✨george ✨ george ✨ george ✨

Does Sister Waletta know what the specifics are there? He doesn't want to drag it out of Ayers.

"I'm glad that... in the end, both of you... were able to..." gesture. Survive? Leave the cult? See each other again? Who knows.

"Me too."

Hesitantly and uncertainly he begins to pet Lev's hair. Not as if he expects this to be rejected, but as if this is a gesture he has not really performed for several years and is not sure if he's doing it right.

happy happy happy happy happy

That's. Good. Mordred is absolutely not going to think about whether it is going to kill Ayers because he doesn't want to jinx himself even though that's not how anything works.

"Do you know what the divine plan... was?"

"Bullshit."

Ayers is going to DIE SUDDENLY in LEV'S ARMS and Lev will be INCONSOLABLE FOREVER. Oswald is not avoiding this thought at all.

Okay that's not helpful. "A kind of bullshit with specific actions and people and timeframes involved, though?"

"Their god is not real."

Maybe not the most politic thing to say in front of a nun but whatever, at least it's been said now. "Well, yes," Mordred agrees, "but they've still had knowledge that helped in the past?"

Hmph.

Is the overt atheism really conducive to not dying you guys. Not that he knows how not dying works.

"Sister Waletta says you're fighting it."

"We are."

"I want to help you. But I have not talked to anyone in... several years... arrgh."

He makes a sound and doubles over in pain.

Oh No

Well now he can step forward and grab Lev's shoulders. In a way that is hopefully reassuring and grounding and not startling.

AAAAAAAA

(He knew this would happen he knew it he knew)

Sister Waletta begins to pray out loud in the hopes that it might help.

He's not keeping track of what specific reassurances he's saying or if they're precisely true, but he can keep up a stream of them. "If we give him some space maybe it'll help."

"It won't. The mouth-- feeds on power. Control. Domination over others. Mine is"-- his face contorted in pain-- "sensitive. So any action I take to reach a goal in the world-- Feeds it."

aaaaaaaaaaa????

....that might actually be the single most horrifying thing Mordred has ever heard about the mouths.

Could the nun have told them the specific triggers so they could avoid giving Ayers any goal-like impulses? Jeez?

He begins to breathe slowly.