[The number one problem with Cytherea is the same one she'd posed at Canaan House: she mostly keeps to herself, and her attention skims off Palamedes in a matter of moments, when she appears. This makes it remarkably hard to get rid of her in a way that takes, as Palamedes' reaction time always seems a split second too slow to be sure - until she's there again later. It's that she keeps appearing that seems to be wearing down— something, some inner working of however this particular Trench curse works until the inevitable snap.
At least, Palamedes has assumed as much. Cytherea haunting him personally makes, in short, no sense. He'd figured she isn't really herself early in the month, the second time she'd appeared and simply regarded him in the same way, distant and cold with her thin, papery, wasted smile. The way she'd regarded him at Canaan House, when he'd finally seen through the ruse and gone to confront the Lyctor who was not Dulcinea Septimus. So that is the first clue: an authentic spirit doesn't simply repeat itself ad nauseum, he knows, the boredom of it would be too much.
So this thing following him around intermittently is not actually Cytherea, and so he explains to Viktor early on that he is doing fine, and he can handle a pseudoghost, and if he needs him, he will call at the first possible moment— not that he wants to subject Viktor to any version of Cytherea, but they've had enough life lessons about shouldering burdens and being reckless heaped onto them lately. He resolves to handle her himself until he cannot, and that's how it will go.
She gets steadily more irritating, particularly when she starts to talk to him. Palamedes spends more than a handful of days with a constant scowl plastered on, because she is annoying and because - well.
'If this is a haunting pulled out of my own subconscious, which is my working theory,' he tells Viktor one evening over the omni, pacing around the bunker, 'Then I'm the one plaguing myself with the insulting truth that she doesn't remember my name.'
Blah blah, he insists, confronting uncomfortable truths about his trauma responses, blah blah. He says 'blah blah' aloud, multiple times.
That was maybe a week ago; now, ironically enough, he sits at his desk in the Lumenarium across from Cytherea's ghost, her curls rustling gently in a breeze that isn't even fucking real, because of course she's- he's? whatever- doing that. To annoy him. Himself.
It's ironic because he's considering violence to vent some frustration when Viktor's message comes through, and he relishes the chance to think about something else— ah, well, fuck. Not something else, then.]
no subject
At least, Palamedes has assumed as much. Cytherea haunting him personally makes, in short, no sense. He'd figured she isn't really herself early in the month, the second time she'd appeared and simply regarded him in the same way, distant and cold with her thin, papery, wasted smile. The way she'd regarded him at Canaan House, when he'd finally seen through the ruse and gone to confront the Lyctor who was not Dulcinea Septimus. So that is the first clue: an authentic spirit doesn't simply repeat itself ad nauseum, he knows, the boredom of it would be too much.
So this thing following him around intermittently is not actually Cytherea, and so he explains to Viktor early on that he is doing fine, and he can handle a pseudoghost, and if he needs him, he will call at the first possible moment— not that he wants to subject Viktor to any version of Cytherea, but they've had enough life lessons about shouldering burdens and being reckless heaped onto them lately. He resolves to handle her himself until he cannot, and that's how it will go.
She gets steadily more irritating, particularly when she starts to talk to him. Palamedes spends more than a handful of days with a constant scowl plastered on, because she is annoying and because - well.
'If this is a haunting pulled out of my own subconscious, which is my working theory,' he tells Viktor one evening over the omni, pacing around the bunker, 'Then I'm the one plaguing myself with the insulting truth that she doesn't remember my name.'
Blah blah, he insists, confronting uncomfortable truths about his trauma responses, blah blah. He says 'blah blah' aloud, multiple times.
That was maybe a week ago; now, ironically enough, he sits at his desk in the Lumenarium across from Cytherea's ghost, her curls rustling gently in a breeze that isn't even fucking real, because of course she's- he's? whatever- doing that. To annoy him. Himself.
It's ironic because he's considering violence to vent some frustration when Viktor's message comes through, and he relishes the chance to think about something else— ah, well, fuck. Not something else, then.]
Do you need me to come? And who is it?