Lambert can’t read what’s on the paper, but he’ll know what it is soon enough. With a breath, he presses his palm to the page, ink starts to fill it where Rita leaves off, wincing as her own memories hit him — but it gives him room to build on.
The disjointed memories colored by Lambert’s emotions as an observer, but it’s what he knows. The witcher pours in the memory of seeing the scars on Strange’s arms after Portland, and the understanding of the kind of agony that must have put them there, the fear that it might happen again and he’ll be helpless to stop it — it has happened again, and now Strange is dead. He calls up the memory of Childermass telling him about being raised in the Winter Court — ”Who would even notice one less crow around?" the changeling asks, and it bleeds into the heart pounding terror of a dark night, fleeing from the Rose Queen’s gardens after an attempt to retrieve some stranger’s family and get some answers, only to have Childermass ripped right from his hands. In reality, Steven’s agony from the Rose had only hurt Lambert so much, but memory sharpens and magnifies it, and he remembers much more clearly the anger he felt at himself while Steven sobbed into his shirt after the Rose changed him, because of the blood binding him to a being he should never had to call mother. It isn't fair. He can't outrun what's in his veins, what he never asked for.
Look. Fae did this, and thought nothing of it. It’s a litany of accusation, colored by Lambert’s own feelings of helplessness and anger. Of course they’d defend themselves — of course they’d grasp for every advantage they could have. Because it’s all they have as mortals.
There’s still a bit on the page left —
“The second thing I’m giving you is the truth: your Queen is wrong, but she’s too busy moping to see it,” Lambert tells him. “The greatest enemy she has isn’t the Beast, it’s the bitch who cheated her way onto Winter’s throne. The one who hates the Carnival so much she sent demons to do her dirty work for her.”
Lambert’s been to Hell for the Carnival. Literally. This set of memories is less emotional: he imprints the page with that helter skelter rescue, the ravaged forms of the Supervisors and carnival workers they’d pulled from the Carnival, and ties it back to the memory of a protection spell that should have concealed them — but for a vampire reeling on the ground, forced to recite her secrets for Childermass and Lambert under the compulsion of silver and magic.
The most beautiful woman, the one with white hair ... she had it out for you disgusting fools too. The Ringmaster had called it no proof. It wouldn’t hold up in the eyes of any law. But with Ignatius has just told them about where Frost was this whole time, the pieces line up too neatly, don’t they? If either Rita or Syrlya touches the page now, they’ll get those memories too, Lambert’s suspicion and the Ringmaster’s weary resignation. Even if it was true, would it make a difference? And yet if it was true...
With the instantaneous way that knowledge pours onto the page, what should have taken hours to explain only takes moments. Lambert blinks, shaking his head.
“... As soon as the witcher and the guardian had filled the page with their memories, they granted it to the fae by touching it to his flesh.”
Lambert reaches out and slaps the page onto Ignatius’s forehead ... right about when the Ringmaster’s voice echoes tersely into the abyss of the sea.
”Lambert, where are you? Zangetsu returned with Strange and we have to leave immediately.”
this is the longest tag i’ve ever written in this game goodbye
The disjointed memories colored by Lambert’s emotions as an observer, but it’s what he knows. The witcher pours in the memory of seeing the scars on Strange’s arms after Portland, and the understanding of the kind of agony that must have put them there, the fear that it might happen again and he’ll be helpless to stop it — it has happened again, and now Strange is dead. He calls up the memory of Childermass telling him about being raised in the Winter Court — ”Who would even notice one less crow around?" the changeling asks, and it bleeds into the heart pounding terror of a dark night, fleeing from the Rose Queen’s gardens after an attempt to retrieve some stranger’s family and get some answers, only to have Childermass ripped right from his hands. In reality, Steven’s agony from the Rose had only hurt Lambert so much, but memory sharpens and magnifies it, and he remembers much more clearly the anger he felt at himself while Steven sobbed into his shirt after the Rose changed him, because of the blood binding him to a being he should never had to call mother. It isn't fair. He can't outrun what's in his veins, what he never asked for.
Look. Fae did this, and thought nothing of it. It’s a litany of accusation, colored by Lambert’s own feelings of helplessness and anger. Of course they’d defend themselves — of course they’d grasp for every advantage they could have. Because it’s all they have as mortals.
There’s still a bit on the page left —
“The second thing I’m giving you is the truth: your Queen is wrong, but she’s too busy moping to see it,” Lambert tells him. “The greatest enemy she has isn’t the Beast, it’s the bitch who cheated her way onto Winter’s throne. The one who hates the Carnival so much she sent demons to do her dirty work for her.”
Lambert’s been to Hell for the Carnival. Literally. This set of memories is less emotional: he imprints the page with that helter skelter rescue, the ravaged forms of the Supervisors and carnival workers they’d pulled from the Carnival, and ties it back to the memory of a protection spell that should have concealed them — but for a vampire reeling on the ground, forced to recite her secrets for Childermass and Lambert under the compulsion of silver and magic.
The most beautiful woman, the one with white hair ... she had it out for you disgusting fools too. The Ringmaster had called it no proof. It wouldn’t hold up in the eyes of any law. But with Ignatius has just told them about where Frost was this whole time, the pieces line up too neatly, don’t they? If either Rita or Syrlya touches the page now, they’ll get those memories too, Lambert’s suspicion and the Ringmaster’s weary resignation. Even if it was true, would it make a difference? And yet if it was true...
With the instantaneous way that knowledge pours onto the page, what should have taken hours to explain only takes moments. Lambert blinks, shaking his head.
“... As soon as the witcher and the guardian had filled the page with their memories, they granted it to the fae by touching it to his flesh.”
Lambert reaches out and slaps the page onto Ignatius’s forehead ... right about when the Ringmaster’s voice echoes tersely into the abyss of the sea.
”Lambert, where are you? Zangetsu returned with Strange and we have to leave immediately.”