metamorphotic | you've got to carry your heart like a torch in the night.

you've got to carry your heart like a torch in the night.

You're gonna know more. Eventually.

[Drifter looks at his nails, then at his palm. To be honest, he hasn't seen his hands on a regular basis in a long, long time. He's been in his armor pretty constantly.]

Trust me, I was a bartender, too. I've been a farmer. Tended to livestock. Been a bodyguard, escortin' Pilgrims to the City Walls. Decided that the light wasn't enough, became a scientist. [Of sorts, anyway.] Did all the research the damn purist Warlocks wouldn't- they're uh... a class of Risen that are high intellect, carry all their power in the energy they put out. They got shit for resiliance though. You need some damn good armor to take care of them. Like glass cannons, they are.

But a guy like me? They didn't see me comin'.

You say that 'it's all you know'. You'll learn more. 'Cause there's only so long you can do the same old, same old.

[But that last bit, the explanation about the gods, this time it just earns a shrug. He physically tries to write the feeling off with the gesture, an act of denial in the words as he associates it to being a 'them problem'.]

Nah. The Hive name their gods in sorta fancy ways. Secrets, Keeper of Order, the Ever-Hunger, the Will of Thousands, the Honest. Anything that names their gods that sorta shit ain't good. Ever-Hunger is the biggest of the assholes. Sounds like one of them owes you money, especially with that look on their face.

[she already knows more than "just bartending" - she has the mechanical knowledge and skills of that self from her alternate world. she's not intentionally omitting that for devious purposes, just selling herself short. nick was told for so much of her life that she'd never amount to anything, and she internalized that falsehood about herself, took it for truth and came to believe that being a bartender was the best she could manage. she'd never get a college degree and land a job in an office; she wasn't good or lucky or driven enough with her music to stand out and rise to fame. but she could do what it takes to get by, and nick always figured that was enough, because she didn't have any designs on living an exceptionally long life.

now, though? an exceptionally long life is exactly what she has to look forward to, unless circumstances align against her. maybe she'll manage to figure something out before that happens.]

Delight was the only one of those assholes I could stand. She was ... nice. She wanted everyone to be happy. She gave us a bar, and she gave me a job there when I needed something to set my head on straight and keep me going. And then she sold us all out to these robot things that wanted to just kill us all. She acted like she was our friend, and it turned out she cared even less about us than those other shitheads - I mean, Fear at least was upfront about being a creep and wanting to scare us. Burying us alive was really fucked up, but he never pretended to like us like Delight did. And he still wanted us to stay alive, even if it was only so he could get power from us.

[her fingers tighten for a moment around the plastic bottle of water, and the bottle makes a crackling crunch of noise. nick leans forward to set the bottle on the table in front of her, then slouches back into the couch to flash drifter a subdued smile.]

I just don't do well with betrayal. But I guess I better get used to that, too.

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you've got to carry your heart like a torch in the night.

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