(Redux) [Vignette] Lex Talionis?

You are Ellery Routh, and you have just badly stabbed a woman. Er, wait, no, that's— no, that's right. Yes. No. Maybe.

...You are Ellery Routh, and you have just stabbed a woman fairly well. You're gauging this from the blood (not gelling! not even a little!), from the glassy look in her eyes, and by the feeling of it. Of the stabbing, you mean. It just— the knife just went *in,* and— look, you have stabbed people before. You haven't *wanted* to stab people, but it's happened. You know what it's supposed to feel like, is what you're trying to say, and yep, you did it. You stabbed her good.

Shit! What the fuck is wrong with you? You didn't want to stab her— *while you were stabbing her,* you didn't want to stab her. It was borderline instinctual. It was like breathing. Have knife, will travel. When there's a knife there's a way. Shit! Where's your shirt? Why aren't you in a shirt? You make for your shirt—

-

It'd be wrong to say you're more composed, a minute later: you're shaking so badly you can barely get the handsign out. You have a shirt on, though, and you have shreds of a plan: get medical help, ????????????, turn yourself in... "I—I'm going," you're saying, though you're not sure she understands. "I'll be back. Don't panic—" Hypocrisy! "—don't take the knife out—"

She's not listening, or can't listen, one of the two. You're barely listening to yourself— you can't blame her. You eye the drifting cloud of blood with some concern, swallow, pull down the sleeves of your shirt, and attempt to hasten out. You are stopped cold by the door tie, which you had put into a complicated knot back when you were an actual person. Oh, good job, Ellery. Way to go, Ellery. Really fucked it up again, didn't you, Ell-

"I don't... want you to get anybody."

What? You grimace, turning back. "Charlotte, I'm not a— I'm not a *doctor!* You need someone— I'll explain, and, you know, it's not your fault, so you-"

She blinks hard. "...I'll be... fine."

"You'll be *fine*? You're- you're-" You struggle for the words 'dying, probably,' and lose. "I'm going. I'm leaving. I—"

"*Ellery.*"

"What?!" Should you go? You should go. She needs treatment, not—

"…Sorry in advance."

Her lips are peeled back in not-at-all-a smile. She was already sitting, but now she's beginning to slump forward, as if tugged by invisible wire. You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a medical expert, but this strikes you as 'a bad sign.' "Charlotte! Hey! Stay with—" You drop the tie and scuttle hastily back towards her. "—Stay with me, okay? It's gonna be okay, okay? Hey. Hey. Can you look at me?"

"Mh." She flexes her right hand, curling each fingertip in to touch the palm. With her left, she reaches deep into a coat pocket and extracts a pair of sunglasses. She slides them on, inadvertently streaking blood across her cheek, and looks up at you. "Yes."

Something's off. You can practically taste it, acrid like bile. Metal like blood. You hesitate. "Um, that's... that's cool. I'll just..."

"You really are a piece of work, aren't you?"

"What?"

"I said..." Charlotte? wrests your knife from her chest with one hand, and plugs the wound with three fingers from the other. Your protests die in your throat. "...'You really are a piece of work, aren't you?' By which I mean... well, that." Still sitting, she waves your knife in your general direction. "I mean, just look at you."

"I look fine?" You double-check this with a glance downward. "Yeah, I look— I mean, this is how I've always looked, so I don't— hey, no need to be a bitch, okay? I—"

"Not like *that*," she says airily. "Though yes, like that, I suppose. How does it feel?"

You thought today had gone well, up until the— you know. You wouldn't describe Charlotte as personable, but she wasn't actively unpleasant, and there wasn't a word about the stuff with Maddie. You thought you'd moved past the 'invasive questioning' part of the acquaintanceship. You grin uncomfortably. "How does what feel?"

"Being a walking car crash? No, but really, the recombination. You're more than you were ever meant to be. Does it hurt?"

Yeah, okay. (Car crash?) "You're not Charlotte."

"And?" Charlotte's eidolon stands unsteadily. "You're not Ellery, it appears, so we're even."

"Egh." Shit, she's right. "Why are you still bleeding? That should be gone, you should just be— I mean, it's not the same body, right? It's not—" You suck in a breath. "Sorry, I mean, I don't know how much you're aware of—"

"Your experiences aren't universal, shockingly." She's shifting her weight, trying to get used to the balance. "What makes you dodge the question?"

What makes you dodge the question: habit, at this point. Isn't that sad? For two, three weeks, you'd talked it over and over and over again with anyone in earshot. How things were different, now. No, not like that time. Or that other time. Or that other- really, *seriously* different. How? Uh...

You'd stopped talking about it. "It feels normal," you say shortly. "It doesn't hurt. Why do you care?"

"Mmm. I wouldn't say I 'care.'" She looks at you askance. "You're an underprecedented subset of a subset, is all. It's possible nobody else knows how you feel. It's possible nobody has *ever* known how you feel. Is that not interesting?"

"It's less interesting when you're the..." You trail off. You wipe your forehead. "Will you be okay? Will she be— I mean, you're standing, so—"

"Yes."

"That's... good." Your face is contorting in all sorts of exciting ways. "Um, I'm sorry. I honestly didn't mean to— I mean, it just kind of, uh, happened."

Charlotte's eidolon, meanwhile, is poker-faced. (Weird shift from usual open-book Charlotte.) "No need to apologize. 'Normal?'"

"Uh, yeah." You scratch your neck. "It's been over a year, I don't really notice—"

"You don't notice." What is that tone? Disappointment? She's toying with the knife. "No, well, it makes sense. It didn't happen to you."

Shit.

"You didn't *exist* a year ago."

Shit.

"Your life as you know it is fiction. You're, at best, a shell of a person. You're worthless. Less than worthless, you're compromised. You're the fucking Manchurian Candidate—"

You blink. "What?"

"Sleeper agent?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing. It doesn't—"

It doesn't matter. You are a shell of a person, and it doesn't matter. You don't feel much of anything about it, and maybe that's by design. (Shit.) Maybe that's by design, or maybe that's three years of existential crises under your belt, and— look. Look. Some things haven't changed. You can draw the same conclusions you always would.

"You're not Charlotte," you say.

"Yes?"

"No, I mean..." You gesture. "You're not her eidolon, even. It doesn't fit. You're still bleeding, you're physically exactly the same— I mean, vanity is one thing, but you'd expect the height to— you have a body for the first time in gods know how long, and the first thing you do is ask about *me?* There's interesting, and then there's— she doesn't say 'fuck.' She's fucking— she's *proud* of not saying it. There's no way she— I don't care if it's an idealized version, she *wouldn't*— you're something else. Right?"

She smiles coldly. "Aren't you special."

"So what are you— is that still her? That's her actual body. Gods, that's worse. You're, what, you're piloting her around? That must be murder on— is she *okay?*"

"She's comfortable."

"That doesn't answer— what *are* you?"

She pulls the sunglasses off, brushes the hair out of her collar. "None of your business." Her eyes are solid gold— no sclera, no pupils.

"Come on. You ask invasive questions, I ask invasive questions." The eyes are really bothering you: you're sure you've seen them before. On her? Elsewhere? "Fair's fair."

"Oh, no, you're entirely my business. This is not a mutual relationship."

"Why am I your— you're walking towards me," you observe. The 'with my knife' is implicit, as is the 'with a nasty smirk.'

"I mean, I have to kill you somehow."

You wonder about the logistics: she's a good foot shorter than you, coming up barely past your shoulder. Can she reach? You wonder if being murdered with your own knife counts as dramatic irony. You wonder about the body. Will you leave a body? How is— she'll be caught, surely? "Okay," you say, your mouth dry. "Fun. Do I have a choice in this?"

"Not really." She's right in front of you. There's nowhere to go: what made you decide on a complicated knot? Stupid. There's nothing to do: defend yourself? With what? Why? Against a Thing with golden eyes? It'd be embarrassing. "I don't feel great about this, just so you know. I don't hold any particular ill will."

"You could not—" you start, but the Thing tilts her head. "You're going to die by somebody's hands, today or tomorrow. It'll fix a number of problems. You'll come back, even. So accelerating the process— well, it barely registers as immoral, doesn't it? It's almost an overall good."

"Um, well, I don't really want to be—"

The Thing is whipping your knife downwards in a flourish, but somewhere in the motion the shape gets lost— when it comes to a rest, it's triple in length, symmetrical, hilted. The Thing snorts, annoyed. "Always swords with her. I hate swords."

"That's great," you say. "Maybe you could not-"

You watch the blade skewer your stomach with interest. You were expecting it to hurt (though less than getting your abdomen torn open, probably). If you focus, if you really really concentrate, it *does* hurt. Loads. If you don't, though— if you just relax— a tide of good feelings swirls up and around you. Pain? What pain? You want to laugh. You want to cry. You permit yourself the first unqualified smile in months. In years? The look the Thing shoots you is equal parts suspicious and baffled, but you don't have the means to parse it, nor the will to care. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter!

She stabs you again, prompting another twinge of pain and tidal wave of euphoria. You are entirely limp against the table, bleeding silver (silver?) over all your papers. You don't care. Is this what dying is like? Proper dying? You had no godsdamn idea what you were missing, apparently. It's better than sex, than drink or drugs, and it's all you. It's all you. You should've done this sooner.

/No shit it's all you./

The Day of Reckoning didn't actually remove those nasty, cynical, stick-up-the-ass thoughts, it just stopped giving them a slick haircut.

/You've almost died before, and it was fucking terrible. As one might expect./
/Something's different. Something's very, very wrong. Your brain broke, probably, so it's pumping you full of... happy juice. Happy chemical. Whatever the fuck./

So? So what? Do you look a gift horse in the maw? Why should you care where this comes from? Blood, candy red-- red again?-- trickles from your nose.

/Maybe you shouldn't./
/Just hear this out. Take it with a grain of salt, take with a Pillar of salt, whatever you like. It's just a theory./
/But consider./
/Something wants you to die, doesn't it? And what are you doing? You're dying horribly. No complaints, no anything. You're fucking thrilled about it./
/Maybe it's just *wired* you to—/

The third stab suffocates any hope of rational thought. You stare blearily into the Thing's gold eyes and gesture towards your stomach. "I don't think it's working," you half-whisper. "I don't think I have vitals there. Try the head."

The Thing weighs her options, then hefts the whalebone sword. "Couldn't hurt," she says, with a modest hint of apology.

/Come on. Imagine if there's limits on this 'coming back to life' thing?/
/You can't keep playing into the hands of—/
/Aw, fuck./

Your skull shatters with a noise like glass.

[End]

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