[Lost]

[sl4irl.livejournal.com]

"Which concentration camp were you guarding when you were Taken?"

He reeled a little after that one, scrutinising it carefully for some kind of humour, the scathing sort of sarcasm you sometimes encountered. Which cost him valuable time, of course: Crystal was eyeing him with a look on her face that seemed...newly informed. It was nonsense, of course, but he felt strangely winded. It was probably that he had just grown unaccustomed to Autumn Courtiers evoking the emotion they were supposed to. Essex was a mess, with Red undoubtably an endless fount of knowledge; but only to his memory properly scaring him once (albeit most marvelously upon that singular occasion). & she was the best of comrades.

This cowled character had complained about it, in fact, questioned the absence of fear. So now he was righting things via a well-placed lie. Wasn't he? He kept on saying he was a powerful being. Not powerful enough to fend off Summer Court in a scrap, perhaps, but...Maybe in other ways. The others sitting near to him certainly seemed to find his claim feasible.

Snaggle could remember the memories that led him out. Could remember (eventually, after the kidnap by Privateers, the being trapped in the Hedge, the second attack...) returning to the school he could recall only to found his fetch had left years before. Why would he have been fitted with false memories to conceal his past, & if he had been why a low grade East End comprehensive?

But then, when had Whisper ever needed justification or reasoning for anything?

It was just a technique, he reminded himself. Feign power, sprout bullshit, spread terror. None too different to a few of the more sly interrogation techniques he knew. But it had worked all too well: for the rest of the gathering the thoughts of Arcadia, of his Keeper there.

So at the stage in the seance the countdown was supposed to hit three and instead "Keeper's going to get you" was whispered into his ear he was almost floored. The power of nonsense should never be underestimated.