It's all happening again. For months, some supernatural presence has stalked and taken some of their number. And now food is running low — wildlife is scarce, there is no "more" to be found. Now people are afraid of when they might eat again. Tensions are only rising more and more each day; there's been looting, stealing. Little wonders if there's been worse.
Perhaps it was always going to end this way. Again, and again.
'I am the Rot, and I will rot within you,' the thing claims, but some of them have already been rotting. Still, he tries. Still, he fights. What Edward Little doesn't know yet is that in a few days' time he will kill a man for the first time in his life. Not in an act of aggression spurned on by the thing that whispers in their ears. Not in a dizzied haze of frenzy. He will be himself when it happens — and that, truly, is why he will lose himself after.
For now, he thinks there is still hope. But it's all so precarious, and he's watched his worst nightmares play out before his eyes — like pieces of his own memory conjured forth. This could be the Expedition, what went wrong, happening again. And he doesn't know how to protect everyone. He needs help.
Which is why, when he sees Crozier heading into town, presumably to make one of his drop-offs, Little feels a sweep of relief so strong that it nearly sends him reeling. His heart leaps; he rushes towards the other man with a thud of heavy boots. "Captain—!" he calls him, even now, in moments when he cannot help himself. He needs a captain.
But he can see it right away. Of course he can; Little knows him. Maybe not in the way some others do — but he can see the look in Crozier's eyes. They're capable of such a softness, something warm, fond, fatherly, wounded. They're also capable of a sharpness so cutting that a man would find himself unable to keep contact. He looks irritated, and Little's immediately apologetic in the face of it. (And yet, he feels a slight twinge of irritation of his own.)
"I apologise for disrupting you, sir. I know you must be busy, but— I was hoping we might speak. About our circumstances."
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Perhaps it was always going to end this way. Again, and again.
'I am the Rot, and I will rot within you,' the thing claims, but some of them have already been rotting. Still, he tries. Still, he fights. What Edward Little doesn't know yet is that in a few days' time he will kill a man for the first time in his life. Not in an act of aggression spurned on by the thing that whispers in their ears. Not in a dizzied haze of frenzy. He will be himself when it happens — and that, truly, is why he will lose himself after.
For now, he thinks there is still hope. But it's all so precarious, and he's watched his worst nightmares play out before his eyes — like pieces of his own memory conjured forth. This could be the Expedition, what went wrong, happening again. And he doesn't know how to protect everyone. He needs help.
Which is why, when he sees Crozier heading into town, presumably to make one of his drop-offs, Little feels a sweep of relief so strong that it nearly sends him reeling. His heart leaps; he rushes towards the other man with a thud of heavy boots. "Captain—!" he calls him, even now, in moments when he cannot help himself. He needs a captain.
But he can see it right away. Of course he can; Little knows him. Maybe not in the way some others do — but he can see the look in Crozier's eyes. They're capable of such a softness, something warm, fond, fatherly, wounded. They're also capable of a sharpness so cutting that a man would find himself unable to keep contact. He looks irritated, and Little's immediately apologetic in the face of it. (And yet, he feels a slight twinge of irritation of his own.)
"I apologise for disrupting you, sir. I know you must be busy, but— I was hoping we might speak. About our circumstances."