As they gestured, Tragedy’s right sleeve fell, just below the line of his glove– but it was enough to make out a thick stripe of discolored skin around his wrist. Raz narrowed his eyes and tucked that thought away for later.
[…]
At the sweep of Comedy’s right arm, Raz noticed it– the same mark Tragedy had boasted three cars back.
“It’s been a trick the whole time, hasn’t it?” He asked, “You’ve been swapping who’s who every car.”
The pair stopped and looked at him, heads tilting inward toward one another.
“Might I ask how you’ve reached that terminal?” Tragedy asked.
Raz looked to Comedy, face twisting in discomfort and, with a healthy measure of caution, said, “You’ve got a scar on your wrist. That’s… that’s Ingo’s, isn’t it? From the psilirium cuff.”
The masks, of course, stayed stationary, but the glow of eyes behind them blinked. In unison, the narrators pulled back opposite sleeves to show mirroring blemishes.
[…]
“You’ve been switching the whole time! How’s that fair?”
“You are correct,” Comedy said, followed immediately by Tragedy’s, “That wouldn’t be fair. We’re doing no such thing.”
[…]
“That’s not– okay, fine.” / “But you still answered to each other’s names!”
Tragedy held his hands up in a loose shrug, “It was an assumption. We’re not here to correct your interpretation of the story, only to guide you through it.”
“Even if someone’s got the facts totally wrong? You’re not going to go back and help them understand?”
“There are very few objective facts in a mental world.” Comedy said, “Perhaps the viewer finds meaning in the color of the victim’s [idk]. It may not break the mystery open, but who are we to say they read too much into the world around them?”
[…]
“Ah, well who can say what we truly represent?”
“Whatever the set requires, we can provide. We’re Comedy and Tragedy, Day and Night, Truth and Ideal.”
“Ingo and Emmet?” Raz asked, [idk].
The two laughed, clapping their hands together in sync.
“Who’s to say what we represent beyond that.” Said Tragedy.
Comedy shook his head, “In a sense. We’re modeled after the conductors for simplicity’s sake, but we’re the attendants, nothing more and nothing less.”
[…]
In their wake, Raz looked to the PA system and, for all the good it would do, said, “Okay, this is getting really annoying now!”
To his surprise, it crackled back, “Perhaps that’s a lesson to take away from this experience, then, to be mindful of your circumstance. And to be careful with confusion grenades.”
There was a brief scuffling sound, the same he heard when he fought over [idk] with one of his siblings, and then, “You need to understand that not all minds take [tampering] lying down. Be prepared for your actions to catch up to you. Act in the interest of damage reduction. Or have a contingency plan.”
A silence, and then a heavy sigh. The system shut off.
He stared at it for a few more seconds, and then announced, “If that was supposed to help, you missed the mark.”
It [idk] again, just long enough to broadcast, “Remember what genre you’re in.”
—
[there are two Enablers just hanging out. There are no other enemies around them, so they’re just enabling/protecting each other and not doing anything else. It seems harmless enough.]
“Um…” Said Raz, considering the scene in front of him.
The PA came to life with a put-upon sigh, “We’re aware.”
“What exactly are we supposed to do about that?”
“If you have a solution, let us know. It becomes a real problem when one or both of them is the killer, and they have immunity from prosecution.”
—
“Opposites can be verrrry subjective things.” Said Comedy.
[…]
“They say comedy and tragedy are the same thing; the only difference is time.” / “We don’t subscribe to that. The difference between comedy and tragedy is the light you happen to view it under.”
[the actual lighting changes, their coats invert]
“Your antagonist is the hero of their own story. You’re the villain in someone else’s.”
[…]
“That’s… really weird, coming from you guys.” Raz confessed.
“Is it?” Comedy asked, inclining his head toward Tragedy, who picked the line of thought up without missing a beat, “We wouldn’t say so. From one perspective, the recovery period following [term?] was incredibly difficult; from an outsider’s, there was amusement to be found in the situation.” / “It was a cruel sense humor, perhaps, but [?].”