ROSE: When I was a child, I wrote a novel.
Rose is speaking with her eyes closed. She is
weary, but standing for now, near one of Dirk’s work tables. She
has both hands resting on the chassis of his recent project,
Sawtooth 3.1. The energy humming inside its mechanical heart warms
her palms. Dirk snorts, but in a good-natured sort of way. That’s
the closest he usually gets to laughing.
DIRK: Another one of those Lalonde childhood wizard
fics, I presume?
He leans his elbow on the table and stares at
her over the rims of his shades. The weight of Dirk’s scrutiny is
potent. She looks away.
ROSE: Complacency of the Learned.
DIRK: Ah. The wizard fic, then.
ROSE: Yes.
ROSE: Of course, it was nothing like the polished
masterpiece penned by the middle-aged version of myself from your
world.
ROSE: Nor did the saga span as many volumes.
Thirteen-year-old Rose only managed to draft the one, it shames me
to say.
DIRK: How pathetic.
ROSE: I know.
Rose steps back, trailing her fingers over the
rivets that line Sawtooth 3.1’s chest. Eyes closed again, she
passes in front of the window. With the sunset behind her she’s a
shadow ringed in yellow light that turns white at the tips of her
hair.
ROSE: Though I must say, in defense of Young Rose’s
literary integrity,
ROSE: Having carefully studied all volumes of the
elder’s work, and then revisiting my youthful preteen scribbles of
passion...
ROSE: I observed more power and emotion in the
single ragged notebook than the full span of the bestselling
series.
ROSE: It’s more raw. It betrays considerably more
sincerity than my young self was surely ever aware of stitching
into the prose.
ROSE: It meant something.
DIRK: Hmm.
She turns to look at him.
ROSE: For all its plainly evident amateurism as the
literary product of a child, I’ve come to believe it’s a much
stronger work standing alone as a single volume, its meaning and
symbolism potently compressed, and its message shining through more
nakedly, undisguised by the cleverness of a more seasoned
writer.
ROSE: But the basics are the same as the series
you’ve read. The plot concerns the machinations of twelve wizard
children.
ROSE: They revolt against the complacency of the
wise, kind wizards, and go on to become responsible for great
evils.
ROSE: It isn’t their intent to commit atrocities,
or within their nature to do so originally. They become corrupted
by an overabundance of knowledge. The kind never meant for the
mortal mind to grasp.
DIRK: Yeah, this sounds pretty close to my
recollection of it.
ROSE: It certainly wasn’t the most fucked up thing
I’ve ever written.
ROSE: But it was the most... psychologically
potent? The most personal, easily.
ROSE: But the personal aspects to it were all
telegraphed through allegory and esoteric symbolism.
ROSE: I wrote it in what would be best described as
a fevered haze, as if I were pulling inspiration from beyond
myself—channeling the story, rather than writing it.
ROSE: You could almost call the process...
She runs a hand through her hair, fanning it
into a halo that is suspended in the air for a moment, trailing
spiderwebs of gold that dissolve into dust. She’s smirking now,
just a little.
ROSE: ...enlightened.
DIRK: That sucked.
ROSE: Yes.
DIRK: It also sounds like it’s the opposite of what
was going on?
DIRK: Sounds more like you were trapped in a sort
of dire creative fugue state causing you to chart your own mental
profile using metaphor revolving around murderous, omniscient
children.
ROSE: Well, consider the playful pun rescinded.
ROSE: Apologies for diminishing your presence with
my suboptimal health and the toll it has taken on my wordplay.
DIRK: Thanks. It’s been very difficult for me.
ROSE: You’ve been a real trouper.
ROSE: Anyway, my point is that I’ve long suspected
my story was a pre-manifestation of my Seer of Light powers. I was
seeing beyond my universe into another.
ROSE: My original thesis was that the children
represented the twelve trolls who created our universe.
ROSE: But over the years, I have come to see how
malleable any apparent fact of numerological significance can
be.
ROSE: Adaptable, actually. Adaptable to shifting
circumstance. Changes in setting, stakes, and allied ensembles.
DIRK: Twelve. That’s how many players went through
the door at the end of our game.
ROSE: Exactly.
ROSE: My friends and yours, as well as Kanaya,
Karkat, Terezi, and Calliope.
Dirk settles in against the wall beside Rose,
shoulder to shoulder. She seems to take some measure of comfort in
the physical proximity. When she finds herself leaning against
him—probably without thinking about it, Dirk imagines, because
neither of them really “do” that—he doesn’t pull away. If it’s her,
it’s all right. He won’t begrudge her a small weakness now.
DIRK: You describe this as a fact of numerological
significance.
DIRK: Which makes it seem you suspect these
correlations are something less than utterly providential. As if
there is a part of you holding on to the belief that certain
figures are coincidental. That their significance and repetition
smacks of bullshit.
ROSE: Do they not smack of bullshit?
DIRK: They smack of a bunch of things, and a bunch
of other things also happen to smack of bullshit. But the network
of relations isn’t perfectly traceable, nor can they all be mapped
on a one-to-one basis. It’s unclear exactly which things are
smacking, just as it’s unclear that when it comes to bullshit,
whether or not smacking accurately describes what is being done per
se.
Rose looks up to Dirk with the ghost of a
smile that she inherited from him. On her face, its blankness is as
enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s.
ROSE: Could it be that it is you who is
smacking of bullshit, dear father?
DIRK: Nah, I smack of many admirable qualities, as
well as keen insights.
She doesn’t seem to have another riposte to
return, but her gaze lingers. She stares into his shades as if
convinced she could see past them. Dirk allows their eyes to
meet.
DIRK: I’m just saying it’s all evidence of a grand
design. An immortal, metatextual apparatus beyond our ken that we
can only catch glimpses of when we’re proverbially shitting our
brains out through our nose.
DIRK: Which both you and I know.
ROSE: Which only you and I know,
apparently.
ROSE: Which is precisely my question.
Her gaze drifts towards the ceiling.
ROSE: In my story, all twelve of the disciples fell
victim to the vagaries of power.
ROSE: They were filled with the light of knowledge
and one by one they succumbed to it, turning insane or evil or,
most often, both.
ROSE: If this is the effect unchecked powers have
on players living in a post-canon victory state, then why isn’t it
affecting any of our other friends?
DIRK: Well.
DIRK: I got a few theories.
She shoots him a look.
It’s the kind of look Kanaya gives her sometimes.
ROSE: Only a few?
DIRK: I mean, some of us have stopped using our
powers completely. Not a whole lot of need for emergency
resurrections or complex timeline manipulation on a planet that’s
never had a conflict more serious than a sportsball riot or a
rumpled hat shortage.
DIRK: But even aside from how often they’re
used...
DIRK: Some powers don’t lend themselves to the
infinite expansion of one’s mind, the way ours do.
ROSE: I see.
ROSE: So what you’re saying is, it’s more a matter
of one’s aspect than it is whether one’s powers are practiced
further, or allowed to atrophy.
DIRK: Yep.
ROSE: In that case...
Rose sways suddenly.
ROSE: In that case, perhaps Terezi had the right
idea.
ROSE: Getting away from this place, I mean.
ROSE: Maybe I was a fool for imagining I could
settle down here.
She jerks away from the wall in a tortured,
rag-doll motion, one hand snapping out vainly for something to
brace herself against. She staggers forward a bit.
Dirk doesn’t reach out to steady her. Anyone else might have had
the empathetic reflex to do so. Maybe it says something about him
that he lacks this reflex. And maybe it says something about Rose
that she prefers it this way. Try as she might to convince herself
otherwise, through marriage vows and occasional banter about
adoption with her wife, she is still a solitary creature. She
gasps, sucks breath down her throat, and squeezes her eyes shut so
hard that a tear rolls out. She slides back down the wall, sitting
on the floor to save her energy. She’s mostly composed when she
raises her head. There’s bitter laughter at the edge of her
words.
ROSE: How... How are you handling this so well?
ROSE: I assumed it was just that feigned Strider
Stoicism, but you seem to be taking this...
DIRK: In stride?
ROSE: Ugh.
DIRK: I won’t lie, it’s definitely making me feel
pretty crazy.
Dirk stands over her, adjusts his hair,
crosses his arms. He makes no motion to bother joining her on the
floor. He looks very together. He says the word “crazy” with the
same intonation with which he might say “good morning.” It’s hard
to believe he means it at all.
DIRK: But I’ve got more practice at this than you
do. I spent most of my life before the game multitasking my entire
fucking subconscious. I’ve had several times my age on paper to
contemplate these mysteries.
DIRK: Years of prying open can after can of worms
filled with answers I don’t like.
DIRK: Cut yourself on the edge more than once and
you stop getting surprised by all the blood.
ROSE: I see.
Rose wraps her hands around her upper arms
like there’s a winter chill rattling through the workshop. She
shivers.
ROSE: It’s not the headaches that concern me
most.
ROSE: In fact, I don’t think it’s the expansion of
my powers that is causing the headaches, but rather my own
resistance to it.
ROSE: Sometimes I get this feeling that I could, if
I really wanted to, just let go.
ROSE: It would be as easy as opening my eyes.
ROSE: It’s like that feeling you get when you’re
far enough out of a dream to be conscious of it, but not yet
awake.
ROSE: I’m caught in the liminal space between
reality and reverie, where people once believed demons dwelled. But
the only reason the demon is still sitting on my chest is because I
refuse to banish it. All it would take is looking directly at
it.
ROSE: I’m forcing myself to stumble through my life
as a sleepwalker. All this pain and sorrow could go away if I would
just allow myself to wake up.
DIRK: Then why don’t you?
ROSE: Because I’m not sure that the person opening
her eyes will be me.
Her voice is lost at sea, swallowed by the
swell of darkness lurking in her imagination.
This time, Dirk does reach out to steady her. He kneels in front
of her, curls a knuckle under her chin, and lifts her face up to
his level. Then, in a deliberate motion, he pulls off his
shades.
DIRK: I understand completely.
Rose’s eyelids flutter, heavy. She meets the
intensity of his naked gaze aloofly, like she’s not aware this is
the first time he’s ever let her see it.
ROSE: Hm?
DIRK: I know I sound pretty nonchalant most of the
time, but actually I’m scared shitless of myself.
DIRK: I’ve always had this uncanny ability to chart
a course from A to Z and not give a fuck about any of the letters
in between.
DIRK: I’m not sure anyone should be allowed to have
that much foresight. Especially a guy like me.
ROSE: What upsets me most, I think, is the distance
this is all putting between me and everyone I know.
ROSE: The farther above the board you fly, the
harder it gets to care about the pieces.
DIRK: I hear you. And personally speaking, things
usually work out for the best when all of those pieces do exactly
what I say.
DIRK: So I’m also probably not the kind of guy who
should get to be right all the time.
Rose laughs softly. She’s not scared of this
abyss she’s staring into at all. She doesn’t even think to look
away.
ROSE: There’s really not an inch of humility in
you, is there.
DIRK: I’ve just spent a lot of time in my own
head.
DIRK: Maybe absolute self-absorption is the
inevitable outcome, when the self is all you’ve ever known. When
you’re drowning in it.
DIRK: I know there’s plenty of things that suck
about me. No point feigning humility about the things that
don’t.
DIRK: And yes, I may be a shitty human being,
but,
DIRK: As a mechanic, I’m off the fucking
charts.
Rose’s eyes have grown distant, almost
mirrorlike. Dirk can see himself reflected in her vacant stare.
ROSE: All the pieces in their place.
ROSE: The mechanisms all running smoothly.
She says this in a hollow tone. It’s the
disarming voice a puppeteer ventriloquizes for a marionette. Her
head falls toward her shoulder slowly. Dirk catches her cheek as
she slides into sleep. It’s difficult for the untrained ear to spot
the exact moment in their conversation when the words she was
saying stopped being hers and started being his. Or maybe they were
her words. Does it really matter? In many respects, they’re
basically the same person, aren’t they? Kindred spirits in blood
and perspective, the puppet masters of the respective games they
like to believe they’re playing.
But you already knew that, right?