"Right," says Kirill, a bit coldly. "Then let's get you dressed, and let's spar. I am wondering if it will be clarifying about the differences between our worlds."

"Of course," he says simply, clearly unfazed by Kirill's tone. "A sparring match would indeed be clarifying—and perhaps necessary. Show me where your arms and armor are kept, Kirill. Let’s see what this world makes of me."

There's a page waiting anxiously outside the room; Kirill shoos him. The King will be anxious for an update, of course, but Kirill thinks that he can get away with some sparring and some conversation without raising any questions, and he neither wishes to bring the charlatan-hero before the King nor to go alone before the King and explain that the diamond dust was wasted and the hero gives all appearances of being nothing more than a particularly verbose poet.

While he leads Theron down the hallway he tries to think it through one more time, in case there's some possibility he's missing. Perhaps the ritual failed; perhaps there was no one it could reach who could have saved them against Razmir, under which circumstances it picks someone who'll claim he could. Or perhaps the man has some hidden talent, though it clearly isn't war planning and he's  sure it isn't swordfighting either.

The man carries himself with the great confidence of a hero, but he doesn't respond to provocation like one, and his accounts of battle have a lack of detail that no real warrior would ever leave out. 

He reaches the practice hall, and hands Theron a sword, and bows.

Theron takes the offered blade, testing its balance with practiced ease—at least enough to confirm that he has, indeed, handled swords before. He returns Kirill’s bow gracefully, meeting his host's skeptical gaze without defensiveness, perhaps even acknowledging the suspicion with quiet respect.

Stepping back to make space between them, Theron raises his sword in a ready stance. His form is disciplined but clearly more ceremonial or academic than battlefield-ready—slightly too perfect, too considered.

"Come," he says evenly, with neither bravado nor hesitation. "Show me how the warriors of Daggermark fight."

Kirill has been in a dangerous job for thirty years; of the men he set out to seek his fortune with when he was young, all are dead. He's not the best swordsman in Daggermark, but he's one of a very few people who can ride the Riverlands alone. He moves his sword with supernatural surety, ignores a child's clumsy parry, and cuts a ribbon down Theron's arm though there is a blazing bitter part of him that's tempted to just kill the man on the spot. 

"You've fought no archmages," he says, instead, and if he's holding the man at swordspoint a bit to say it, why shouldn't he - how dare he -

Theron recoils just slightly from the strike, eyes widening not in pain, though the blood beads brightly along the shallow wound, but in sudden realization—perhaps even shame.

"No," he says quietly, lowering his sword slowly, not bothering to feign any further attempt at defense. He stares at Kirill for a long moment, expression pained but without bitterness. "No, I haven't."

He drops his gaze thoughtfully to the ribbon of blood on his sleeve, clearly embarrassed—not at losing, but at the deception, however unintentional, that led him here.

"I've fought men who called themselves kings," he says softly, eyes still on his arm. "I've fought petty tyrants and bandits who terrorized villages. But my world has no archmages, not truly, nor men who can leap through space at will. Certainly not liches. Magic in Ithos is subtle—omens, enchantments, dreams. Tricks of priests and sorcerers, not—this."

He gestures vaguely at the hall, at Kirill's easy power with the blade, at the broader implications that lie between them.

He meets Kirill’s angry gaze again, voice firm but painfully honest. "I never meant to deceive you. Your ritual summoned a hero—but it found me instead, because it could find no one better. My world does not have heroes like those you seek. Perhaps no world does."

" - no. Stop doing that. Stop - speaking with the valor of a man you'll never be. This isn't - you didn't mean to deceive me? You just made up some battles you never fought because that's, what, a customary greeting in your culture? You lied, Theron - is that even your name? - and I don't even understand why."

Theron flushes deeply, visibly struggling for the first time to hold his composure. He sets the sword down, carefully, deliberately, as though suddenly unwilling to hold it any longer. His shoulders slump slightly, the last pretenses of heroic bearing falling away, replaced with something more vulnerable and sincere.

"Yes, Theron is my name," he says softly. "And I lied—not because lying is customary, but because—"

He hesitates, brow furrowing in shame and frustration, clearly aware how feeble his reasons will sound.

"—because I was terrified," he admits finally, quietly but without evasion. "I was ripped from my world, thrown onto your floor by magic I didn’t understand. You called me a hero. You named me a destined savior. You spoke of a tyrant archmage and a war and immortality—and I—"

Kirill doesn't feel sorry for him. Kirill doesn't really do feeling sorry for people. You get whatever shot you get, and if you don't go around making everyone else's shot harder then you get another one after that too. 

Kirill feels confused.

He does lower the sword, though. Shouldn't hold an unarmed man at swordspoint for being confusing.  

"...no, you weren't," he says, after a moment.

Theron opens his mouth—then shuts it again, a sick feeling churning suddenly in his gut. Kirill's sword point is lowered, but his words hang sharply, cutting deeper than the blade had.

Hadn't he fought kings? Hadn't he led soldiers? He remembers saying it. He remembers believing it. But in Kirill's flat contradiction, there's a terrible ring of truth.

Why did I say those things, if they're not real? How could I have believed them—spoken them aloud without hesitation? He searches frantically, groping backward through memories, and finds—nothing. No faces of loyal soldiers. No clash of swords on steel. No echo of his own voice issuing orders.

Nothing except his own voice, just now, confidently narrating a life he's no longer sure he's lived.

He looks up at Kirill, eyes wide with confusion. "Then—" he starts, voice quiet, breaking slightly under the strain of this new, dizzying uncertainty, "if none of that is true, Kirill—what am I?"

"Well. I was assuming you were an accomplished liar, but now I'm thinking maybe it's more of a faerie curse. Only I'd really like to know more about it than that before I go tell the King 'we have the hero but he's under a faerie curse', it's not going to be cheap to fix."

Theron swallows, nodding slowly, grateful that Kirill seems more confused than angry, at least for the moment. His chest feels tight.

A faerie curse. That feels close—maybe even right. It explains his strange certainty, his empty confidence. And yet—

He searches inward, desperate to find something genuine, something solid to hold onto amid all the confusion. But there's just...emptiness. Intentions without substance, knowledge without memory.

"I think you're right," he says carefully, voice low. "It feels—like I have answers waiting whenever someone asks a question. Like they're just there, ready-made. But there's nothing behind them. I don't—I can't feel any memories behind them. Nothing real."

He hesitates, unsure how much to trust, how far to reveal himself. But Kirill is looking at him steadily, and despite everything, he doesn't think he's being deceived. And maybe honesty—real honesty—is his best chance.

"I don't know how to explain it. It's as if the answers...belong to someone else, and they're just passing through me." He meets Kirill’s eyes with cautious openness. "Can—faerie curses work like that?"

"I expect the fair folk can curse someone with lying, and with not being able to tell the difference between lying and not lying. Mind, you probably deserve it, I bet they give out curses like that for lying. - let's clear out of the practice yard and go to my rooms. I don't want to get anyone excited about the hero being here before we've straightened out your problem." Kirill has dropped the 'my lord' without pushback and does not intend to go back to using it, and if the hero's done talking like a storybook he's not going to keep talking like he's in court either. 

Theron nods silently, and follows Kirill without argument. He doesn't feel like a "my lord," anyway—hasn't earned it, clearly doesn't deserve it—and dropping the charade comes as a quiet relief.

As they leave the practice yard, Theron glances down at his hands again, flexing them absently, searching for some trace of memory or identity. Still nothing. He's no closer to understanding what he is, or why he's here, but at least Kirill seems to have some idea how to handle things. Or if not how to handle things, exactly, at least how not to make them worse.

He wonders, briefly, what he might have done to deserve a curse like this. What sort of lies he'd told, and why. But those memories, too, refuse to come.

The first thing Kirill does when he gets back to his room is pour himself a whiskey. "You drink, kid?"

Theron hesitates, then shrugs slightly. "I have no idea," he says, watching Kirill pour. "But considering everything, I'd be willing to try."

"We get it from the Gratz," he says, pushing a glass across the table. "Good stuff."

Theron sips quietly, thoughtful, then raises an eyebrow. "That's—interesting," he says finally. "I think I like it. Is that something else the fae might've cursed me with?"

"It's not a curse to like your drink. It'll kill you, but everything'll kill you sooner or later. Razmir's going to kill us sooner. Unless you're the chosen one." He drains his whole glass.

"So. I'm trying to think how I can save my city with a man who'll say all kinds of things but can't tell if they're true. You're not a general. You're not a swordsman. If we try a hundred things, you reckon we'll find one you really do have a calling for?"

Theron studies the liquid in his glass, turning it slowly in his hands. "I don't know," he admits softly. "But—when you asked about armies, or swordsmanship, the answers were there, waiting, even though I couldn't use them."

He takes another careful sip, and meets Kirill's eyes. "Maybe there's something I actually know underneath all the stories. Something real."

"Say I wanted to make a healing tincture, how would I go about it? Like a woodsman, not like a priest."

Theron nods slowly, reaching inward again. The answer is ready, clean and simple—herbs and steps arranged neatly in his mind. But as the words gather, he feels a quiet but insistent caution. Not confusion, exactly; not like before. This is sharper, clearer, a sudden sense that he mustn't speak lightly, not about something like this.

"I...know an answer," he says finally, carefully. "Comfrey, calendula, yarrow, steeped and strained. It feels right. But..." He frowns slightly, puzzled by his own hesitation. "But somehow, with this, it also feels important to say that I don't—actually know. That you shouldn't trust me."

He gives Kirill an apologetic look. "It didn't feel like that with the sword. Strange that it does now."

"I have noticed that I shouldn't trust you," he says dryly. "You at least wouldn't kill anyone, with that, though I don't think it'd save their life either. What about...poker, do you know how to play a hand of poker?"

Theron pauses, cautious, waiting for that familiar rush of empty confidence. And it comes—smooth, immediate, reassuring. Poker is easy, simple rules arranged neatly in his head.

He smiles a little, genuinely relieved. "Actually—yes. Poker feels quite clear."

"Huh. Say I'm holding two hearts. The table has two hearts showing, and there’s one card left to flip. What're my odds of making a flush?"