Marco's Heart

[peccatore]

You find yourself in a bright white, circular room. It's nearly empty; too bare, almost clinically so. But the bareness of it means that what is visible here stands out:

A podium in the center, where a familiar figure sits, head buried in his hands. Three paths running from the podium to three different spots near the edges of the room - not corners; circles don't have corners - where three doors leading seemingly nowhere stand with no regard for their complete lack of structural support.

It doesn't take you long to figure out where you are, does it? You only have to decide where to start.

Comments

[peccatore]

"... H... Huh?" Marco blinks. He seems... aware, but dazed in a way that the Marco outside was not. "Do I know you...?"

[nevercaught]

"Not yet," Jarlaxle says, "but you will in the future. I think I am in one of your memories."

[peccatore]

He seems to disregard this, opting to look around instead.

"I... wasn't I going home? How did I get here...?"

[nevercaught]

"I do not know," Jarlaxle says honestly. "Why don't we try to find the way to your home together?"

[peccatore]

"... I know the way."

He turns towards the town.

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle follows him.

[peccatore]

Marco's steps are unsteady, but strangely light. He does, in fact, know exactly where he's going, turning corners and climbing steps with ease, but... he seems distracted on occasion, too. The night sky above seems impossibly bright; he finds himself staring at it, after a pulsing, throbbing sound that he catches near a window makes him stop.

Despite this, he continues all the way to a house near a small, tilled field.

[nevercaught]

"Were you a farmer, then?" Jarlaxle asks curiously.

[peccatore]

Marco glances at Jarlaxle then and offers a very small nod. The Parents, still a short distance away, seem to take this as their cue.

"He barely remembers it."
"Having to piece together his human life from what he remembers of this day... Is he even our son anymore?"

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle shrugs. "Humans don't often live so long as he has. I am not surprised his memory is not as robust as an elf's."

[peccatore]

"He's not HUMAN anymore," the Father hisses--

Marco interrupts by knocking on the front door - lightly, as though afraid to break something. The door opens, and the one standing on the other side is...

Well, it's a man shaped very much like the Father. He seems more real, too; more three-dimensional, more present. His features are clearer. He has Marco's nose.

"Marco! Goodness gracious, where were you?" He throws his arms around Marco, who doesn't embrace him back so much as he collapses into his arms. "Your poor mother was worried sick. Come in, let her see you."

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle watches, thoughtfully, glancing between the Father and Marco's true father—or at least his memory of him.

[peccatore]

Marco proceeds to walk inside. Proceeds to shamble inside. There is the sound of a beating heart, two beating hearts, growing louder and louder.

Will you follow, Jarlaxle?

[nevercaught]

Of course.

[peccatore]

Marco's mother, a woman shaped like one of the specters following Jarlaxle, with Marco's eyes and cheekbones, rises from her bed to hug her son as well. The sound of those beating hearts grows unbearably loud.

The sight that follows is unpleasant.

It's her that he tears into first, with all the grace and care of a starving animal getting its first kill in days. He seems to have the presence of mind to cover her mouth and muffle her screams until her strength fails her, and to smack his father away (sending him crashing into a table) when he tries to separate them, but nothing else.

Marco drinks until there's nothing left to drink, and when his mother collapses, pale and drained, he goes for his father as well.

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle winces, but he does not turn away. Instead, he waits until Marco has finished feeding before he approaches him and silently puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing.

[peccatore]

By the time Jarlaxle does that, Marco is on his knees.

"... You don't have to comfort me. It's okay."

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle kneels down next to him.

"I don't think it is. You are obviously still hurting from what you did when you were not in your right mind."

[peccatore]

"It's not... not the main problem right now."

The Parents clearly do not like hearing this.

"What is he saying?"
"Is he telling him to forget this? To IGNORE it?"

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle ignores them.

"So I cannot comfort my friend who was just made to relive a terrible experience that he obviously regrets?"

[peccatore]

"Is THAT what you believe you're here for?"
"He warned you, and for what?"

Marco looks away.

[nevercaught]

"I know that I am not here to comfort you," Jarlaxle says, still looking at Marco and not the heart guides. "I can see you do not think you deserve it. But I see a man who due to circumstances outside his control ended up committing an act that still hurts him to this day and I wish you did not have to relive it once again. I can see that it causes you pain."

[peccatore]

"That..."

He exhales.

"That is kind of you to say."

[nevercaught]

Jarlaxle squeezes his shoulder again.

"I have made terrible mistakes that have gotten people killed as well. I understand what it is to see the disaster of your own making and to know that if you had only chosen rightly, it would not have happened."

[peccatore]

The Parents cut in.

"A kindred soul?"
"Can compassion outweigh sin?"
"It's important."
"It IS important."

And, in unison: "But..."

"When was the last time our son had an excuse?"