[There's a lot of that explanation he doesn't get, not being from a world with supercomputers in pairs of sunglasses. But something about it strikes a chord.]
It's a threat we dealt with on my world. We never figured out exactly what it was before--well. [Focus. This isn't the point. He's not entirely sure what the point is--he's not quite sure where he's going with this, but he keeps talking.]
It takes the shape of the darkness in people's hearts, and drives them to despair.
[He's about to say no. But then he remembers that night, the night before he gave Shirley over to Solon: how hopeless he felt, how sure he was that no one would miss him if he disappeared.
The Oresoren would miss him, wouldn't they?
Would Dirk?]
. . . maybe. It never manifested--it tends to take the shape of the person it's targeting. But . . . .
[He doesn't push, but he continues to watch him. The shades are a mask but it's the same way Dirk has been at other times when Jay has been unsure about saying something: he waits and listens.]
. . . I might have encountered it the night before I came to the coven.
[Feeling that conviction--you are not a person--like a certainty. The sense of hopelessness accompanying it. Had that been the black mist?
He can think about that later. This was supposed to be about Dirk.]
That's not the point, anyway. The mist . . . pushed its targets towards different things. To give up on a long-held dream, or to walk into the darkness and never return. And then--
I traveled with a girl called Chloe for a while. She'd lost her parents to a murderer several years before we met.
She was an heir to a noble house, but she left her claim to it and became a knight after that. She traveled the world searching for her parents' murderer. To take revenge.
Finally, she found him on the Legacy. But she found herself hesitating at first. There were mitigating circumstances. The mist pushed her to forget about those and give into her hate.
No. In the end, she turned away from her parents' murderer and faced the black mist instead. It had taken the form of her younger self.
[He struggles to articulate why he's telling this story to Dirk, what he wanted Dirk to get out of it. It just--feels relevant.]
. . . before she did that, she said something interesting. That from the beginning, she'd never really wanted revenge. [ . . . ] I never asked her. But I think--her quest for revenge wasn't really about her parents' murderer. It was about herself.
As I said, I don't really know. But I think--the one she hated was the child. The one who couldn't do anything when her parents were murdered right in front of her.
[That hits a little, unexpectedly; it's not like he has parents. But a helpless child--he takes a deep breath and continues.]
The problem is--you can't defeat the image of yourself in the mist just by fighting it. We tried, and it doesn't work. You have to accept it.
[That raises a question, though. Can he accept himself? Even the part of him that was a mindless killer, someone else's weapon? The pathetic child who let himself be used and used again?
[There's a pause, because he almost says, "I've never tried to date you or the person you're into" but he knows how Jay gets about romantic things, so he holds back. So he says, slowly,]
I think I'm capable of being that bad. Sometimes, I get this feeling that I'm capable of things so much worse than I've even thought of. That's in the context of someone who can think of some pretty impressively bad actions he would consider possible.
[But he has watched Dave. Once before, and now here. He's listened to what Dave said, and what others who knew Dave said. He has an intuition. And that's still him.]
[What a surprise. Dirk Strider is a pushy asshole. Someone tell the news.
Dirk stops that train of thought and regroups.]
I know you have your own things, and maybe you don't want to talk about them right now, so I'll lay out mine. I think to a degree, everyone, or at least most people, experience splinters of themselves. We behave in different ways around different people or in different circumstances, and there are always possible courses we didn't follow but that we can imagine ourselves in. But sometimes, for me at least, it feels like they're... haunting me. Like I can't get away from them, from myself, no matter what I do. I can't even get high, it just doesn't happen. My mind is just unable to escape itself.
[He lets go of the shades that aren't really in his hands.]
I can't seem to untangle those possibilities from the choices I do make. Like you said, with that mist, the point is probably to accept them. And sure, I know they're part of the holistic Dirk as envisioned by all the possibilities that exist in me, but I don't think anything will make me stop hating them. Still, I can try to accept it. I guess what I'm stuck on is, what do you do after that?
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. . . did I ever tell you about the black mist?
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It takes the shape of the darkness in people's hearts, and drives them to despair.
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The Oresoren would miss him, wouldn't they?
Would Dirk?]
. . . maybe. It never manifested--it tends to take the shape of the person it's targeting. But . . . .
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[Feeling that conviction--you are not a person--like a certainty. The sense of hopelessness accompanying it. Had that been the black mist?
He can think about that later. This was supposed to be about Dirk.]
That's not the point, anyway. The mist . . . pushed its targets towards different things. To give up on a long-held dream, or to walk into the darkness and never return. And then--
I traveled with a girl called Chloe for a while. She'd lost her parents to a murderer several years before we met.
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It targeted her.
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She was an heir to a noble house, but she left her claim to it and became a knight after that. She traveled the world searching for her parents' murderer. To take revenge.
Finally, she found him on the Legacy. But she found herself hesitating at first. There were mitigating circumstances. The mist pushed her to forget about those and give into her hate.
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She didn't, though.
[When a story is told like this, they don't.]
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[He struggles to articulate why he's telling this story to Dirk, what he wanted Dirk to get out of it. It just--feels relevant.]
. . . before she did that, she said something interesting. That from the beginning, she'd never really wanted revenge. [ . . . ] I never asked her. But I think--her quest for revenge wasn't really about her parents' murderer. It was about herself.
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As I said, I don't really know. But I think--the one she hated was the child. The one who couldn't do anything when her parents were murdered right in front of her.
[That hits a little, unexpectedly; it's not like he has parents. But a helpless child--he takes a deep breath and continues.]
The problem is--you can't defeat the image of yourself in the mist just by fighting it. We tried, and it doesn't work. You have to accept it.
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The guy in the mist is kind of an asshole, though.
[He knows Jay is right. He doesn't know how to accept himself. The horrible truths are something he believes but still hates.]
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[That raises a question, though. Can he accept himself? Even the part of him that was a mindless killer, someone else's weapon? The pathetic child who let himself be used and used again?
He doesn't think about it.]
. . . for the record. You aren't that bad.
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I think I'm capable of being that bad. Sometimes, I get this feeling that I'm capable of things so much worse than I've even thought of. That's in the context of someone who can think of some pretty impressively bad actions he would consider possible.
[But he has watched Dave. Once before, and now here. He's listened to what Dave said, and what others who knew Dave said. He has an intuition. And that's still him.]
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[Shirley, after all, was capable of genocide. She just decided differently.]
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Are you scared to not exist?
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. . . I don't want to die, if that's what you mean.
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[He doesn't elaborate. He thinks Jay understands the question.]
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I'm . . . fairly certain I exist.
[The question has always been what is doing the existing.]
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That might be enough of an answer in itself.]
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[What a surprise. Dirk Strider is a pushy asshole. Someone tell the news.
Dirk stops that train of thought and regroups.]
I know you have your own things, and maybe you don't want to talk about them right now, so I'll lay out mine. I think to a degree, everyone, or at least most people, experience splinters of themselves. We behave in different ways around different people or in different circumstances, and there are always possible courses we didn't follow but that we can imagine ourselves in. But sometimes, for me at least, it feels like they're... haunting me. Like I can't get away from them, from myself, no matter what I do. I can't even get high, it just doesn't happen. My mind is just unable to escape itself.
[He lets go of the shades that aren't really in his hands.]
I can't seem to untangle those possibilities from the choices I do make. Like you said, with that mist, the point is probably to accept them. And sure, I know they're part of the holistic Dirk as envisioned by all the possibilities that exist in me, but I don't think anything will make me stop hating them. Still, I can try to accept it. I guess what I'm stuck on is, what do you do after that?
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[But that answer feels somehow incomplete; he shakes his head a little.]
It's . . . possible someone else would have a better answer for you.
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