I still need to write any scenes where Pontifex does anything remotely trickstery
not a trickster
“I’m not a trickster, Moone. Not really. I play the part of one, but a wolf could never be a trickster. That’s foxes and coyotes, and always targeting wolves. The word shenanigan is itself from the Irish, ‘I play the fox.’ Brer Fox and Brer Bear were the butts of prankster’s jokes because they were predators up against a prey species, Brer Rabbit. But it’s a world of predators, out there, in real life. Wolves and foxes. If you go alone you need your wits. A big dusty smoky world of predators, Moone, and in a world of predators you’re either the trickster or you stick together in a pack.”
“When Epimetheus gifted every species, and it came time to gift man, finding no gifts left it was his brother provided the gods’ fire. Rabbits have speed, foxes have cunning, the strength of the wolf is the pack; and man was left to survive on luck alone. If you truly are wolf, and not man or fox, why do you play at being the fox, if it’s against your nature?”
“Because I’m a lone wolf. I’ve always been alone. Not always. But for long enough.”
Pontifex’s soul was splayed open like a dissection cast against the wall by a magic lantern, white and delicate with intricate tendrils stretching off into the past and leaving phantom limbs behind. There was a heavy burden that he shouldered here; to bestow one’s boons upon someone else was to leave one’s own banes pressing naked into the aura. Pontifex’s boon was for the raising to a higher plane, but his boon was pain, and damnation, and the need for self-destruction. He needed to destroy Moone because he knew that he would never win in that fight.
Pontifex had a fox in his past as a wolf, somewhere way back. A steady flame that Pontifex had wanted to dash himself against. There were so many structures that Pontifex had put in place around himself, to keep himself from implosion, and Moone’s heart plummeted to the pit of his stomach to realize that maybe his prying away at Pontifex’s layers, attempting to coax deeper honesties out of him, had done far more damage than benefit.
isengrim's name
Pontifex brushed by, and headed out of the tent, leaving Moone alone. “I know your true name, though I dare not speak it aloud,” whispered Moone to himself. Not daring to speak that aloud either, not even touching it with Pontifex, so as not to force the issue.
Was it out of fear that he was wrong? Was he afraid of the power of true names, the magic of potentially being able to have the Pontifex under his control?
Or did it have more to do with the purpose of the man’s true identity, the connection to his past he had beyond his title? If it was that, which reason did Moone have to fear: was he afraid that he would crack the Pontifex further by reminding him of his past? Or was he afraid that speaking the man’s true name to him really would act as a salve, and heal him?
That thought above all would give Moone power in Pontifex’s life above the magic of True Names, the power of the healing touch. Moone searched himself and discovered that was the reason, that he didn’t want to be part of anyone’s life. There was a raw beating nerve there.
Pontifex had sacrificed so much for Moone, though, and continued to struggle every day under the weight of his naked bane. He could give it up at any time, Pontifex could reclaim his boon on the one hand, or literally end it all on the other, but there was an element of hope there that Pontifex kept extending, a feather fluttering in his palm threatening to be blown away by the wind. What was that hope? Moone mulled his mind back to the conversation and the thoughts of Foresight and Hindsight, Prometheus and Epimetheus, and how Prometheus was tortured for giving man fire, and how Epimetheus wed Pandora, bringer of the woes into the world. Two opposite forces, dancing around each other. Pandora was given the box, the jar of Banes, from her husband, while her brother-in-law was the source of Boons. Was the jar closed before despair could escape? Or was the last Bane out of the jar truly hope? Moone had heard it both ways; he looked up to the Pontifex now, wondering what the hope that he held onto was.
The man needed more than false hope to hold on. Moone could see that he was slipping. Moone truly would do just fine on his own, but as much as Pontifex played at that he was fine out on his own as well, Moone could see that it wasn’t true. The Pontifex had had a life, before, and lost it, and maybe was afraid of gaining it back and forming connections again. Because to love means to open oneself up to loss. And Moone had learned that, and had cut himself off as well. Maybe they were two fools out in the same boat.
Moone realized how callous he had been at the loss of Mushroom Cloud in particular. He was so used to losing people around him, even when she had trusted him with her life. [mirror Unwin’s people losing their own leader they’d trusted so well- they survive while Cloud doesn’t] Moone vowed not to let any of Unwin’s men down now [makes losing Larry the worse for it, victory to gain him back alive.] Moone had never had a family, not a real one. He was in a bigamous relationship with hundreds of succubus wives, but didn’t shoulder his burden or open himself up to any of them. Maybe the reason he’d shut himself off from grieving Mushroom Cloud was because he’d felt that they truly had had a chance together. Not that their relationship had been anything but professional while she’d still been alive, or that Moone had even thought to escalate it at all. Maybe he was seeing himself do Cloud a service, but of course there was no way to know that for sure. Cloud would go along with anything Moone would say, and that thought made Moone uncomfortable; the girl didn’t really know what she was doing, or getting herself into. She had never known loss, as far as Moone knew. It was for the best that they’d left that pathway unexplored, not that it made her death any less of a tragedy. It was strange, learning to let go of something he had no voice in changing anyway. If Cloud were alive, he would still make the same decision, and her being gone didn’t cause him to mourn over the opportunity he’d never gotten the chance to take. He had had the chance to take it, both of them had, and they’d made the right choice. That didn’t stop Moone from seeing Cloud’s face in the Pontifex.
The character of Isengrim the wolf in the medieval cycle of Reynard the fox represented corruption of the church, absolving animals of their worst sins through indulgences. The wolf had been a hypocrite, to have a wife and children. Reynard was a trickster, and they were animals, and it was a different time besides; the hero was allowed to overstep boundaries, seduce/rape Isengrim’s wife and force the children to watch, before pissing in their eyes the frothy postcoital piss and blinding them permanently, so they last thing their eyes ever saw was their mother being made the whore by their father’s mortal enemy. Reynard’s groin was insatiable; he had a wife of his own, children of his own, but one of the charges against him was sodomy with the buck hare Cuward, spooning behind him as they read out of the catholic credo together. Maybe it was this aversion to homosexuality that caused Pontifex’s reticence now, though he clearly ached for Moone. It was part of Moone’s growing maturity now, though, that if Pontifex were to decide to surmount that obstacle, Moone would no longer need him.
And shut Pontifex down, the way that Pontifex had shut him down that night? Moone thought back to the time with Edward, the sheer needing that the werewolf had exhibited, and Moone, though needing no physical touch himself, had given in, gifted Edward that much of him, and allowed Edward to… to what, to heal? Yes. Maybe. This argument seemed too well-worn out by now, an argument that Moone had only started with himself recently, which went to show how frequently he went over it in his head. Moone hadn’t really seen Edward since then, didn’t know if he’d just abandoned Edward to pine away after having tasted the fruit once but needing more of it. It was a balancing game once again, like when Moone had tried to dig into the Pontifex’s past and strip away his well-placed guide frames. He wasn’t sure which move to make, to keep his friend stable, but he was positive that making no move at all was the costliest by far.
I had this idea for how to regain Moone's boon during the big fight with Kissifer but I forget exactly how it goes now
Clootie strip from the Waters of Bernini, plus ???
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