Re: The woods
It made him, the real Luke, angry, how easily Wren capitulated and sat when she was ordered to. His anger wasn't directed at her, exactly, but rather his other self, because he was so much like Thomas and not the kind of man he'd wanted to be at all. He took a seat in the other, forgotten chair, and maybe he should have just grabbed Wren and left, but it was too late now. The pills made him think that something really, really bad had happened, and there were so many possibilities he couldn't settle on just one, so he waited, to see if the answer might be provided for him.
The other not-Luke had made his way around the desk while she spoke, behind it and across from her, and he dropped into his chair with a sort of fluidity that suggested he had practiced the best way to sit without it being painful many times before perfecting his method. He leaned back, toying with the cane between his fingers, and he looked like he belonged there, this older Luke, seated behind a desk with all the world before him. All those names, one after the other, they were all familiar, but it was obvious that her knowledge of them puzzled him. Not-Luke didn't know her, after all, and he was attempting to piece together how the people he'd known could have known her without the two of them ever having crossed paths. And, he had to be careful not to outright implicate himself; severed ties had gotten him this far, and if the truth were ever to be dragged out of the ground where he'd buried it, all of this, it would have been for nothing.
"We've never met, have we? You don't look familiar, and I never forget a face." It was a casual question, paired with an equally flippant remark, but he was watching her with a shrewd, piercing gaze, waiting for the smallest of slip-ups for him to seize upon. "All those names are real," he continued. "They existed, though most have forgotten them now. Orin Monarch might have done the best for himself, out of--" He paused. "Out of them all. Nell's not doing too badly either, last I heard. Things got better once she cut things off with Sebastian-- ugly business with his family, you know." He tipped his head to the side, wondering just how much she did know.
But the others, he didn't elaborate on the others, and the real Luke knew that was a bad sign.