Hades' misunderstanding jumps out at Dirk and practically slaps him across the face with the realisation of how much explanation this really demands. It's not that he was unaware; more that the timing only now strikes him as especially choice, in either a good way or a bad one.
A more empathetic person, a more human one, might have some sense of which it is. Humanity is, at its very core, a relationship to other humans. Its absence rarely bothers him any more, insensate as he is, but he knows enough to know what isn't there. To spot a difference, occasionally.
The difference is this:
Hades doesn't usually break up his sentences, doesn't stop and start or redirect. He's already formed those thoughts far ahead of speech, his words flowing seamlessly into the patterns he's worn into habit over lifetimes. It's jarring.
But he's already committed to this. More than that, he's certain of it. Of its purpose, its meaning, its trajectory. He's been armed and dangerous, but it feels like he has no choice: it's time to deliver the payload.
"Oh. No. This predates that particular bullshit. This is like five months of Machiavellian buildup, an excrucuatingly executed logistical slowburn scripted around your place along the sinuous ouroboros of the so-called mortal coil."
Dirk's hands move as he talks--illustrative gestures, his jaw pressed tight at the corners of his mouth, giving it (and him) a very square, angular presence.
"That first weekend you saw me--not as my body, but my Ultimate Self--back in June, I tripped on Hythlodaeus out in the woods. Non-literally, I mean. I didn't even recognise him at first, but he made a big deal out of the whole thing, and he tried to leverage your future 'death' to some ends that I didn't care about. Which I told him. Probably he had this whole thing in mind back then, but wasn't committed to me as the vehicle for it."
no subject
Hades' misunderstanding jumps out at Dirk and practically slaps him across the face with the realisation of how much explanation this really demands. It's not that he was unaware; more that the timing only now strikes him as especially choice, in either a good way or a bad one.
A more empathetic person, a more human one, might have some sense of which it is. Humanity is, at its very core, a relationship to other humans. Its absence rarely bothers him any more, insensate as he is, but he knows enough to know what isn't there. To spot a difference, occasionally.
The difference is this:
Hades doesn't usually break up his sentences, doesn't stop and start or redirect. He's already formed those thoughts far ahead of speech, his words flowing seamlessly into the patterns he's worn into habit over lifetimes. It's jarring.
But he's already committed to this. More than that, he's certain of it. Of its purpose, its meaning, its trajectory. He's been armed and dangerous, but it feels like he has no choice: it's time to deliver the payload.
"Oh. No. This predates that particular bullshit. This is like five months of Machiavellian buildup, an excrucuatingly executed logistical slowburn scripted around your place along the sinuous ouroboros of the so-called mortal coil."
Dirk's hands move as he talks--illustrative gestures, his jaw pressed tight at the corners of his mouth, giving it (and him) a very square, angular presence.
"That first weekend you saw me--not as my body, but my Ultimate Self--back in June, I tripped on Hythlodaeus out in the woods. Non-literally, I mean. I didn't even recognise him at first, but he made a big deal out of the whole thing, and he tried to leverage your future 'death' to some ends that I didn't care about. Which I told him. Probably he had this whole thing in mind back then, but wasn't committed to me as the vehicle for it."