Carlisle shifts uncomfortably, his foot sliding back a step as though to physically distance himself from his rising apprehension. He's not sure what to make of this -- Pratt says he met him, but he doesn't remember it... and yet, what he said about Bear Den -- that it is notably lacking in bears -- is something Carlisle recognizes himself as having said before when explaining his home, an apt description he picked up from one of his uncles long ago. Perhaps Pratt heard it from somewhere else. He must have. How likely is it he met someone else from Bear Den in this place? How many worlds are there?
Or maybe, Carlisle considers internally, this man is a seer, an individual able to tell the future and read the minds of those around them. He's never placed much faith in such abilities, but he knows them to exist, however skeptical he may be of their merits. On the other hand, Pratt doesn't exactly look like what Carlisle thought a seer would. Furthermore, he hears no dishonesty in Pratt's voice, sees no physical signs to indicate he's telling anything but what he believes to be the truth. Carlisle doesn't feel him prodding into his mind, either, and, having once worked in them himself, he's usually quite sensitive to the presence of such magical intrusions in the body, particularly his own.
Or at least he was sensitive when he was alive. He was many things when he was alive: proud of his name despite his failures, gifted with a power he may no longer be able to use, trusted leader of a congregation in the town his family swore to protect. Now his name may be infamous, synonymous with the ruin he brought to Bear Den; his energies have shifted, necrotized until they presumably animated him on their own; his congregation is long gone, the people either dead or worse.
But he was happy in some other world, a teacher and friend to the stranger before him. It sounds so idealistic, so much so that Carlisle is reluctant to believe it, but there's so much he has seen already that he doesn't yet know how to believe: portals that bring people to other worlds, devices that can speak to one another, a man trapped in a pane of glass. Even he has become the walking dead, an utter perversion of his former self. Would he have believed this to be his ultimate fate a year ago? Or a week? Or the very day of his death?
There are other worlds, but he has yet to come to terms with the fact there might be other Carlisles. "I am him," Carlisle insists, feeling bitterness bubbling in his chest at the thought of this other life. It can't be true.
"I'm him," he tries again, the ground beneath him fading, discoloring, decaying, "and I've never been anyone else. I've never been anything else. But I- I don't remember any of that. Any of him or what you said."
Did Pratt meet him when he was already dead? Was he aware of himself before, only to forget? How much has he lost?
The grass at his feet withers the longer he stands there; he takes another step back, his body tense beneath all his layers. "I don't know you or a Hadriel, so you must- you must be mistaken after all. You have to be."
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Or maybe, Carlisle considers internally, this man is a seer, an individual able to tell the future and read the minds of those around them. He's never placed much faith in such abilities, but he knows them to exist, however skeptical he may be of their merits. On the other hand, Pratt doesn't exactly look like what Carlisle thought a seer would. Furthermore, he hears no dishonesty in Pratt's voice, sees no physical signs to indicate he's telling anything but what he believes to be the truth. Carlisle doesn't feel him prodding into his mind, either, and, having once worked in them himself, he's usually quite sensitive to the presence of such magical intrusions in the body, particularly his own.
Or at least he was sensitive when he was alive. He was many things when he was alive: proud of his name despite his failures, gifted with a power he may no longer be able to use, trusted leader of a congregation in the town his family swore to protect. Now his name may be infamous, synonymous with the ruin he brought to Bear Den; his energies have shifted, necrotized until they presumably animated him on their own; his congregation is long gone, the people either dead or worse.
But he was happy in some other world, a teacher and friend to the stranger before him. It sounds so idealistic, so much so that Carlisle is reluctant to believe it, but there's so much he has seen already that he doesn't yet know how to believe: portals that bring people to other worlds, devices that can speak to one another, a man trapped in a pane of glass. Even he has become the walking dead, an utter perversion of his former self. Would he have believed this to be his ultimate fate a year ago? Or a week? Or the very day of his death?
There are other worlds, but he has yet to come to terms with the fact there might be other Carlisles. "I am him," Carlisle insists, feeling bitterness bubbling in his chest at the thought of this other life. It can't be true.
"I'm him," he tries again, the ground beneath him fading, discoloring, decaying, "and I've never been anyone else. I've never been anything else. But I- I don't remember any of that. Any of him or what you said."
Did Pratt meet him when he was already dead? Was he aware of himself before, only to forget? How much has he lost?
The grass at his feet withers the longer he stands there; he takes another step back, his body tense beneath all his layers. "I don't know you or a Hadriel, so you must- you must be mistaken after all. You have to be."