eastbound | un: a lifetime ago

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un: a lifetime ago

( The transmission seems to come from an inside quarter battered by Anurr's howling winds outside. Somehow, the speaker seems unbothered. )

Is this wo — I'm never good at this. One, two, three. One, two, three. Hello? That's... that sounds right.

Hello, everyone! I'm Matthias. Awful weather, isn't it? Can barely hear myself think. ( As he finishes his sentence, voice increasingly chilled, the winds quiet. )

There! There we are. Much better, isn't it? You've been well? I don't know what you make of the place, but if you're hungry, there's... try old man Thrael's, down Gentian street. Best buns you've ever seen! And his food's not bad either, haha. Do try it! Kamala, have you tried it? I think there were... more nice little family shops with cookery, I just... don't remember. Don't exactly remember.

( An awkward pause. ) ...right. A little bird tells me your group has something of mine. Very... very literally. Some parts of mine, as it were. A heart here, a tongue there, a hand... small inconveniences. I think that was all of them? I don't quite recall. I was hoping to unburden you of them. If I may? It's just... very strange. Feeling part of yourself across a city. I'm, of course, open to barter. I know you've come a long way, I suppose you're expecting something for your trouble! A... finder's fee?

And... you haven't seen her yet, have you? My Cose — ...no. Of course. You've only just started. I'm sorry. Let's not speak of it! This is us: not speaking of it.

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Don't sell yourself short. Personally, I would have thought it'd be the heart. [ Which... he actually doesn't know where that went after Kaneki had it, but he does know that they didn't hound him nearly as much as they did Five. Not that he's too surprised that someone held onto it. ]

It must have been important, to scatter yourself like that. Did we get all of them? Allegedly speaking.

All the parts unaccounted for, or all of them in whole?

( Laughter. ) I don't... I don't like games. So I'll tell you: you have all the ones unaccounted for. You don't have every single one. I've recovered some through the gentlemen of the Dawn's Reach Trade Company.

Did you. That must have cost you. What do your own body parts go for?

[ He'll have to revisit what they knew about those deals whenever they ran across the Dawn's Reach. They could have walked away with more than three. ]

And why go through the trouble? Did you regret it?

I've told you, didn't I? They contain a part of my power. And this place needs a fair bit of it to run. I had to choose. I chose.

[ Very distracted while he's keeping a very close eye on that conversation with Kamala. And now Vanessa. He's going to go bald earlier this time around. ]

Had to what? Hack yourself into pieces to appease the dark water? [ And somehow keep living. ] You managed to reattach everything? I can imagine your daughter might have had a hard time recognizing you without them.

Oh! I see. Well, thank you. But I'm fine. Old trick. The parts... grew back on their own after the cutting. Well, substitutes did. They don't quite feel like the old. But now I've absorbed the others in, they're in the right spots. These ones you have, though. What can I say, eh? The body misses them.

[ That's... weird. Though now he wonders if that's why it was so hard to see his face before. ]

Glad to hear it. [ So he's been sitting here, growing more powerful as he attached parts of himself. ] If they're that valuable to you, what are you offering for them?

That won't do. You know what I can do. And I have a name in this citadel, give or take. But I don't know you fellows at all. I don't know what you want. What is it I can do for you? Assuming you had a part.

[ What he wants… is selfish and predictable and he’d be a fool to trust him to give. He nearly asks anyway, but not with everyone listening. ]

…Assuming we did, why ask nicely? If you can sense where they are, you’ve got a city at your disposal to get them back.

And sour our relationship, when I'm depending on you to recover my daughter? I hardly see that wise.

No, no. I'd rather pay for the favor.

[ Five scoffs to keep from laughing. They’ve been through hell because of him, and now he’s worried about ‘souring their relationship.’ ]

You’ve got a lot riding on us. Do you really expect us to do what you couldn’t, with all your power?

Only a madman tries the same thing repeatedly and expects a different result.

It's clear what I'm doing isn't working.

You might be disappointed to hear about your reputation.

They’re after you. Even Anurr decided to jump in. Gathering your power into one place could backfire on you.

I suppose I'm lucky, then, that you'll getting all my power.

[ He picked up on his train of thought awfully quick. ]

Assuming we find your daughter, that does spoils some of the incentive. You gave the brotherhood their power, can’t you take it away?

With some struggle. If they come close enough.

But I've left you defenses. The walls are manned. They'll stay so until I'm done with the beacons.

Until you're done.

Of course. After all, if all goes well, I recover Cosette and concede my power. As we agree I should.

I can't use a power I don't have, after all.

So then you retire and leave them to us. Is that the idea?

I leave everything. That is the idea.

[ He doesn't want everything. Just his family, most still scattered and possibly as dead as the girl he's looking for. Likely to be, considering how prone to dying those idiots are. It's a regrettable comparison between them. ]

You seem convinced that it's her. Did you track her down to this city, or did your power lure her out?

Oh! Oh, that's... let me tell you. Let me tell you, it's quite interesting. Quite so. It is my powers, more or less. When you use — when I use them and the beacons, I can feel... not when I clutch a person, or wrench them to Akhuras, more... how shall I put it. When they are manifested here, I briefly feel them. Most of them are peculiar, odd and unfamiliar, so the feeling goes.

But with her, it's... when it's someone known, like that, they stand out. I suppose, like seeing a constellation that spells a shape in the nightscape. You can't pretend you didn't see it, afterward. That's how I can know where she is, when she's come. Unfortunately, my awareness of everyone I've called forth dispels as soon as my residual power that surrounds them dies down. I haven't found a way to keep more of it on the summoned. I suppose it would be a bit of a waste, since most of them are... useless to me. But still.

Look... it's all very interesting. The minutiae of technical magic is extraordinary.

[ ...It does actually sound extremely interesting. Five would like to hear all about how the magic works, as much as he wishes he could have made sense of any of it when they had an entire library at their disposal back in Taravast. What he says doesn't actually help him in his quest to locate his missing siblings, but the odds were slim. ]

What does that mean? She's stuck between realms and you keep pulling her back? Or are you confident she hasn't already run from you?

These methods are quite rudimentary. Beacon magic is fickle, too. Far too primitive. Of course using strange resources will lead to strange results.

As for my own flesh and blood, I can't think of why she'd ever choose to run from me. I don't remember a feud.

Nothing as reliable as mirrors?

[ Really surprising they aren't seeing more of those, considering the first time he saw him. ]

We've already seen one child run. I assumed because you'd had a fight, but we all know how kids exaggerate.

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