Farren
began to open his mouth, as if to reply, but the brief silence did not allow it as Ophelia began to laugh and as she began to cackle, it was only that first word that held him back, that and what companionship they’d shared up until that point. A less pragmatic Farren would have lunged for her, a less sentimental one—perhaps more like his past self—might have done so as well, but as things stood, he almost moved. It was like he almost flinched forward, before stopping lest any further movement carry him onto a path that he knew none of them desired. Still, as her voice grew loud and high, her laughter grated on him, calling to mind nights huddled in the corner, arms clutched about his knees as he shook like a leaf as phantasms laughed and clawed at him from every side, unseen, but felt and heard all the more for it. It was a ghost of a memory, not complete nor as potent as it likely would have been before. Still though, it itched at him. His eyelid twitched again, but he didn’t move further, though she’d see even clearer the lines of tension in him, the way his jaw had clenched too tight, the way his eyes had narrowed as he glared at her.Then, finally, it stopped and it was almost a relief…until she started talking again. Usually, Ophelia’s careful—often gentle—and surely evocative manner of speaking didn’t bother him, but in that moment, already on edge as he was, it was like talons dragging against his nerves. Farren slowly released a breath, through his nose, focusing on the sensation as shame and rage and other things with which he was less familiar coiled and burned in his chest.
Somehow, he hated more that her words made some sense. Who, if not her, would he trust to do this? And how, if not by this means, would they come to understand Ego’s insidious nature, its aims, its intent. Yet he didn’t relax, even as his jaw seemed to, his mind remained a roiling mess. “And what if it does to you, what the Greatsword did to Ludwig? What the Vicar did to me.”