restinglichface

[HE'S TOO MONOGAMOUS FOR THIS]

Oh. Good. Probably shouldn't be getting up close and personal with a married woman's breasts this close to my own wedding. Wouldn't be starting out on a great foot. Metaphorically.

[It's not like he's having real actual marriage anxiety whenever he lets himself actually think about it. Making goofs is easier. It's fine.]

[How the fuck does this happen with every single one of their conversations?

Lucky for Fiddleford, Lup has become a master of reading tone over text, especially talented in picking up on anxiety in the way her husband writes. Is it any surprise she can pick it up on Fiddleford in this moment too?]

i feel like this isnt about my boobs anymore

whats up buttercup? getting the pre nuptial jitters?

[He could say 'no, of course not, I'm nothing but happy and excited'. It'd also be a lie, and Fiddleford has always been crap at lying. He can't do it in person and even over text it's difficult. She'd be able to tell. It's better to just come out with it.]

A little. Seeing Emma-May again has me all shaken up about it. I really don't want to tar this one up. I can't imagine I'll get a third chance. A second one is already more than I expected.

[Trying to keep anything from Lup is always a trial. It's better this way.]

so dont mess it up
seems pretty easy to me

i mean
if i havent fucked up that bad yet
i think you and your nerdy beau are gonna be just fine
not to be super gay
but you guys are real good together

Well of course -you- haven't messed it up, you're not

I mean I don't think I'm wrong when I say you're not the sort of person who shoots herself in the foot too often. I am. Metaphorically now but it holds true all the same. It's not as easy as 'don't mess it up'. I'm used to doing my level best to work at something I think is good and then having it all go up in flames around me. So I'm a little gunshy.

[This doesn't sound so hypothetical, really. This sounds way too much like Lup's only getting half of what Fiddleford is putting out.]

you know

you never really told me what happened with emma may

[HhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH

He kind of knew this was coming up eventually. It usually does one way or another. He's a private person by nature and he'd never bring it up himself, not when it still causes him so much shame, but it still eventually has to come out. Deep down he knows that. Whenever someone new comes into his life the countdown begins.]

It's a lot to tell and it's all tangled up with other things. If I tell you you're going to read some things you're going to judge me for, and you'll be right to, and I'll understand if you want some distance after.

[Well. That's one way to worry your friends.

Does Lup at all believe him? Of course not. There's just nothing the elf can possibly think of that would ever make her think less of the naga. After the life she's lived, it's hard to imagine she'd ever be offended that deeply by anything.]

ill be the judge of that thug
hit me with it

[Ah. So she's not gonna say 'on second thought nvm I'm good', huh? They're really doing this? Okay.]

Do you remember that picture I showed you? I told you I fell through a door and saw it and that's true. I helped build the door.

[He's not going to implicate Ford here. That's Ford's burden to bear on his own time, telling people what he did. Though that too might come out sooner rather than later considering Fiddleford's still a little salty about the whole thing.]

I had a friend who was studying interdimensional theory and he asked me to come up to where he was living and help him with his research. I saw a whole bunch of disturbing things while I was up there and you have to understand before Ryslig I'd never had to deal with it before. I didn't even know most of those things existed until they were trying to kill me. And I couldn't stop them, and my friend wasn't listening to me, so I figured all I could do was forget and I built this gun that'd zap bad memories right out of your head. Anything you wanted gone you'd just dial it in and it would be like it never existed.

[A whole bunch of disturbing things, huh? Considering an earlier conversation they've had, it isn't too hard for Lup to make a guess as to what at least one of those things was.

The rest of it though? Yikes. Willingly losing memories, especially after all that she's heard from Taako about their future, that's just awful.]

and im guessing u didnt just use it once and everything turned out hunky dory
right?

No.

[Despite putting all of this so far behind him it's still difficult to talk about it now. With the knowledge and perspective he has it feels a little akin to a man who shot himself in the foot admitting that he knew the gun was loaded and still didn't think he'd get hurt.]

Once wasn't enough. There was so much to prune away and more kept happening. I got real dependent on it. And I used it on other people. Other people in town who were hurting like I was. My friend, when he told me it was dangerous and I should destroy it, so that he'd keep out of my way. I got a little group together and we started meeting in secret and erasing our memories and the memories of other folks in the town who were hurting because of things they couldn't change. I quit what I was working on with my friend so I could devote all my time to it instead. I called it The Society of the Blind Eye. It was only ever meant to help people.

Once I was heading it I couldn't leave, they all needed me. So I brought Emma-May and Tate up from California and there's where the trouble really started. I didn't want to tell her. I didn't want to worry her with it. In retrospect I should have, but I don't think it would have changed much either way. I made her forget the first couple of times she found out. But eventually I realized no matter how much I erased she was always going to come back to wanting to leave me and I couldn't keep doing it. She thought I was dangerous, you know. Insane. I think back then she may have had a point. What I ought to have done was quit and I didn't because I really truly thought what I was doing was helping people. And anyway by that point I couldn't go a day without using the thing on myself. I chose the Society over them and in all my life I've never regretted anything more.

When I showed up here I had to go cold turkey off the thing and thank goodness for that. I managed to get out before I got too deep.

[He thinks of his future, senile and alone in a shack in the dump, and his jaw sets a little.]

I managed to get a lot of it back but for a while there my brain was like a quilt with half the squares torn out of it. Sometimes I still find holes I didn't realize were there. You know I didn't remember her name for years? I got the M right. I thought it was Molly, and then Minnie, and I didn't get Emma-May right until the last couple of months. I still don't know what color her eyes were. I'm never going to remember that. And I can't do timelines. Everything I got back's just in a big old jumble. Anything older than a couple of months I have to guess. It's never going to go away. And I did this to myself because I thought it was -better-, do you see? So I can't

I can't ever trust my own head. I can't trust my own judgement. I have to keep moving forward otherwise I'll go crazy but I'm always, always waiting to find out the road I went down's the wrong one. When I mess up it's a sort of atom bomb salt the earth situation.

[Lup had been so certain her opinion on Fiddleford wouldn't change.

To her credit, or maybe it's just credit of the fact this in text instead of in person, she remains silent while Fiddleford's words trickle in, his explanation in full and without skimping on even the worst of details, the naga rereading certain passages, taking her time to fully understand just what he's telling her. The fiddling with his own memory, the continued use of the device that led right into addiction, the loss of his project, the keeping information from his wife. All of that, Lup could brush aside, could accept his excuses and let everything roll off her skinny shoulders.

But taking his wife's memory without consent, stealing something as precious as that away from a loved one more than once? It makes the woman's blood run cold.

Even if she hasn't lived her future, Lup knows all about it thanks to Taako, knows of Lucretia's betrayal to their family, wiping their memories and leaving them shells of who they once were. Even if her intentions were good, out of love, she'd caused her brother so much pain, damage that not even decades later was ever really repaired. Even here in Ryslig, even so far away from the world that would become their own, she woke to his screams, his temporary forgetfulness, the blank look that would slide across his face for the moment before recognition hit as he looked at her.

How is what Fiddleford did to his wife any better?

What does she even say? Scold him for the mistakes he so obviously already understands? Coddle him for the pain he's brought on himself?

Her reply comes late, at least by a couple of minutes.]

look.

do you want to make it work with marco?

More than anything. I don't have a life waiting for me back where I came from. I know my future and it's

[No, no. No.]

I have to make this work. Here is all I have.

so make it work

and dont give me crap that it isnt that easy
if you love him fucking fight for him
MAKE it work
that shit is in your hands doc

youre responsible for your own happiness
so own it

inbox.

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, LUP. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 025.90.004.712 * HotterTwin has joined 018.07.154.55 <HotterTwin> hey fam <HotterTwin> its chagirl lup <HotterTwin>** leave me the deets or whatever