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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 17:26:41 GMT -5
After he had gotten Julian to go and rest, he padded back out to find Erik again, all grinning teeth and happy eyes.
"Is Julian a person now? I mean, a human person?"
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 17:39:27 GMT -5
"I don't know, Mortimer," Erik said tiredly. "I don't know what Julian is... Only that I cannot hear his thoughts, or feel his feels. Erik fears there is something dreadfully..."
He stopped himself, dry-washing his face with his hands and offering Mortimer a forced smile.
"Do not worry yourself," he told him, though he was perhaps more in need of reassurance. "Erik will find out what has happened."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 17:45:29 GMT -5
"You can't feel my thoughts or feelings and you still love me."
He lifted one of the heavy mirrored sheets and moved it with the others, then surveyed the now mostly-unmirrored room, rather excited at the prospect of his tank.
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 17:55:58 GMT -5
"Of course," Erik answered automatically. "But it is different, when you... when... Julian has always been a part of Erik. Connected. To lose that connection... is a pain worse than physical."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 18:15:36 GMT -5
Mortimer didn't understand that, he supposed. He was connected to everything living in a way he couldn't even begin to hope to make Erik understand. Instead he pushed himself into the man's thin arms and purred against his chest, thinking to distract him.
The little creature produced his cello sound, and then followed that with something in the viola register. "What's this one?" he said, about the new noise.
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 18:26:31 GMT -5
Erik, very familiar with the attractive sounds Mortimer made, was happy enough to be distracted.
"That sound?" he clarified. "Sounds like a viola. The middle one; larger and deeper than a violin, smaller than the cello."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 18:32:37 GMT -5
Mortimer nodded--he knew the violin and the piano because he had heard Erik playing those, but the rest of the instruments were mysterious to him, why they made the sounds they did, or were made from certain materials or were shaped just so.
And to that end, he wondered to his friend "Erik, why do men and women have different voices? Well, why are men and women different? Why are they separate?"
It was something he had been wondering since he had intimately met Salome.
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 18:40:43 GMT -5
Erik hardly blinked at this change of subject. He was not very consistent himself.
"Well... I suppose no one really knows. But different creatures reproduced different ways; and the male and female provide different and necessary functions in that process. And there's a fellow who says that humans, and other creatures, are the way we are because nature has allowed only the strongest, the best adapted, to survive."
Erik smiled.
"But I suspect men and women have different voices so that a fuller range might be given to human expression, and music be made from the differences."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 18:43:30 GMT -5
"But why don't people all have the same range then?"
He thought Julian had a broad range, for a man, and had not actually heard Erik sing. As for himself, he could imitate any human sound, and many inhuman ones. He frowned.
"Am I a man or a woman?"
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 18:56:58 GMT -5
"I suppose because we're different sizes," Erik said, having dissected human bodies. "As are our vocal cords. But it varies greatly, depending on how one uses one's voice."
His own range, after all, was uncommonly large.
He leaned back slightly to study Mortimer. He had never really asked himself this, for as a child he had perhaps mirrored himself onto Wanizame, and seen a boy in a similar position to his own. And since then, nothing had happened to dissuade that initial assumption. But he realized now, in this instant, that he had no external evidence for this beyond what Mortimer had presented himself.
"Erik doesn't know," he said at last. "I don't know enough about what you are. But it seems to me... it seems... that it's up to you."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 19:09:11 GMT -5
"Do I have to choose?"
His features fell a bit, presenting Erik with a pretty, girlish sort of pout that sat on his Julianesque masculine features and drove home the utter confusion of his being.
"Erik and Julian call Mortimer "he, him" does that mean it's better to be a man? I should be a man?"
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Post by Erik on Mar 4, 2009 19:15:49 GMT -5
"Of course it is better to be a man," Erik said, as if there were no question. "Men have the power, the freedom. Men do as they like--men who are not, like Erik, shunned by all society. Women are moved from one man to another like chattel, for they are the weaker sex. They are, therefore, also the more delicate, the more beautiful. And can have power over men's hearts. But they were born the lesser sex."
He contemplated this for a moment.
"But it is perhaps not so necessary for you to choose, though people--up there--will make assumptions. One must call people something, after all, and--" he shrugged "--as a boy, I suppose Erik wished the company of another... like him."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 4, 2009 19:22:44 GMT -5
"Then you like men better?"
He purred up against Erik, tucking his soft head of hair under the man's bony chin.
He wasn't sure what being shuffled around meant, exactly--he liked being able to be with whomever he wanted, man or woman, and of course had no concept of sexuality, he assumed it was this way for everyone, but Erik made the idea of women being moved from man to man sound bad, so he was sure he didn't want that. Erik did not seem to think highly of women, it seemed.
"Then I will be a man."
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Post by Erik on Mar 9, 2009 11:35:51 GMT -5
Erik thought about Christine and frowned.
"Well I wouldn't say Erik..." He cut himself off, recalling again the tense conversation he'd had with Mortimer about desire some weeks ago, and wondering what all this tended to. While he liked serving as a role model and caretaker for the little man, and often failed to full realize its import, he was capable of some reflection.
He looked down at Mortimer, leaning back slightly to place his hands on the shorter man's shoulders. "I think you ought to consult yourself, Mortimer, in what you want," he said. "Erik cannot decide for you, nor should you decide based on Erik's preferences--or what you think those might be."
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Post by Mortimer on Mar 9, 2009 17:13:03 GMT -5
"Then I like the way I am now." But that did not mean he wouldn't continue to seek Erik's recommendations or the opinions of others--Valmont came to mind, of course. He knew everything about people and what they wanted, after all. He thought he might go live with Valmont for a while to learn, if it wouldn't break Erik's heart.
The little creature smiled and pushed back into Erik's arms.
"Will Julian still sing in the opera? I could sing for him, if he is very ill, or if he cannot sing the same way because he's a human-person now." He purred, thinking. "I would like to be in the opera..."
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