strange behaviour

[bitofafiction]

Characters: Sherlock Holmes and YOU
Format: prose preferred, please ♥
This log is: open!
Location: Out and about on the grounds
Summary: Sherry Holmes counts trees.
Warnings: none at the time of posting

He starts by the main entrance, at the southernmost point of the elongated hexagon that makes up the grounds, and moves clockwise. Every time he sees a tree, he not only notes it down in his pocket notebook but walks up to it and puts his hand against the trunk, as though to confirm it is real.

Last night he slept reasonably well on the roof of White dorm. He knows he can't count on that, but for now he is grateful not to have started back down the inevitable spiral of sleep deprivation and paranoia just yet. He looks serene and well-rested, which only invites the question of what the hell he is doing to all those trees.

Comments

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock doesn't seem bothered.

"If I arrive at an accurate number and later find that it has changed, without any trees having been obviously planted or destroyed, I will know that the reality of this place is mutable in certain ways. There could be any number of explanations, of course, but it would be a data point."

[choseanidiot]

... What.

"You could easily miss any tree, and come up with different numbers each time you counted," Enki said with a frown. It's not exactly a rejection of the logic, as it's incredulity about the methods. And how was the he even deciding which trees this close to the forest behind them to count or not? That was just arbitrary.

It's not his place to censor such an action, however; not just because they don't know each other, but who's Enki to deny some action to the guy if it gives his mind some peace?

That doesn't mean he doesn't think it seemed slightly excessive, but that was none of his business.

[bitofafiction]

"That is why I am verifying them." He shrugs. "I trust my own mind; I do not trust the world."

[choseanidiot]

The only way to be certain he'd counted all the trees he wanted to, would be to mark them, which, as far as Enki can see, he hasn't done. Standing up with a grunt, Enki shook his head.

"Your mind can be tricked just as well as the world can shift. They've taken memories, haven't they?" Enki spat, still disbelieveing that they had taken Yokuhi's name. Or the knowledge of who he had chosen as the king. Wouldn't it be enough to simply take his powers, such as they were? He wouldn't, couldn't, fight.

[bitofafiction]

"Yes. I have identified all but one of my missing memories and regained two of them. I've counted thirty-eight trees so far and found ways in which each is memorably distinct from the others."

[choseanidiot]

Wow... Enki stared, catching his lower jaw before it even dropped by long practice (these things were needed to make sure Shōryū didn't 'win' too often).

"That's, uh... Impressive, I suppose." He still couldn't really see what counting the trees would do, though. Briefly, Enki wondered what other memories he was missing, and realized that, while there was a faint breeze, as soon as it stopped or changed direction, he couldn't recall how it felt when playing through his mane.

Wonderful. It still wasn't as (exactly) as big a loss as who the king was, or his nyokai's name.

"I know three they've taken," Enki finally said, eyes narrowed.

[bitofafiction]

"It troubles me that I still have not found the last one," Sherlock admits. "It suggests that the loss is so comprehensive that no related subject can remind me of what isn't there."