[ He just waits, not responding to any of those names until the one that's his is spoken. His gaze has changed to some strange, unfocused yearning.
Not because being called those things doesn't feel right or familiar (because they feel acerbically, comfortably familiar, feelings from a place he cannot access, because his memories were hidden but his emotions were not), but because one of them is a key to the rest of him. He's not complete without it.
It wouldn't work at any other time before this. He would have torn himself apart in the strain, or irreversibly broken; yet another cruelty, yet another trick. He was brought back, like the contract had asked for, but in fragmented pieces rather than any coherent whole. Forced to assemble himself like an unsolved puzzle.
Compared to all his other changes, painful and slow, this unlocking is so much quicker. He'd been straining to remember who he was before this, to master himself on top of his own agony; everything seems so much clearer now. ]
You remembered all those other ones before my actual name?
[ He's on the branch in an instant, now just as fast, but the second before he actually touches it, he changes, and now he has absolutely no hope of matching Avery's height right now.
It's not exactly the same; he can't be as he was. But it's very similar, and very familiar. ]
I don't know why I expected anything else.
[ Ekkehardt crosses his arms and stares and if not for everything else that's changed, it could almost be something approaching normal. ]
no subject
Not because being called those things doesn't feel right or familiar (because they feel acerbically, comfortably familiar, feelings from a place he cannot access, because his memories were hidden but his emotions were not), but because one of them is a key to the rest of him. He's not complete without it.
It wouldn't work at any other time before this. He would have torn himself apart in the strain, or irreversibly broken; yet another cruelty, yet another trick. He was brought back, like the contract had asked for, but in fragmented pieces rather than any coherent whole. Forced to assemble himself like an unsolved puzzle.
Compared to all his other changes, painful and slow, this unlocking is so much quicker. He'd been straining to remember who he was before this, to master himself on top of his own agony; everything seems so much clearer now. ]
You remembered all those other ones before my actual name?
[ He's on the branch in an instant, now just as fast, but the second before he actually touches it, he changes, and now he has absolutely no hope of matching Avery's height right now.
It's not exactly the same; he can't be as he was. But it's very similar, and very familiar. ]
I don't know why I expected anything else.
[ Ekkehardt crosses his arms and stares and if not for everything else that's changed, it could almost be something approaching normal. ]