"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to speak of many things."

[maddeninghatter]

Date & Time: June 29
Location: Chez Break
Characters: Xerxes Break and Leo, the Hound Heir of the Baskervilles.
Summary: Leo decides to unburden himself
Warnings: None

[ For the past fifteen years, Xerxes Break has devoted his life to a cause. Carefully, painstakingly, and secretly, he has constructed his chess table, and put his pawns in play. Now, finally, his singleminded pursuit of the truth is about to pay off. It's within his grasp - again. He won't let it slip from his fingers, this time…

No; that's not quite right. His goal hadn't slipped. He destroyed what he'd wanted, all on his own. Because something, at the time, had been more important. Something. Someone.

He hadn't regretted his choice, but he'd felt disordered afterwards. He's a man who lives but for himself: this is how he has managed to justify his own existence after all these years. Well - isn't it the exception that proves the rule? This was an explanation he could live with.

And that would have been all right, except he's starting to accrue more exceptions: people who matter to him. The thread of logic supporting that explanation is becoming increasingly more tenuous, something that should occur to him if he thinks about it, which he is trying most assiduously not to do.

Thus it is with a mixture of excitement and foreboding that he waits.

Just knock on the door already, Leo! ]

Comments

[flecks]

What— [ are you talking about? That's the question about to leave his mouth, as for a moment he's confused at the jump in logic Break's making, but he catches on the train of thought quickly enough.

Ah, if only. Perhaps even that would have been kinder. ]

No, he was never human. He's a Chain born from a plush rabbit. Like I said, he was never real.

[ Perhaps a cruel thing to say about a friend so bluntly, but those were just the facts and Leo's providing them. ]

[maddeninghatter]

[ Xerxes Break is not the sort of person who can derive truth solely from feeling. Things have to make sense, logically, otherwise his mind rejects them. Thus the sincerity of his affection makes the reality that much more disconcerting.

He can't--

He can't. He folds his arms and is grateful, for the moment, that he doesn't have to meet Leo's gaze. ]

What does Alice have to do with all of this?

[flecks]

[ Leo does sigh audibly and obviously this time. Not because Break asked (that was inevitable), but because he's not a big talker and spilling all these truths is getting to be rather draining. It doesn't help that all of it is so complicated.

He drops his gaze to the floor, rather than keep staring at Break's back, unseeing. ]

Everything.

[ A pause for a deep breath. ]

She's Lacie's daughter. Before she was thrown into the Abyss, Lacie and the Glen before Oswald decided to do an experiment. Lacie was impregnated and she gave birth to twins in the Abyss, one of them being Alice.

[maddeninghatter]

[ Another astonishing revelation, enough to distract him - for the moment - from the awful news about Oz. He turns, facing Leo. ]

And the other, the Will of the Abyss. They would change places back and forth, in the world, so I understand.

[ The puzzle pieces keep coming together. ]

Vincent Nightray, child of misfortune, with an ability to contact the Abyss. Jack Vessalius, who needed a Chain to destroy the world...

[ Hadn't Leo told him earlier that Vincent had been a pawn in the Tragedy? At the time, he'd exulted at the news, not understanding. Ugh. ]

Manipulated Vincent... through Gilbert, somehow...

[ How else? ]

The Will of the Abyss loved Jack. He... manipulated her, too. Asked for... [ Oz! ] a Chain to destroy the world, and she gave it to him. And then... Alice was murdered, and she could no longer change places. She went mad... madder.

[ The white Alice he had met when Sablier had fallen into the Abyss was mad already. Of course: a little girl trapped in a place like that. No wonder she had begged him to save her. ]

But no matter what, Jack was an illegal contractor. He should have been dragged down into the Abyss, eventually, body and soul. So why does his body still walk the earth? What became of his soul?