+Hell of a lot of eavesdropping,+ he says ruefully. +And getting played with could be kind of fun, when I was having good days. But yeah. Mostly I was just lonely.+
+Were you just going to - bounce around like that forever? Instead of looking for help preemptively?+
+Yeah, pretty much,+ he says. +I - look, in case you can't tell, I kind of have some issues about this whole wielder thing.+
+I wish you'd tell me what they were so I wouldn't have to risk running into them unexpectedly.+
+It's not like I've got a map,+ he sighs. +And I do have problems trusting people. So, you know, even though you're better than I ever hoped for as far as wielders go... it's still not easy for me to just tell you everything I'm afraid of and hope you don't use it against me.+
+Yeah, that's fair, I guess. Now I'm wondering what would've happened if Lexi found the jokers and I found the rest of the pack.+
+Could've gone really badly, I would not have dithered as long as she did about accepting limitless power. Although I might've been brought up short if it couldn't answer my questions about the nature of the limitless power.+
+...If someone cut off your, like, arm, and then put it back on a while later, I mean assuming it attached properly and everything, would you remember what the arm got up to while it was on leave? I'm thinking no.+
+I didn't have a specific picture of it in mind. How come your personality is in the jokers? Or could it have been any card or two or three and that was just a coincidence?+
+I dunno, those ones just felt more like me,+ he says. +My personality's in all of me now, but if I had to go back to just a couple of cards... yeah, it'd probably be those. What can I say, I'm a wild card.+ He snorts.
+Well, there are certainly more comforting one-liners a massively powerful planetbusting entity could have chosen to utter,+ Bella remarks after a pause.
...Bella decides she'd best not risk answering that. She probably shouldn't have responded in the first place.
"Are you even talking to him?" Lexi asks, unwrapping a stick of gum. "I can't tell."