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One: Trust.
Depending on who you seem to ask, trust is either the simplest thing or the most complicated.
Least, that’s what his research indicates. Research can be a chore, but it’s not one he minds too much. It’s been awhile since he got to learn new things.
Back with the Archivists, learning was something he did a lot of. He had a lot of time to himself to play, ‘cause the others were always so busy. But sometimes they’d teach him things, and others he figured out for himself.
And when he first went to the Isles, he learned all sorts of things. It felt so colourful and freeing, even though if he thinks about it, he’s not sure he was supposed to ever come back.
Maybe that’s why they left him there.
Regardless, it wasn’t like he couldn’t understand any complex concept. It’s just— some things don’t seem to click the way others do. He can pick up the rules of a new game or spell just like that, but some other things were just so…
That’s why he doesn’t really understand trust, and he didn’t like when he didn’t understand something. It was frustrating, and it made him feel… naive.
(And that’s a word he doesn’t know if he understands, because the archivists always said it like a bad thing, but how could it be bad to trust?)
If he’s honest, he’s not really sure how it came up in conversation. Or why they were talking about it at all. If he thinks really hard, he can narrow it down just a little.
They were cleaning up debris with everyone else. Everyone had been un-puppeted, and now they had to make the Isles ‘liveable’ for the mortals. He wasn’t really sure what that entailed, anymore, but he thinks he might’ve used to.
(He doesn’t like to admit it, but there’s some things he’s kind of fuzzy on, now.)
Luz and King would tell him what to do. Some of the illusionists would cast illusions of the buildings as they used to be, Gus in particular, so it was just a matter of putting it back the way he was. If there was anything he was good at, it was cleaning up.
“Ugh. Belos really knows how to make a mess and not clean up,” The Collector mumbled, using his powers to secure a building in place and seal up all the cracks. It was tedious work, but at least he got to hang out with Luz and King.
“I guess you’d know,” Luz said, “Because you knew him so long, I mean.”
“Yeah, long time,” The Collector confirmed, but he couldn’t turn to look at Luz. He wasn’t going to say anything, but it took more focus than it used to after Belos’ attack. Even though he barely got him at all.
He must’ve seemed upset or something, because then Luz asked, “Do you miss him?”
“Huh?” The Collector turned his head as the last piece of rubble fell into place, “Miss who?”
“Belos,” Luz said, as she marked the building they fixed as complete, “You were friends before, right? Or, well— kinda.”
The Collector thought about his answer for a moment as he followed Luz and King to the next building— some kind of house, he assumed.
“Nah. I don’t understand why anyone would miss him,” The Collector replied, nonchalantly, “He wasn’t even a good friend anyway. He was always just— ugh.”
“Ugh sounds about right,” King agreed.
“Yeah. I mean, looking back, he didn’t really try very hard at pretending,” The Collector said, “Even the archivists were more convincing. I guess it was kinda dumb I b— trusted him.”
Believed feels like the wrong word, somehow, in a way he can’t explain. They did believe him, they reminded themselves.
“Don’t feel bad. He was a good manipulator,” Luz replied, “I mean, he manipulated the entire Isles into trusting him. He would’ve said anything to make you believe him.”
“He didn’t really have to, though,” The Collector said, as more of a muse than anything else, “I mean, when he talked, sometimes it wasn’t even convincing pretend. Like he wasn’t really trying all the time, and he didn’t really care about the game.”
“Well, Belos did tend to lay it on thick,” Eda said, popping up behind the three of them and startling the trio, “I assume that’s who you’re talking about, judging by the look on your faces.”
She was in her harpy form and had arms— or rather, arm and the arm-adjacent thing she’d attached— full of debris, which she dropped on the ground near them. She and Lilith had been tracking down the puzzle pieces to all the buildings, ‘cause some got knocked further away and some were just missing.
They did it from the sky. Lilith had to use a staff to fly, because she didn’t know how to be a harpy like Eda yet. She had a clipboard with a zillion lists to keep track of everything, and Eda would swoop down and grab the debris.
“Yeah,” The Collector agreed, “He kind of reminds me of the Archivists, but they were better pretenders. It was harder to tell when they were tired of me, so I guess he was better in that way. If he was tired, or mad at me, he’d just put a cloth over the tablet and leave it in his study.”
The Collector stuck out his tongue in focus, levitating the debris to match the illusion being held up by one of the many illusionists. With a small clap, he sealed it together.
“He’d… put a cloth over the tablet?” Luz asked, “…How long did he usually leave you in there?”
“I don’t know. Until he wasn’t tired, or mad anymore, or needed something. Maybe a few weeks. Why?” The Collector asked, turning his head to Luz, briefly.
Eda, King and Luz were all looking at him kind of funny. He tilted his head.
“Something the matter?” He asked, ignoring the uncomfortable but familiar fluttery feeling clawing at him, nameless and unwanted.
“No, no, it’s just—“ Luz seemed to be searching for the correct words and coming up short, a serious of small sighs in its place, “It’s just…”
“It doesn’t sound like he was that good at pretending at all,” King said, “Friends… don’t really leave friends in the dark— not… not like that.”
“Yeah,” Luz agreed.
“Oh,” The Collector hummed, “I guess he wasn’t really hiding it much, then. Uh, you’re not going to try anything like that, are you?”
“We just said friends don’t do that,” King said.
“It’s okay if you don’t trust us yet, but I promise we’re nothing like him.”
“I trust you,” The Collector said, and then faltered for a moment, “Why… wouldn’t I?”
He’s not sure, honestly, why that was the part of her sentence that stuck out. Maybe it’s because he always feels so weird about trust now, even though it’s not like he has any reason to.
“Because— well, because…”
“Because trust isn’t an obligation,” Eda said, “It’s, well, trust. And it’s complicated. Sometimes, even if you care about someone, you don’t feel like you can believe what they say or do, and sometimes they don’t feel safe in one way or another.”
“Trust should always be earned,” Eda continued, “You don’t have to give you trust to just anyone, and you can always take it away if you need to.”
“But—“ The Collector tried, not sure how to put this in a way that wouldn’t annoy them, “But if I don’t give anyone my trust, no one will be around me.”
“That’s not how it works,” Luz said, “You don’t need to pretend to trust us for us to stick around. You can’t earn trust if you just give up.”
“And we’re all fine with earning your trust, you know,” King replied, “You don’t have to pretend, and we're not going to lie to you again.”
The Collector smiled. Relief was a feeling he was familiar with, too— like when King freed him, for example— it makes him feel so much lighter and free, and a lot more… natural.
“I… I don’t know if I can share it yet,” The Collector admitted, “I want to, but…”
It’s been a long time, he realized briefly, since he didn’t have to force his trust. Since he didn’t have to spend hours reasoning with himself, telling himself that he wouldn’t be betrayed this time and that it was fine. And that they weren’t really acting weird, he was just imagining it.
At this point, he’s not sure he remembers how to trust, not sure he really understands what it means to him.
“It’s okay. Take your time, Collector.”
Two: Alone.
The Collector was intimately familiar with loneliness. There was a time, not too long before he met Phillip, where he thought it was all he knew.
He tried to make friends with it, so-to-speak. Learnt how long he could physically sleep for, made up games he could play while trapped and talked to himself to keep himself company, so that he wouldn’t forget how.
He’d repeat stories that he’d read, or that’d been read to him, until he remembered every word perfectly. His own voice was one of the only things he had during that time.
The silence was deafening and somehow too heavy a toll for him to carry, even if he could hold up a castle if he had to. Even now, things would get too quiet and he wouldn’t feel very… present.
It happened a lot when he was trapped. His head would get kind of fuzzy and feel like it wasn’t attached to his head, like he wasn’t really real. He thought it might be part of being two-dimensional, but then it didn’t go away.
(It was better now, whenever he was around people, whenever it was loud and there was enough there for him to feel present. He didn’t understand how it came and went, or why. He just knew he hated it.)
There was a lot of time to think when he was trapped, so he did a lot of that. He filtered in and out of feeling real, and feeling too much, and somewhere in-between that just tried to make the best of being alone.
The best part of it was whenever someone came along, though.
Even though they were all a bunch of jerks, and they kept acting weird and always ended up using him for his powers, he doesn’t really regret meeting them, not like he does Belos.
It was always hard at the start of it. When someone had the tablet and he was allowed to project like a shadow, he was— he wasn’t there, but he sort of was. Like he existed as his own shadow.
It was limiting, and he could only do it if the tablet was uncovered.
Whenever he was first let out in shadow form, though, he always had to re-adjust to certain things.
Light and sound, mostly. There was the phantom feeling of surfaces, as well, which was kind of like Touch Lite. It was… all so overwhelming, at first. It hurt. It wasn’t friendly. He hated having to get used to it again.
But he hated having to get used to not having it even more.
Every single time they left him, hid him away in the dark so no one else could learn anything he might have to offer.
They’d take everything they could from him— first his knowledge, then they’d take away his senses again and leave him alone full of feelings too big for him to handle, feelings so big that sometimes he’d just scream to hear something, to wish someone else would hear him. (But they didn’t.)
So by now, he really should’ve been used to being alone.
Even before he was trapped in the tablet, the Archivists were often busy, so it’s not like being alone was a new thing.
But ever since he was freed, being alone has— well. It feels bad.
He doesn’t know what to call all these feelings, but it almost feels like he’s holding his breath. Like he’s been holding it for a long, long time, and he can’t stop— like he’s been split in half and there isn’t anything he can do about it. It’s a type of being scared, he thinks.
He’s never put a name to it. Whenever he’s complained about it to any of his previous ‘friends’, like Belos, they just said it was called being lonely. But he knows what being lonely is like.
And maybe it is loneliness— a loneliness mixed together with some kind of fear, like a potion. It just feels too strong, too big, to be described by a six letter word.
It’s instantaneous. Any time someone leaves the room, every part of him wants to cry for them to come back, to hold on as tightly as he can.
He tries to cling to the knowledge that it’s temporary this time, and that they’ll be back real soon. But…
It’s the same reason he asked King to leave Francois with him. It wasn’t because he needed a toy, it was because it was King’s. It was King’s, and it was like a promise. It meant he would come back, because King wouldn’t leave Francois.
And— well, he knows. They told him, and he knows. They wouldn’t leave him, they promised that, and they said he didn’t have to be alone. But he’s—
Belos would get mad, sometimes.
The Collector tried not to bother him too much, tried to let Belos come to him. But sometimes, he couldn’t manage it. He’d sneak up to at least watch Belos work, to be around him.
(Belos wouldn’t let him be around anyone else. Said they wouldn’t understand until he was free.)
If he was in a good mood, then he could get away with it. Even if it was just a passive mood, or if he was mad at someone else. But sometimes Belos got really mad at him, annoyed at his ‘incessant clingliness’ and he’d send him for ‘quiet time.’
That’s what Belos had called it. He’d put the sheet over the tablet so he couldn’t project and lock him in his study. He’d always eventually remove the sheet, sometimes only a few days after.
He doesn’t want to come off clingy. He knows it can be a lot— he’s been told he was a lot. And even if they say they won’t leave him, they might change their mind if he’s too much. ( Minds are complex , they told him, and that meant they could change.)
Right now, all he wants is to win everyone over— and he can do that by being helpful, and cleaning up his and Belos’ mess.
He’s already cleaned up pretty much all of his mess, save for a few stars here and there. Belos’ was tough.
It was still difficult to use his powers, and he didn’t really know why. But he guessed it had something to do with when Belos attacked him and Luz. There wasn’t much of that green mush on him, but it was enough to hinder his powers.
His magic was weak against it. And he still didn’t feel like he had recovered. But it wasn’t a problem. He just needed to take it a little easier.
And for the most part, he did. He didn’t levitate when using his powers to save some energy, and didn’t use them much outside of helping fix the Isles up. And he usually got to hang out with Luz and King while he did!
For some reason, though, the building they were restoring today seemed more difficult. It was bigger, and it was just in so many pieces for some reason. And it was just…
He lost his grip on it for just a second, and it all came toppling down like a Fanga tower, though he managed to catch some of the pieces and slow their fall.
“Whoa, kid,” Eda said, landing near him, “Are you okay?”
He didn’t really register that she had said anything at first. He turned his head up towards her as soon as he did, “Huh?”
“You dropped the tower,” King said, bluntly.
“I lost focus for a second,” The Collector replied, “This one is bigger.”
Eda paused for a moment, and then frowned, “Are you sure? You look kind of tired.”
The Collector blinked, and hummed in thought. They didn’t feel like they could sleep, so they didn’t think they were tired, but… It didn’t feel too dissimilar. He wondered if there was another version of tired, too.
“I have seen you lift a lot of heavy things and construct a house in seconds,” King replied.
“Oh, well, my magic has been a little off since Belos used some of that Titan magic on me,” The Collector admitted.
“Wait, off? Why are you just mentioning this?” Eda asked, crouching down.
“It’ll be all better soon,” The Collector said, waving it off.
“You know, Collector,” Luz said, “It might get better faster if you took a break from using it for a bit.”
The Collector frowned, “But then how would I clean up?”
“There’s plenty of time. You can just take a break for a few days,” Luz said, “See if it helps at all. You have worked really hard.”
The Collector resisted the urge to sigh. It shouldn’t, but it felt like he was being put away again, to be brought out when he was useful. It must’ve showed in his expression, or maybe Luz was just that intuitive.
“But something tells me that there’s a reason you don’t want to,” Luz said.
“I just— I don’t like being alone,” The Collector admitted. (For someone who had almost left the Isles not too long ago, it was a hypocritical statement.)
It was such a simple way to say it, the simplicity hiding the weight it carried. It was crushing to be alone, in every way he could imagine.
“Oh,” Luz said, “You don’t have to be. It might not always be me, King or Eda, but there’s always someone else taking a break. I mean, the whole Isles aside, there’s Amity, Hunter, Willow and Gus. Oh, and Edric and Emira, Viney and Skara.”
“And, I mean, if you want, you can just hang out while we work,” Luz added, “It’s probably not the most interesting, though.”
“Wouldn’t I be in the way?”
“Of course not,” Luz said, “Just one thing, though.”
“What?”
“Promise me you’ll be honest about these things?”
“I was honest,” The Collector said.
“I mean— it’s kind of hard to explain but, I don’t want you to hide things like this. Like if you’re having trouble with your powers, or if you’re lonely. I know from experience that keeping it to yourself doesn’t really help.”
“Okay,” The Collector agreed, “I can do that.”
(There was still that lingering loneliness, the kind that’s present regardless of if you’re around people, but it felt a little bit eased in that moment.)
Three: Guilt.
He wouldn’t say he doesn’t understand guilt, per say. It’s not a new feeling— he’s felt bad about things before, he’s been sorry. But this time, he can’t seem to make it feel better.
He tried to leave because of it, before. He told Luz, King and Eda that he needed to return to the stars, that he had a lot of growing up to do. But as soon as Luz asked about it, he crumbled and told her he didn’t really wanna leave.
They already talked to him about this. Everyone makes mistakes, and he just made a lot of them. He has friends, and they forgive him. So why isn’t it gone?
That’s what he doesn’t understand. It should be gone. The rest of the Isles are still wary of him, but they’re starting to warm up to him. (Apparently being turned into a puppet ‘isn’t the weirdest thing to have happened.’)
It changes in intensity, rising and falling like the tides.
Some days— some days he feels like he’s almost over it, but then someone looks at him like that, like they hate him and he can’t handle it.
And sometimes, he looks at Luz and he can’t handle it. He just sees her rushing to his defence because of a stupid choice he made, and getting hurt and— slipping through the cracks of his hands. She told them all how she got back, how King’s dad saved her and—
They don’t know what they would’ve done if he hadn’t. They don’t know that any of them would still be here.
(It’s for that reason that they find their grudge against King’s dad has lessened, even though he did trap them for so long.)
It was his fault that Luz had almost been gone, among many other things. And he knows not everyone is over it. Even Luz, King and Eda probably aren’t. But sometimes they seem like they are, like they’ve moved forward.
And, well. They just feel stuck. They don’t really know what to do to make it better, to make it go away. They can’t just fix it with a snap of their fingers, and they hate it.
They know how these things go. At some point, you have to take a moment to try and accept the new normal, or so they’ve heard. Adjustments are never easy.
The Collector takes a deep breath, and tries to let go of just a small part of it. That’s all he can do, right?
Four: Panic Attacks.
They started when he was in the tablet. Honestly, everything seems to have. It’s hard to remember things before he was trapped, just fleeting memories of his siblings that hurt to look back on. To keep the details from getting too fuzzy, he had made murals in the Archive house.
He doesn’t understand what caused them. They’d just show up sometimes. Sometimes, it felt like he was always having one.
He didn’t know they had a name until, well.
He still doesn’t understand what made it happen this time. Sometimes it just creeps up on him, and he doesn’t know why or where it came from. It just—
Maybe it was the way that mirror glinted, or how it reflected him. Maybe he stood still too long, or stayed silent.
He had been hanging out with Hunter. It was kind of awkward. He’d never been allowed to talk to one of the grimwalkers before, and apparently Hunter and Luz had overheard a conversation between him and Belos when they were trapped in Belos’ mind, and it wasn’t the nicest.
So they were both at a bit of a loss for words, he supposed. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but wasn’t sure if he should.
Maybe it was that he was too still, too silent. Maybe it was the mirror he saw. Either way, he felt like he was being pierced through by a wave of sudden, frantic panic.
It wasn’t too bad at first. He’d dealt with this level before, it was just really uncomfortable. But then it started getting harder to breathe, and—
Suddenly, Hunter is kneeling beside him with a hand on his back and his other hand counting up to four fingers, “Breathe with me.”
They do their best to copy him. They’re starting to notice the dampness from their face— when did they start crying?
It takes a moment for copying Hunter to work, the breaths going in and out. He counts along in his head, a quiet distraction from the static it was full of.
The Collector wrinkles his nose a little. His face feels all tingly, and it’s strange.
He turns to Hunter, and he’s about to say— something. He hasn’t figured it out yet.
“I get them too,” Hunter said, a slight hint of nervousness present in his voice, “Panic attacks, I mean.”
“That’s what they’re called?” The Collector asked.
“Yeah— Luz told me,” Hunter confirmed, “They’re not really fun, but Gus taught me that trick to help it. Was there something that— uh…”
“I… I don’t know.”
Hunter made a soft noise, something like a hum, and stood up. He offered a hand to The Collector, and they took it.
“Do you, uh, want to take a break?” Hunter asked, “I have this book that we can read— if you want.”
Their curiosity was peaked, “What’s it about?”
“So, it’s called Cosmic Frontier, and it takes place in the stars—“
Five: Sleep.
When The Collector was still in the tablet, sleeping was just something that kind of happened. He didn’t really have that much control over it. He’d be awake one second, and before he knew it his eyelids started fluttering shut and he was out.
Being awake and being asleep, there wasn’t really a noticeable difference in the passage of time, so he usually didn’t even realize he’d slept at all.
He spent a lot of time sleeping, as much time as he could. But sometimes he just physically couldn’t go back to sleep, and so he’d just kind of zone out for awhile, or get lost in his thoughts. There aren’t a lot of pastimes in a prison.
It was harder to sleep now, though, and he didn’t understand that.
Maybe it was just more noticeable, because there was a clock to check the time as he would lie awake, and night would turn to day. Maybe the comforting, soft snores from the others in the room just made it more obvious he should be sleeping, too.
Sometimes, he barely had a problem at all. When he and King had their room in the Archive house, it wasn’t quite as hard. It always helped him sleep better when King read a story, just the reassurance he got from the sound of someone’s voice other than his own.
It made him feel like he could relax, and let himself get sleepy. But even when he did fall asleep, he was a light sleeper. He’d wake up multiple times during the night, like when King would come into the room to go to bed. (He’d pretend to still be sleeping so he wouldn’t feel bad, though.)
Everyone seemed to fall asleep before him now. Except for Eda.
Unable to sleep and a bit tired of tossing and turning, The Collector had crawled out of bed and floated out of the shared room they were staying in.
They kinda thought they’d be the only one awake. They usually are, so they look at the stars. But this time, Eda’s awake, too.
Curious, The Collector walked up to her.
“Hey, kid,” Eda greeted, casually, “Can’t sleep?”
“Huh? How’d you know that?” They asked, sitting down next to her. It’s their usual spot, so it’s not impolite, right?
“I’m no stranger to insomnia,” Eda shrugged. There was a moment before either of them spoke again, and they spent it staring at the sky.
“Miss them?”
“Huh?”
“Your siblings you mentioned. The— what did you call them?”
“The archivists?”
“Yeah, those.”
“Not anymore,” The Collector said, a hint of bitterness, “They did just leave me here, and they sent me here in the first place.”
“They sound terrible,” Eda said, “I have a complicated relationship with my sister— Lily, but no matter what, I wouldn’t leave her on another planet. Don’t tell her I said that, though. I like to keep her guessing.”
The Collector chuckled at that.
“Sorry I turned your sister into a puppet so many times,” They said.
“She’s fine. She’s over it,” Eda shrugged, “Besides, you can’t change the past. Also, between you and me, Lily’s a huge history nerd. If she didn’t forgive you already, all you’d have to do is pull out some anecdote about the old days.”
“Really? And she doesn’t just want to use the information like Belos?”
“Nah. She just likes knowing things,” Eda explained, “She thinks it’s interesting.”
“Well, that’s easy,” They said, “I know tons of stuff.”
They frowned, “Except, apparently, how to sleep.”
“Eh, no one really knows how to do that,” Eda replied, “There are some things that can help, though.”
“Like what?”
“Well, if memory serves me correctly,” Eda pulled out a book from her hair, some sort of old binder, “I have a story about my mysterious past that neither Luz and King managed to stay awake for the end of.”
“Really?” The Collector asked, moving closer to look at the book.
“Yep! How about I tell you how I met Raine Whispers?”
“Okay,” They agreed, enthusiastically.
+Six: Friendship.
Over the many, many years, The Collector has had a lot of different definitions of friendship. It started out as purely a good thing, and they loved all the friends they had made— like King’s siblings.
It was a mutual relationship. They all had a blast playing together, and he cherishes the memories to this day.
But, well. After he was trapped, friendship started to mean anything it had to, before he even realized how much he was compromising. Friendship was a lot of fake promises, and secrets and exchanging information, even though it was mostly him giving the information.
He wasn’t really a real friend with any of those people, he realizes now.
At the time, he was just so desperate not to be alone that he would’ve done whatever he could to keep it.
But, time after time and again and again, friendship meant abandonment. It meant hiding him away because he was dangerous, or because they wanted his so-called secrets to themselves.
Belos was probably the worst of all his fake friends, because he used everything he learnt to hurt people. He told them it was a game, and they went along with it.
It was better than being alone. But sometimes, he wonders if it really was— because maybe it was just kinda selfish of him to think that. He got to think he had a friend, and so many other people got hurt and went away for good.
And that doesn’t feel great. Any real friend wouldn’t trick him into hurting people like that, or tormenting them with their own bad feelings, like Belos had done.
He had started thinking at some point along the way that he didn’t understand friendship, because Belos wasn’t treating him the way he would’ve treated Belos. He wouldn’t leave him in the dark.
He thought that maybe he was understanding friendship when he met King, when King fulfilled his promises.
King did all the things Belos said he would but didn’t, so that meant they were friends, right?
He knew he didn’t understand it when he learnt that King had been scheming behind his back, and even though he later revealed it hadn’t been to kill him like Belos/Ray-Ray had mislead, it still had been scheming.
He thought he’d finally made a friend, but King had just been scared of him and of the draining spell, and he’d just been a tool. He understands, though.
He doesn’t hold it against King, because really he shouldn’t have tried to convinced himself someone was his friend again. He should’ve learnt from that mistake last time.
But even though King wasn’t really his friend, he still stayed. He, and Luz and Eda all tried to give him a chance, and he did his best to take it. He’s learning a lot nowadays, things he wouldn’t have thought to learn about before.
There are still so, so many things he doesn’t quite understand, but he thinks he might be starting to understand friendship, now, because friendship…
It’s complex. Before, he was the one putting all the real work into the friendship, while the other people benefited. Then, it was kind of the opposite with him and King, which he didn’t mean. (King wasn’t telling the truth, so he couldn’t really know when King did or didn’t like things.)
And now, slowly, it’s starting to become mutual. The rest of the Isles is gradually warming up to him, but even when there’s people that don’t like him, it doesn’t hurt as much.
He’s not without loneliness. It’s still there, lingering in the background. But he doesn’t notice or feel it as much as he used to. It’s not as overwhelming, and he doesn’t feel like it’s going to crush him or tear him apart.
The Isles are starting to get better, and he thinks, so is he. He’s even introduced himself to people without them running away screaming.
Actual friendship is more complicated than it used to be, when he would hang out with King’s siblings. But it’s not as complicated as when he was ‘friends’ with Belos, who never really made sense. He did things that contradicted what he said, and said things that contradicted what he did.
Now that no one’s pretending anymore, he’s learnt that real friends don’t lie, and that trust is a two-way street. And it’s very different. Different-good.
He’s even starting to win over more and more friends as time goes on, and Luz said she’s proud of how far he’s already come. He’s done his best to follow her, Eda and King’s friendship lessons.
The most important thing he’s learnt, though, is probably that friendship is fluid. It’s not a static thing, it’s always changing, growing, shifting. And maybe he is, too.
He’s starting to think you’re never really done learning about friendship— or any relationship. A few months ago, he thought being a nephew was a bad thing , that they got hurt. But Lilith loves King, and Luz.
It’s funny how he’s been around so long, and yet these mortals are teaching him more than he’s taught them. (Although to be fair, he has spent most of his life trapped.)
Sometimes, he thinks that friendship really isn’t that complicated. Everyone else has just been complicating it. He cares about his friends, and they care about him too— they help each other, because they’re different and that makes them the same.
Us weirdos have to stick together.
When they’re all together, and laughing, and sharing snacks watching the Azura movie for the fifth time on some old, miraculously still working TV, he doesn’t worry about what he does or doesn’t understand. He feels more whole than he maybe ever has.
Maybe there's a lot he doesn’t understand. It’s okay, because he’s still learning. And he might not understand all the other stuff yet, but he thinks he’s starting to get a grasp on the friendship thing.
And he thinks it feels a lot like this.