by Glenn » Tue May 23, 2023 12:53 am
"Not sad."
The raven was an expert in mimicry. Expert wasn't even the word for it. For Benedict, it was innate. If there was craft and skill in it, Burnie was unaware. Would he believe it? Of course. Would he accept it? Absolutely. The raven was his friend and took great pride in so many aspects of his being and Glenn would not deny a single one. It seemed innate, however; at the root of it, some sort of instinctual stored memory. Was there a limit to how many voices he could retain? Was it systemic? Adaptive? Was it perfect recall or had he some sort of method for identifying and predicting patterns in the being he was mimicking? Even if there was some limit within the bird's brain at what could be stored, the weight of wist in his human companion's voice now, a lifetime gathered, dust upon a cloth dragged across every inch of the world, could certainly never be forgotten.
"Lonely."
Three words at the end of this brief pause. Months. Years. A bottomless well. And here, the bottom.
The climb began anew.
"Gloria," always a shaky first step. "would claim that it has nothing to do with her majesty's unique properties, neither in presence or in personality, that instead, it is a unique failing of me. She would claim that I am drawn to power and mystery. Mistake after mistake after mistake. She strives, I think, for simplicity, to quiet a voice within her that cannot be quieted. Philosophies and religions preach the value of peace, still waters, silent meditation, placid acceptance, to be one with fate and accepting of one's lot. To do so will lead to contentment, health, happiness, fulfillment."
Three words and the moment had most certainly passed. Now he was laying back once again, hands behind his head, relaxed, pensive, talking and talking as he looked to the ceiling. "The world is strange. It's full of wonder and terror, full of loss and grief and great joy. It's full of magic, Benedict. To shut all of that away, all of the strife and trouble and.." It took this long, but realization crept in that in the midst of all of the truths they were awash in, he might still lose the bird. "It's running away. It's cowardice. It's hiding for the sake of your own sanity and the most paltry of forced contentments. It's not me.
"And yet despite that, I'm not bewitched by what she is." His voice had gotten colder, more drawn out, more serious. There had been verve and now there was merely focus. "It's never been about what she is. It's always been about who she is. She's as alive than anyone I've ever met. It's not her sparkle, her shine. It's her notions, her responses, her ideas, that mix of intelligence and wisdom and responsibility and passion and absolute, shocking ignorance. What she is only matters due to the shift in perception that it brings alongside it." Colder and more serious gave way to something darker still. "And here, you can putt putt and say that this is how they get you, but isn't it? Be whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever fills the hole within you. The perfect predator to feed upon your soul. Maybe, but let us extrapolate that forward. For her to become exactly what was needed to prey upon me, she did not have to become a being of beauty or lust. She had to become a being of pure complexity." There was a further extrapolation here, but Glenn Burnie was simply not capable of it. For him, there was nothing loftier than such complexity, active contemplation as opposed to a passive sort. Someone else, however, seeing her as a creature that had been forced to adapt in order to devour him whole as per her nature, would see this complexity as the basest of cruelties.
He was already onto his next thought or back to his last, wholly incapable of reaching that conclusion. "Such complexity, existing in this world, well, it just doesn't matter the origin of it. It is. She is. I choose to believe that it is who she is and not some artifice forced upon both of us due to any preternatural hunger other than the sheer connection of loneliness. Gloria's right to a degree. If not her, then someone or something else and maybe someone or something else still. But I'm glad it was her, and I will fight for our friendship, just as I will fight for ours, Benedict."
All of that led back to the child, and Glenn Burnie, staring up at the ceiling, somehow found a way to sink into his bed just a bit more. "You know the court better than I, but I've been assuming that she's not after any old child. It's not just the parentage, though that's part of it, not being able to have him except for through the girl. No, I think she's longing for an heir."