The Grand Highblood's voice hits him less as a sound than a force, as if it were what presses him back against the wall again, trembles him down to bone and makes his organs feel loose as jelly. The calm to follow does not help.
He's breathing hard again, breath a gasping sound for fear as the story is laid into him. Were times different, were it someone else and not him, were not sense and the fear wrought by voodoos there to hold him from anything greater, he might protest. He's not his ancestor, not the preacher and revolutionary--but that's not solely what this is about, is it? He gets it, or gets it as much as he can here in the dream: the reason conforms to mind as any logic a dream ever has. He's a mutant who's made followers, a heretic leader, cullbait gone recruiting others who would surely die for daring to show loyalty to one such as him. He didn't grow up on Alternia to never think of that. Aiding and abetting isn't let off easy when the main figure is someone like him.
When the Highblood reaches down to touch him, he's a paradox. He sits still as stone, but the tilt of his head comes easy, body pliant as a doll to a puppetmaster. His eyes are held wide and open; he dares not to blink, even as terror-tears slip past the lids to roll down his cheeks. He scarce dares to breathe, perhaps doesn't deserve it with the truths he's being told. His fault, all of it, disease and curse indeed.
When he lets go, Karkat makes but a whine. The sound is as thin and weak as he is next to him. He gets it now. Like always, his past self of even a moment ago is ever infinitely stupid.
"I..."
But now what? He can't say he's sorry; he knows it would do no good and have no point. For all his momentary defiance, he finds himself now at a loss.
no subject
He's breathing hard again, breath a gasping sound for fear as the story is laid into him. Were times different, were it someone else and not him, were not sense and the fear wrought by voodoos there to hold him from anything greater, he might protest. He's not his ancestor, not the preacher and revolutionary--but that's not solely what this is about, is it? He gets it, or gets it as much as he can here in the dream: the reason conforms to mind as any logic a dream ever has. He's a mutant who's made followers, a heretic leader, cullbait gone recruiting others who would surely die for daring to show loyalty to one such as him. He didn't grow up on Alternia to never think of that. Aiding and abetting isn't let off easy when the main figure is someone like him.
When the Highblood reaches down to touch him, he's a paradox. He sits still as stone, but the tilt of his head comes easy, body pliant as a doll to a puppetmaster. His eyes are held wide and open; he dares not to blink, even as terror-tears slip past the lids to roll down his cheeks. He scarce dares to breathe, perhaps doesn't deserve it with the truths he's being told. His fault, all of it, disease and curse indeed.
When he lets go, Karkat makes but a whine. The sound is as thin and weak as he is next to him. He gets it now. Like always, his past self of even a moment ago is ever infinitely stupid.
"I..."
But now what? He can't say he's sorry; he knows it would do no good and have no point. For all his momentary defiance, he finds himself now at a loss.
His gaze drops down to the floor.