[Break is absolutely throwing stones in a glass house here. It is very possible that Baltus is a noodle rather than something sturdy and wolfish explicitly because Break himself is mostly legs and spite under the long coats he favors. Like omen, like person, and all that.
It's fine. Sometimes it is advantageous that no one suspects you of being horrifying and deadly.
This new line of conversation is much more positive than talk of corpses, or so Break thinks. Now could be a time to swap apocalypse stories, and probably it says something about him that entire worlds in danger of ending feels like a much more comfortable topic than more personal griefs. But, it's the latter they're really here for, isn't it?]
...we're not getting out of this silly boat until we've both explained ourselves, right? [They can further compare notes about their worlds and their kids later.] Then, in my case -- if I believed for an instant some other Xerxes Break had taken over my life, I would already be fighting the gods here to find a way to get back there and kill him.
[You know, as one does.]
I imagine that...that's why that third body is here. [He trips over the word "body" a little bit, but honestly, referring to his own self as a corpse feels a little disgusting.] I am not at all pleased at -- having died. Since being pulled here...that's on my mind.
[It's something of a relief that he can't see it, honestly, though the way he imagines it looks isn't really far off from the truth. That body rests slumped up against one of the posts lining the riverbank, flopped like a marionette with its strings long shorn and carelessly thrown away. One shoulder is doused with blood, stark and vivid against the white of his old coat; harder to see is the stain on the dark purple of his shirt, but it's there on his side. The face is bowed forward enough that his messy hair hides his eyes, but the way the blood on his chin is spattered and smeared implies that it came out of his mouth. Probably that sight in particular is not great when paired with the cough Break had at breakfast the other day, and waved away as a lingering issue at its worst in the morning.]
cw: description of a bloody corpse, eeeeew
[Break is absolutely throwing stones in a glass house here. It is very possible that Baltus is a noodle rather than something sturdy and wolfish explicitly because Break himself is mostly legs and spite under the long coats he favors. Like omen, like person, and all that.
It's fine. Sometimes it is advantageous that no one suspects you of being horrifying and deadly.
This new line of conversation is much more positive than talk of corpses, or so Break thinks. Now could be a time to swap apocalypse stories, and probably it says something about him that entire worlds in danger of ending feels like a much more comfortable topic than more personal griefs. But, it's the latter they're really here for, isn't it?]
...we're not getting out of this silly boat until we've both explained ourselves, right? [They can further compare notes about their worlds and their kids later.] Then, in my case -- if I believed for an instant some other Xerxes Break had taken over my life, I would already be fighting the gods here to find a way to get back there and kill him.
[You know, as one does.]
I imagine that...that's why that third body is here. [He trips over the word "body" a little bit, but honestly, referring to his own self as a corpse feels a little disgusting.] I am not at all pleased at -- having died. Since being pulled here...that's on my mind.
[It's something of a relief that he can't see it, honestly, though the way he imagines it looks isn't really far off from the truth. That body rests slumped up against one of the posts lining the riverbank, flopped like a marionette with its strings long shorn and carelessly thrown away. One shoulder is doused with blood, stark and vivid against the white of his old coat; harder to see is the stain on the dark purple of his shirt, but it's there on his side. The face is bowed forward enough that his messy hair hides his eyes, but the way the blood on his chin is spattered and smeared implies that it came out of his mouth. Probably that sight in particular is not great when paired with the cough Break had at breakfast the other day, and waved away as a lingering issue at its worst in the morning.]