tuesday afternoon

[deepest_magic]

Elizabeth's house is within walking distance. Bella goes over to it the following day, after lunch, carrying two extra clumsily-frosted but perfectly baked cupcakes in her hands and notebooks in her backpack.

Comments

[neverbeatme]

"Yep. Rivers running red with blood, Achilles dragging Hector's corpse around the city walls."

[deepest_magic]

"Why did he do that? Corpses are heavy."

[neverbeatme]

"He had a chariot. I think Hector killed somebody he liked and that was the only way he could think of to express how mad he was about it."

[deepest_magic]

"I'd figure killing him would do it. Or did he not kill him personally?"

[neverbeatme]

"Nope, killed him and then dragged him around afterward. I think there was a thing where how you treat dead bodies is really important, because of afterlife stuff or something, but the copy I read didn't actually explain."

[deepest_magic]

"I'm pretty sure there isn't an afterlife," says Bella, "but if I ran one it wouldn't make a difference what happened to the bodies."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, in ancient Greece they thought it did, I guess."

[deepest_magic]

"How did they think they knew that?"

[neverbeatme]

"Well, because they had all these legends and stuff about what the afterlife was like and how it worked, and nobody could be sure the legends weren't true, and they mostly agreed with each other, so why make trouble?"

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah, but - where did the legends come from? Before they were written what did they believe and why did they stop believing that? People think a lot of weird stuff and sometimes I wonder about it."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, when you think about it, most of what you know about the world comes from other people, right?"

[deepest_magic]

"Yes, but they aren't getting it from legends. I guess there could be a conspiracy, but it doesn't sound like the ancient Greeks were running on conspiracy, right?"

[neverbeatme]

"No. But people like explanations. So one person makes up an explanation for something that they think fits, and tells it to all their friends, and their friends each have their own interpretations, and they tell those to more people, and a while later you have a bunch of myths."

[deepest_magic]

"I like our way better."

[neverbeatme]

"What's 'our' way?"

[deepest_magic]

"The way where scientists figure stuff out and if you wanted to and had the equipment you could check."

[neverbeatme]

"People still do lots of the other thing, though."

[deepest_magic]

"My parents both say they believe in religions. But they don't do much about them and Renée keeps changing which one."

[neverbeatme]

"Yeah, that happens."

[deepest_magic]

"Renée treats it like a hobby and not like a fact. It's not my hobby but I think that's pretty harmless. I think Charlie just doesn't want to deal with the hassle of coming up with a way to be that doesn't have anything written on that line in the metaphorical paperwork."

[neverbeatme]

"Not a problem I've ever had, but a lot of people do, I've noticed."

[deepest_magic]

"I don't have that problem either. Although it could make it frustrating to talk about myself, for some things. It's nice to be able to label stuff."

Bella looks at another fairy tale, and proceeds to rip its internal logic to shreds and do her best to "sensify it".

By the time it has been sensified: "Now it's completely different. It reminds me of a supposedly true story Charlie told me one time. When he was like our age there was this rich family that lived in that huge abandoned house by the edge of town, do you know it? And they had a kid who was about Charlie's age. And the kid totally vanished one day and was never found or attempted to be ransomed or anything at all and eventually the parents moved away and nobody knows what happened to the kid."

[neverbeatme]

"Well, that's creepy," says Elizabeth. "What do you mean, 'supposedly' true?"

[deepest_magic]

"Well, for one thing I wasn't there, and for another it was a long time ago and Charlie might've forgotten details. And the kid has to have gone somewhere."

[neverbeatme]

"There's lots of things that could've happened to him that nobody would've found him if they did," she says. "I don't know the abandoned house, where is it?"