[Mkguild] Life As We Know It XXXIII B

[Jack Moore]

Life As We Know It - XXXIII B

“Yes.” I said.  “You want to die.”  Chamomile went silent.  “I’m not wrong
am I?”  She didn’t respond but averted her gaze.  “I’ll continue then.”
“Over the last day I’ve investigated every step you’ve taken and every
person you’ve visited.” I said.  “You’ve been to the library daily and
spent every night in your room working with books and hair samples.  I even
found the people you bought food from and the old man you played Nine Men’s
Morris with.”  My heart was racing so fast the last words came out mangled.

“You’ve got this.” Triche whispered in my ear.  His left hand came to rest
on my shoulder.  “Relax.”  I took a long deep breath.  Chamomile struggled
to respond.
“Okay, you’ve done a good job finding out everything about me.” She said.
 “What do you think I’m here for then?  You have all the answers detective,
answer this question.  What the hell was I doing in my room every night!?”
 Chamomile’s eyes went wide as she yelled the last words.  Spit flicked
onto my face.  I took a second to wipe it off.
“It’s rather simple.” I said.  “You came here trying to end the Curse.”
 Chamomile’s lip pulled into a thin line.  “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I can’t….go on.” Chamomile said.  I nodded.
“Well, something bothered me when I first interviewed you.” I said.  “You
couldn’t remember what day the Assault ended despite being there.  And you
said you were successful in your mission, but George is alive.  In fact you
couldn’t seem to remember his name until pressed.”
“It’s almost as if I was distracted by something, like my arrest.”
Chamomile quipped.
“Yes but you weren’t acting it.” I said.  “You were amazingly calm and
collected.  In fact, you were more calm after you were arrested then before
I arrested you.  And now you want me to believe you were panicked and
unable to think clearly?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Chamomile said.
“That’s okay, I’ve got plenty to explain myself.” I said.  “You claimed to
have betrayed Blackhorne Keep to serve Nasoj.  I believe that part.  You
claim to have been in Metamor until the Assault was repealed.  That is a
lie.
“And you told me you were still supporting Nasoj, that you wanted to see
the Keep destroyed, lots of generic evil things to inflame our feelings.” I
said.  “All of those were lies also.”  Chamomile chuckled.
“You really think you know me.” Chamomile said.  “You don’t know me at all.”
“I know you spent the last week collecting hair samples from morphed
Keepers.” I said.  “If you were here to spy on us that’s an odd way to go
about it.”
“A good spy collects information—
“Information does not grow on corgi’s.” I said.  “Someone who is here to
spy wouldn’t have spent so much time exposed, much less spent time
gathering hair.”  Chamomile let out a cry.
“Okay you think you know what I’ve been doing here?” Chamomile cried.  “Do
you want to know something?  Getting driven from Metamor was one of the
most disgusting moments in my life.”  I didn’t respond so she started to
rant more.  “This world is a blood soaked chaotic place and you stand in
the way of order!”  I still didn’t respond.  I let her yell at me what she
yelled at herself many times.
“I want to create a better world.” Chamomile said.  “And if that means
Metamor has to fall, then so be it.  I’ll leave it burning with corpses
piled high.  If you have to die for the long term peace, it is worth it.”
“If you don’t care about us then why are you trying to break the curse?” I
asked.
“I’m amazed sometimes, that the curse didn’t break you,” Chamomile said,
just talking through me.  “It was meant to weaken you, leave you helpless
and allow us to march through Metamor without a pitched battle.  You should
have let it happen, losing a third of your people to becoming animals is a
small price to pay.  And there is no price too great to achieve order!”
“If you think we’re all just obsticals in your way, why did you spend time
befriending an old man and playing Nine Men’s Morris with him?” I asked.
At that Chamomile was left speechless.
“I-I needed to-I-I uh I” She swallowed.
“Chamomile, I find your journal.” I said.  “The one you had hidden under
the floorboard under your bed.”  Now she sank into the bed, unable to say a
word.  “I know you were trying to reverse the curse.  You were
experimenting with those hair samples, trying to turn them back into human
hair.”
“I thought I was finally getting somewhere…” Chamomile mumbled.  “The last
one did do something.”
“It was a temporary effect.” Isaac said, “And even if it had lasted, it
wouldn’t work with living creatures.  Using magic on living people and on
inanimate objects are two very different things.”
“I was told that the day I first learned how to heal someone.” Chamomile
said.  She looked up but not at us.  Instead she looked past us.  “I healed
a boy with a broken…arm I believe.  He had been climbing on a piece of
stonework and fell.  Children need to be supervised.”
“Sometimes I feel the world needs to be supervised.”  Chamomile didn’t
respond.  She looked up at the three behind me.
“Can—“ She sighed.  “Can I talk to Janelle alone?”  I glanced up at Triche,
who nodded.  He signaled the others and they exited, grabbing Sebastian on
the way out
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