things didn't kill me (but I don't feel stronger)
The WC so far: 41136, nearly 1500 of it from this past hour. I'm feeling like putting in an all-nighter, like they'll be doing down in San Francisco. Can I, perhaps, finish it on my birthday after all? Probably not. But writing's always funnier when it's under the influence of sleep deprivation.
Meanwhile, I suddenly have a character named Crispin Grimm. He's gonna die.
This one was different. He hovered around the edges of Erik’s cage, smiling cannily. Erik looked out on the stranger in the extremities of distrust; there seemed something rusty about him, as though he’d been left too long out in the rain on several occasions. He was older than the last one, Bendict, perhaps even a year or two older than Erik himself; but if he felt the approaching hardscrabbles of time, he did not show it. Though Erik was, by his best count, thirty-four, and felt that each year had left his mark- except for, perhaps 1829, which he couldn’t for some reason remember- this stranger seemed light on his feet, playful, unwearied.
"Is there something I can do for you, then?" Erik’s tone, unwatched, was bitter. The stranger merely smiled all the more.
"It’s a strange thing to put a man in a cage," he said. "Even if he is the servant of others. I used to have servants. Never put them in cages, they would start a revolt."
Your face could start a revolt, Erik did not say, but he did manage to fix the man with a cool steel glare.
"I don’t mind the cage," he said.
The stranger chuckled. "Ah, well, now. What’s that say about you, my lad, what’s that say about you?"
"What do you mean, what’s that say about me? It says I don’t mind cages."
"It says you’re used to them," said the stranger, almost kindly. "Spend a lot of time in jails, did you? How’d you find your way out of them?"
"Your face could start a revolt," said Erik, feebly, but the moment had passed.