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[unnecessaryflourishes]

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[funbreaker]

[ Souls marked by loss and sacrifice.

Thancred frowns, a hand lifting up to rest over his chest, as if his beating heart might somehow hold the answer for him. It is impossible to know what he might have lost or sacrificed when he can't find a single memory to hold onto, a single experience to anchor himself to. Yet he'd come here, to this ghostly city, and that apparently means something.

There is only one way that this stranger could say such things about him with authority. Yes, he could be lying, and yet Thancred must admit he doesn't suspect that. He can't say why, but he does believe he's decent at reading other people, and the towering man's words seem genuine. ]

... We know each other. [ It's the only reasonable conclusion to draw, yet no matter how long he studies the stranger's face, it becomes no more familiar to him. He heaves out a sigh, finding it more and more frustrating that he can't recall a thing now that he is in the company of someone who knows him. Are they friends? Enemies? Or something in between? ]

[unnecessaryflourishes]

That we do.

[Emet-Selch makes not the slightest effort to clarify how, or why. He doesn't even offer the slightest suggestion of whether or not he had been similarly giant during their prior meetings. But he sees no reason to deny that they do understand each other. That he knows something of Thancred's soul, though it has come as much in bits and snatches as anything. Little glimpses of who Thancred is, when he is not turning some manner of ire his way simply for being an Ascian. But those glimpsed had yet been enough. If not the complete picture of who Thancred might be.]

Why, for a time we even traveled together.

[Again, he doesn't mention any details. But this time, it's more deliberately done. A moment of curiosity - absent his memories, what assumptions might Thancred come to, he wonders.]

[funbreaker]

[ They traveled together? Thancred frowns, brain still grasping at details that simply will not come. It feels as if this stranger (who is not actually a stranger) is telling him the bare minimum, and he can't determine if that's an attempt to not overwhelm him or if it's meant to get under his skin.

His neck is beginning to ache from being tilted up for this long, and that alone makes the claim a bit difficult to believe. Something isn't quite checking out here. ]

Were you this size when we did so? Surely that must have been a burden for one of us.

[ It would mean there was either someone too small for the world they were traveling through, or someone too big for it. Both could be problematic. ]

[unnecessaryflourishes]

[While it's not wrong, precisely, that Emet-Selch is offering only the barest minimum of information - even here he can't entirely resist the urge to attempt to provoke Thancred a little - he is yet attempting to not be completely overwhelming. He remembers his own trip to the Horizon, after all, and the feeling of knowing so very little about himself and the world he might have come from and it is not one he would have considered enjoyable.

Even if his not unaware that his slow careful offerings of information are likely not helping much. And yet, it feels more correct than simply seeking to overwhelm Thancred. Tempting though it might certainly be.]

No. I was nearer your height, at the time.

[Plus or minus a foot or so, but he figures that's negligible, given the vast disparity between their heights as they currently stand.]

[funbreaker]

I see.

[ All of this must have taken place outside the Horizon, in a time and place that Thancred cannot begin to conceive of, and straining to remember will only make him more frustrated. He still knows none of the details and this stranger-who-isn't-a-stranger doesn't see fit to share them with him. It would be a bit of a waste, given that it will all come back to Thancred as soon as he leaves this place.

Yet he also can't quite stop himself from asking questions as he continues to take in these strange surroundings and how they somehow manage to feel both foreign and familiar to him. ]

And you can simply... do that? Change your form at will, even outside the Horizon?

[ Yet this seems to be the height that the stranger prefers, if this is how he chooses to appear here. Somehow he suspects there is more to it than simply wanting to tower over others. ]

[unnecessaryflourishes]

[Perhaps fortunately, simply asking questions is one of the better ways to get answers out of Emet-Selch. There might still be no guarantee that any answers will be the complete truth, but they are still answers nonetheless.]

To an extent, yes. Though it would not be as simple a matter as it is here.

[Doable, yes - he has done so many a time - but not quite so easy.]

[funbreaker]

I see.

[ Thancred crosses his arms, tapping his foot against the unfamiliar ground beneath him. There is more he could ask, but to what end? Soon enough his memories will return to him and then he will be able to form a conclusion about this interaction, bizarre as it has been. ]

Well, if you have aught else to tell me while I'm here, feel free. Otherwise, I will continue to wander. And I expect we'll speak again, ere long.

[ He's not certain he should ask for a tour, or that he wants one at all. ]

[unnecessaryflourishes]

I do not. You are free to leave should you wish.

[In time, Emet-Selch imagines they will meet again. Either in the Horizon once more, or through any of the various other means at their disposal. But if Thancred is disinclined to remain in his domain, then Emet-Selch sees no particular reason to force the matter.

(There is no point to it, and he has no immediate reason to do so besides.)]

Though I imagine that we will speak again, given time.