you're not planning on doing anything foolish, are you?

"... No."

It comes out both too quickly and yet with too much hesitation. Not that Twain had actually been trying to hide anything---a fact that makes his initial answer a lot more like a performance than an attempt at denial.

"Not deliberately," he amends, and that part actually is true, so he delivers it with a cheeky smile and a nonchalant attitude. He doesn't know Vann well enough yet to know whether or not he's the type to try and put a stop to foolish plans, but it really doesn't matter; there's a confidence to Twain's tone that suggests he's going to try it regardless. "Foolish things just seem to happen around me. Can't help it."

He lets out a short laugh, though it's a little forced. There's a part of him that regrets his inability to do anything the right way, but he keeps it buried beneath the nonchalance and ensures it's well hidden before he carries on. "Why, are you concerned? You can tag along, if you like. It'd be a good chance to prove that I'm very competent and serious."

ordinary monsters. / accepting!

it's not the loneliness. it's the solitude.

A sort of discomfort surfaces in Twain---the same kind that always seems to well up in him when people say things that he can relate to.

It's much easier for him to talk to people about difficult things when he doesn't understand them on a personal level. In general, he has no problem thinking about something to say when someone lays their issues at his feet. When it's his own issues, though---no matter how big of a picture Vann has of them, if he's even got one at all---he can never help the feeling of bile at the back of his throat that's much more potent than any kind of sadness those issues cause on their own.

"Isn't it the other way around?" he asks. It's an imperfect deflection, light bouncing off a mirror but carrying on a little too closely to its intended path. Twain drums a nonsensical rhythm with his fingers on the stone next to him. "That's what they say, usually. Solitude doesn't always mean loneliness, you can be lonely without being alone---that avenue of thinking."

It's probably overly semantic. But Twain is, before anything else, a writer. If Vann didn't want any semantics, he probably wouldn't have spoken to someone like Twain in the first place.

"I think they're both as bad as eachother... I can't speak for everyone and everything, but I just don't think either of 'em are sustainable." He swallows the uncomfortable feeling, but still doesn't look directly at Vann for longer than a passing glance. "The best part about life is how you share it with people. Whether you're lonely or you're alone, you're just as cut off from that."

ordinary monsters. / accepting!

@weavehld / starter call!

"I never really got all the theoretical stuff," Twain admits, taking a pretty uncomfortable seat on a nearby log. "One of my sisters---she was studying magic properly, last I saw her, but it honestly all goes above my head."

Even aside from his family, Gale isn't the first wizard Twain's met, but he's always been impressed by them. Even after his contract with the Archivist, magic has always felt like instinct to him, rooted more in his feelings (and occasional music) than any actual practical application. He'd never needed to understand how it all worked---it just always had.

"Is it... I'm not sure how to ask questions without sounding stupid. Is it easy?" Failing at his task of asking questions without sounding stupid, Twain hurries to correct himself, having the decency to look sheepish while doing so. "I mean, 'course it isn't easy. But is it just natural? Like, you have the intent to do somethin' and it happens, and that's just it? ... You ever do things on accident?"

tags (part 2).

sometimes we don't have a choice but to keep going. ⟹ verse; early days. there will always be somewhere to call home. ⟹ verse; entrance into the guild. in defense of wanting. ⟹ verse; fractures. the best path is the path you never asked for. ⟹ verse; steadfast endings. to those who were once wanderers. ⟹ verse; roadside. every world at your fingertips; we carry on and on. ⟹ verse; inheritor of the archives.

a neverending ruckus. ⟹ verse; baccano! hapless and hosted. ⟹ verse; baldur's gate 3. studies on ineptitude. ⟹ verse; the case study of vanitas. like and subscribe! ⟹ verse; log horizon. the past's clutches. ⟹ verse; moriarty the patriot. a literary nightmare. ⟹ verse; the owl house. skating your story. ⟹ verse; yuri!!! on ice. the immutable second. ⟹ verse; the witcher.