"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.

The hands-on-shoulders has turned into more of a hug from behind.

H... hug...? Very non-goal-oriented hug?

And then sorta stops being a hug from behind because it is a little ridiculous to hug Lev while he's hugging Ayers.

He doesn't move away, though.

Also, mental note: no more questioning Ayers to help fight the cult.

His breathing steadies. His face relaxes.

"Well," he says, mildly testy. "Am I letting myself be tortured for no reason or do you have questions? You are worse than an undergraduate classroom the day after Homecoming."

George!!!!!!

his lover is ALIVE and saying CHARACTERISTICALLY HIMSELF things and it is VERY GOOD

Oh well in that case.

"What is your role in the divine plan, then? Whether it's actually helping anything or not?"

"I don't have one, because there is no such thing as an omnibenevolent god. Have you looked at the world lately. If the Mouth has a plan for me I intend to thwart it."

It is so, so easy to see why Lev loves Ayers so much.

"Look, there seem to be things out there other than the Mouth that are seemingly opposed to it and that respond to prayer and cause natural disasters and have -- names -- that we've--" Mordred is this information licit or will the Order of Frumentius get mad. "And it'd be useful to have any more of an idea what's going on there."

"I know... little of the truth of any of the Great Old Ones except for the Mouth. The nuns know... certain rituals, which I use to control my own Mouth. But they are wrong about how they work."

"How do they work?"