You stare ahead at your sparrow as he realises who the canary he had seen was, and you feel like the world whispered the name no actor would want to hear right into your ears.
Any second now, the disappointment, the anger, all of the pain your sparrow had felt, would be thrown and directed at you in a dramatic scene.
And you had to brace yourself, because you couldn’t let him see how much that would hurt.
You could not let anything you did not want to be seen bleed past your mask. Even if what you kept away turned to eat you alive (dead? what was the right word to describe your state?), once it realised it couldn’t get out through any other way.
In truth, you had always just wanted to help. You had never wanted to hurt your sparrow, or at least you think you hadn’t.
The way your own mind worked had long since stopped being relevant to you. You knew how to make other people’s minds work in a way you needed them to, and that was enough. And you only ever used that to help. You just wanted to help.
You kept him from the truth for now because you knew it would hurt him. Once you had led him to ensure this world, this fake world Your Past couldn’t see they were slowly losing control of, wasn’t any danger to reality, then you could bring him to the son he wanted to see. But it would be dangerous to let him get hurt before this world was stable, so you lied.
And besides, They always want a happy ending. That’s what They told you, when you found out about the true nature of this reality you were supposed to have such a high level of control over. They wanted that dramatic reunion, a wonderful scene full of emotions. And you wanted to please Them, to feed them before they fed on you.
So you lied. You lied because it made the performance and the story all the better.
But you’ve never been able to plan that far ahead, only seeing what’s happening in the moment.
You weren’t prepared for your lies to come crashing down on you.
This is Your Future’s doing, and you know it is. Static as uncaring as they pretend to be, they’ve always been a cunning creature. Despite their frail nature, they’re even better at directing an actor than you are at times. They knew that it the little canary found your sparrow, your play would fall apart, and their webs of strings would reign supreme.
They don’t even know what you know. You are the only one to know Them. And yet Your Future so easily stopped the script you were writing in its tracks.
And now you were left to deal with the fallout, as your sparrow turned back to face you.
He takes off his mask, the one you gave him to more easily guide him, and you suppress a wince.
Of the three of You, you’ve always been the most sociable. Through all the times you’ve split off to go interact with the world, you’ve learnt a lot about how the people of your reality, the one You all helped create along with the other deities. You’ve fallen in love with how they move, how they interact with each other, and what they create. They’re always moving towards the next moment in a way that enthrals you. Even when they wither and die, like they’re all destined to do, they’re so unique in how they do it.
But the one part you hate is their anger. Even when you were yourself and only you, it was always the worst feeling. To have scorn directed towards you made you feel sick, it made you want to tear off your own skin until you were absolutely nothing at all.
You never learnt how to deal with it, not properly. You could keep pretending it was fine, that it didn’t bother you, just until you could get away and be alone with the feelings of failure and anguish.
You do it now, just standing still as he sobs, as he screams at you. If you move, you’ll tear yourself into just the same state as him. Even if you can’t destroy yourself like you did as a person, you’ll try. You’ll keep trying until the horrible thing in your chest that spreads when you receive any anger, is finally gone.
Your little sparrow is so angry with you, and though a small part of you wants to comfort him, you don’t. This is a fine performance, you suppose. It will feed Them. And then, after he’s finished and you’ve had your time to want to rip yourself into shreds, you’ll improvise. You’ll keep going until the play’s over, and then you’ll go into your next performance.
It’s the best you can do. Maybe you won’t get to your intended ending, but if your sparrow lets you then you can get him a happy one.
You just have to keep acting.
