discussion these stories of encounters with the unnatural and the seemingly occult, all of us with our own theories of where these creatures might have come from and what, exactly, it was they wanted from us.... I saw that to them it was simply a puzzle to be solved. A serious puzzle, one impressed on us with a serious and deadly importance-- but at it's core a puzzle. A curiosity. A quirk that our world should have these entities to contend against.
And I knew in that second, right to the core of my being, that they would all succumb to the powers in one way or another. Because they were unwilling or unable to See what I-- what we-- can.
[ It would be too much to seem regretful. Even if Elias can imagine the regret he might feel. Even if he did once feel it. But he lets a sigh escape him, bringing the cigarette to his lips. ]