[The memory itself makes her skin crawl. Her stomach turns anew. There's the disgust for things seen outside yourself, and then there's the disgust for things felt within.
Camille watches her body be invaded by pale fingers. From this angle the curve and thin knuckles made them look like spiders. She swallows seeing the pink rim of Adora's eyes, lashes newly plucked from nerves or eagerness. She looks hungry. Camille is a dead fish in her own bed, flopped this way and that, sweat-sheen from the comedown beading like scales over her forehead and back.
And when it's all done she's the one still holding her ground. Daan is backing up. Daan is looking at her like a new beast in his unholy city. Her throat clenches to a girlish rasp. Small, desperate.]
[ The call of his name brings some level of clarity back into his eyes -- something dim and broad focusing on a pinpoint that almost looks to pierce through Camille herself.
She's not any of them. He breathes out, hollow, and straightens his posture.
His expression dims back to its usual dullness, maybe even a little more than before. Sullen and yet, somehow empty. But he flicks the match to whip out the fire before dropping it, snuffing it out into the dirt below. That hand sticks itself deep into his pocket while the other holds his own cigarette, looking at Camille ruefully. ]
[He's not leaving. Fright fades out for hollow distance. Worse in some respects.
Camille is thrilled to see it. Don't leave. Even if he gets colder. Even if he doesn't like her, not half so much as she likes him. Just as long as he doesn't go.
She's so tired of being the loser.]
Momma had her way of doing things. [She wets her lips.] She liked her girls sickly.
[An understatement. Camille takes a drag off the cigarette and looks to the side, blinking back the pricks in her eyes.]
[Not a one of them came out right. Save for one. Camille takes another puff, sweet toxins curling their hooks into her blood.
She doesn't want to talk about Marian. Dropping her into conversation of any kind felt like cheapening her. And she's selfish: Marian is hers, now. No one has a claim to her but Camille.]
...I'm sorry. None of it is nice to see.
[Her mother's love. Her scrap paper body. Whichever had put him off, she was sorry for it.]
[ He stands there, little bits of burning ash falling from the tip of his cigarette. The embers burn out before they can land anywhere, disappearing into the fog. He looks ever-so-slightly spaced out, staring into some middle distance. ]
Nnh. But she went to prison, didn't she. Even if it was for a different thing.
They mean well. [Camille nods. Karlach especially. The woman was so inescapably There For You, it made her feel ashamed to have mentioned a thing to her at all. Someone else needs those attentions, surely.
In the meantime, here they are. Bitter husks huffing nicotine, as if smoke could fill the pernicious hollows inside.]
You too, huh? [Should have figured. He doesn't seem a man for whom many things went right.] What did they do?
[ Karlach really is just their positive cheeseball. Squishes her. Don't die or else.
Daan looks at Camille with an unreadable eye, shadowed, like he's deeply debating it -- but fuck it, you know? She's already learned more than he'd typically like to share, and what's another to rip the plaster off here rather than find out one more depressing factoid about him later in the line like an extended revelation of misery.
He's tired of it. The repeated echo 'Oh, I'm sorry', the multiple looks of pity about his bizarre and wretched life. ]
Worshippers of an older cult sect of an old god. Travelled all over Europa to keep finding their like. I hated that life, but they didn't listen much. Tried to get me in on it but if there's one single good thing I'll say about Sylvian, it's that She doesn't allow children who refuse to be involved in Her name.
...
They're gone now. Left for the meadows like they usually did one night and never came back.
That's what the occult does to you -- deteriorates your mind and eats you alive. And still, they loved it more than they loved me.
[don't jinx it??????? Puts Karlach in a bulletproof glass case
It's a different refrain from her own. Not beyond imagination though. His cults probably have more push behind the propaganda. Helps to buy in when the proof is in front of your eyes. Still, the frame remains the same, mundane or magical. She's never heard of a family in that situation that came out clean. To raise your kids in it takes a special level of gall. To leave them for it, even more.
Camille shakes her head, ruminating on the cigarette.]
You're lucky you got out. Unlucky that they went all in, but... [She trails off. Thinking. Pulling another drag.] Nothing fills it in right. The holes they gouge in you, growing up. I think there's a cut off for healing a fucked up kid. You can get better, but getting "fixed" is like chasing rainbows. Can't really catch up.
I've got people looking out for me now. It helps. [She nods.] And I care for them. Don't really deserve them, frankly. As much as they do to show me I'm loved, it's coming about twenty years too late.
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Camille watches her body be invaded by pale fingers. From this angle the curve and thin knuckles made them look like spiders. She swallows seeing the pink rim of Adora's eyes, lashes newly plucked from nerves or eagerness. She looks hungry. Camille is a dead fish in her own bed, flopped this way and that, sweat-sheen from the comedown beading like scales over her forehead and back.
And when it's all done she's the one still holding her ground. Daan is backing up. Daan is looking at her like a new beast in his unholy city. Her throat clenches to a girlish rasp. Small, desperate.]
...Daan?
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She's not any of them. He breathes out, hollow, and straightens his posture.
His expression dims back to its usual dullness, maybe even a little more than before. Sullen and yet, somehow empty. But he flicks the match to whip out the fire before dropping it, snuffing it out into the dirt below. That hand sticks itself deep into his pocket while the other holds his own cigarette, looking at Camille ruefully. ]
...Not much for good bedside manners, was she...?
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Camille is thrilled to see it. Don't leave. Even if he gets colder. Even if he doesn't like her, not half so much as she likes him. Just as long as he doesn't go.
She's so tired of being the loser.]
Momma had her way of doing things. [She wets her lips.] She liked her girls sickly.
[An understatement. Camille takes a drag off the cigarette and looks to the side, blinking back the pricks in her eyes.]
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Fucking awful person, she sounds like.
[ If Camille still has some shred of love for her -- Daan doesn't care to respect it too much, not without her speaking up for it willingly, anyway. ]
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You could carve that into the family tree.
[Not a one of them came out right. Save for one. Camille takes another puff, sweet toxins curling their hooks into her blood.
She doesn't want to talk about Marian. Dropping her into conversation of any kind felt like cheapening her. And she's selfish: Marian is hers, now. No one has a claim to her but Camille.]
...I'm sorry. None of it is nice to see.
[Her mother's love. Her scrap paper body. Whichever had put him off, she was sorry for it.]
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[ He stands there, little bits of burning ash falling from the tip of his cigarette. The embers burn out before they can land anywhere, disappearing into the fog. He looks ever-so-slightly spaced out, staring into some middle distance. ]
Nnh. But she went to prison, didn't she. Even if it was for a different thing.
More big spoilers
Much the same, actually.
I had another sister, when I was young. Momma loved her to death.
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Sorry.
[ To hear it. That it happened to you. What happened to her other sister. ]
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[For his wife, her father. The whole damned hellscape of Prehevil. For whatever she'd done to spook him.
She sucks back on the cigarette and blows the smoke in a thin stream.]
Well. Aren't we just a pair of peaches on a fine summer day.
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[ He knows people are trying, and good for the ones that have succeeded to some level. ]
Would've been in a pretty different situation. Maybe not even here at all if our parents loved us the way they should've.
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In the meantime, here they are. Bitter husks huffing nicotine, as if smoke could fill the pernicious hollows inside.]
You too, huh? [Should have figured. He doesn't seem a man for whom many things went right.] What did they do?
cw implications of cult child abuse
Daan looks at Camille with an unreadable eye, shadowed, like he's deeply debating it -- but fuck it, you know? She's already learned more than he'd typically like to share, and what's another to rip the plaster off here rather than find out one more depressing factoid about him later in the line like an extended revelation of misery.
He's tired of it. The repeated echo 'Oh, I'm sorry', the multiple looks of pity about his bizarre and wretched life. ]
Worshippers of an older cult sect of an old god. Travelled all over Europa to keep finding their like. I hated that life, but they didn't listen much. Tried to get me in on it but if there's one single good thing I'll say about Sylvian, it's that She doesn't allow children who refuse to be involved in Her name.
...
They're gone now. Left for the meadows like they usually did one night and never came back.
That's what the occult does to you -- deteriorates your mind and eats you alive. And still, they loved it more than they loved me.
no subject
It's a different refrain from her own. Not beyond imagination though. His cults probably have more push behind the propaganda. Helps to buy in when the proof is in front of your eyes. Still, the frame remains the same, mundane or magical. She's never heard of a family in that situation that came out clean. To raise your kids in it takes a special level of gall. To leave them for it, even more.
Camille shakes her head, ruminating on the cigarette.]
You're lucky you got out. Unlucky that they went all in, but... [She trails off. Thinking. Pulling another drag.] Nothing fills it in right. The holes they gouge in you, growing up. I think there's a cut off for healing a fucked up kid. You can get better, but getting "fixed" is like chasing rainbows. Can't really catch up.
I've got people looking out for me now. It helps. [She nods.] And I care for them. Don't really deserve them, frankly. As much as they do to show me I'm loved, it's coming about twenty years too late.
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[ They just left him, after all. But maybe that's just semantics. It all still follows him like a plague.
But he looks at her instead. ]
What... so that's it for you, then? You think you'll never move on?
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I'll move, but I'm carrying a few things with me.
Will you?
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I will once I have my answers.
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[Monsters and what have you.]
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I don't know.
[ Calling it the source feels wrong. ]
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[there were others with him]
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No, my quest and reasons for going to Prehevil were entirely personal.
Nobody else there was involved with me.
Just a bunch of unfortunate souls.