The empty world is one that is cold and hard, and he has rarely felt it more acutely than through this fact. The world of the Village was empty and everything in it was dead. Mulcahy is a scrap. A leftover of something that tried, with nowhere to go.
Before Radar can argue, “One of my other friends was the Father.” Again the flipping of papers, another Number crumpled up. “Abraham Cook. A former priest. You never met him, but you would’ve liked him quite a lot, I think. He was… gentle, and shy. He was wiser than he gave himself credit for. He’d already endured subjugation, so he sat the fighting out when we were tricked into the Village. I never blamed him then, and I certainly couldn’t now.”
Another flip of files—another, another Number. “And there was… Jester. That was her name. She was a cleric—there was quite a lot of clergy on that voyage, actually, though rather few Christians. She served a god of mischief and joy, which should tell you what a light she was. And a ferocious one, too.” He pauses. “She looked rather like Dahlia, actually. I mean, with horns and a tail and blue skin. No wings, though. And she was quite a bit like Hawkeye. She had a taste for pranks, and a constant habit of annoying the stuffing out of our captor.”
What a feeling, to speak about these people for the first time in so long, and to do it in the past tense.
no subject
The empty world is one that is cold and hard, and he has rarely felt it more acutely than through this fact. The world of the Village was empty and everything in it was dead. Mulcahy is a scrap. A leftover of something that tried, with nowhere to go.
Before Radar can argue, “One of my other friends was the Father.” Again the flipping of papers, another Number crumpled up. “Abraham Cook. A former priest. You never met him, but you would’ve liked him quite a lot, I think. He was… gentle, and shy. He was wiser than he gave himself credit for. He’d already endured subjugation, so he sat the fighting out when we were tricked into the Village. I never blamed him then, and I certainly couldn’t now.”
Another flip of files—another, another Number. “And there was… Jester. That was her name. She was a cleric—there was quite a lot of clergy on that voyage, actually, though rather few Christians. She served a god of mischief and joy, which should tell you what a light she was. And a ferocious one, too.” He pauses. “She looked rather like Dahlia, actually. I mean, with horns and a tail and blue skin. No wings, though. And she was quite a bit like Hawkeye. She had a taste for pranks, and a constant habit of annoying the stuffing out of our captor.”
What a feeling, to speak about these people for the first time in so long, and to do it in the past tense.