Title: Sometimes
Summary: "Are you human?" they ask. (Are you a traitor?) But there is nothing you can give that will satisfy them, so instead you smile and give them nothing.
Notes: I started writing this when I was maybe two continents into the game, and as a result it is very much not canon compliant, as far as Karl's childhood goes. Oops.
Sometimes, when people think you can't hear, they – well. They talk.
Every once in a while, the particularly brave – or particularly curious – will approach you. "Are you human?" they ask. (Are you a traitor?) But there is nothing you can give that will satisfy them, so instead you smile and give them nothing. The whispers, the furtive glances and suspicious stares – they follow you always. It's unfair, you think, that they should be so common and yet still hurt so much. It's not like you don't know. You've felt it, the staccato one-two hum of frost in your veins and winter gnawing at your heart. But it's easier if you pretend. It's the mentality of a child: if I don't see it, it can't see me. But you play at it nonetheless.
It takes a village to raise a child, or so you've been told. At the age of 7, this village – your village – is the whole world. The farmer's wife gives you the parts of the harvest they can't sell – stuff that's overripe, or too small to fetch a good price. The tailor gives you clothes in exchange for work, and the jeweler gives you coin for the pretty stones you find at the bottom of the river. It does not strike you as strange, that you do not have a father and a mother, only a cold empty house and an old man who is never home. This village is the whole world, and the world is small. There are no other children here, and you assume that this is just the way things are. You do not wonder.
Your oldest, dearest friend – bless his heart – worries for you. You see him bristle, when he walks besides you and some careless person makes an offhanded remark. Always, he says nothing, but his glance says all the things he does not – are you fine with this? (Are you fine with the way you are?) Always, you tell him (yourself) it does not hurt. It does not. A mantra repeated a hundred, a thousand times.
(If you lie enough, you'll surely begin to believe it as well.)
He was 6 and you were 11, and the river water sparkled in the idyllic noon light. Still you do not wonder. But as you turn to speak, you see a demon burst forth from the water's depths, jaws open wide – to bite, to rend – and you do not think, you just. (No, not like this.) The river comes to life around you, ice screaming through flesh and bone. Your friend is splashing away from the monster (dying, dying, dead – that could've been him), over to you. "Karl!" he shouts, and again, louder, "Karl!" and you can feel his hands (burning hot) on your arm (or maybe you're just cold), pulling you towards the shore, but has he always been so far away? Has the river always been so close? (There is a roaring in your ears.) "Karl." He says again, low, desperate, and you blink and the feeling is lost, swept away in the current. The river is just a river after all. Your friend laughs, would-be lighthearted. You crack a smile too, but don't manage to muster a reply. Talking seems like too momentous a trial, when you are suddenly filled with such a sense of loss. Back at the village, your friend regales the adults with a grossly exaggerated tale of your heroics. To your face, they say, "magician" and "gifted". (At your back, they whisper, "demon" and "god-child".)