Tag: merle highchurch
What she says: I’m fine
What she means: Merle is one of the most forgiving and unashamed characters to exist ever. He makes friends with the enity that is chasing him throughout 100 lives in 100 universes and had killed him many times. He faces the hunger and humbles himself by bringing his enemy into the parley space. He dies over 50 times making friends with a nihilistic monster who kills him at the end of every interaction. He had the chance to get his arm back with the chalice but he bared his mistakes and learned from them. He said ‘I like that guy’ about the grim reaper who tricked him into loosing his hand in the first place. He stayed with the people he gave faith to on the mushroom planet where he gave an honest speech about his own insecurities about life and death but still gave hope to the people. He gave 40 of his hit points to heal Taako for 20 in Wonderland. Merle didn’t rush in but he always followed his friends into danger anyway. He asks the leader of the hunger if he’s his friend and waits 30 years for John to realise they were friends all along.
It’s a tradition in the Bureau of Balance to haze new members by getting them to challenge Davenport to strategy games and then watching him annihilate them. Davenport seems to like it, and it’s hilarious to watch this goofy little gnome utterly destroy any sense of ego these newbies have. Sometimes there are accusations of cheating or rigging the game going around, but no, he really is that good.
Obviously, someone tries to pull this on the new reclaimers. Taako folds about two rounds in and just sits there buffing his nails, and Magnus loses pretty handily, but Merle and Davenport are… weirdly well matched? Like, it’s not that Merle is better at the game than anyone else, but he doesn’t fall for any of Davenport’s usual tricks or bluffs. It’s like someone handed him a cheat sheet of all Davenport’s tells, except that Davenport is reading him right back, so within ten minutes they’re both making these bizarre moves that no one could have predicted to counter these equally strange strategies the other one is throwing out, and Magnus keeps chiming in “helpfully”, and it’s really not helpful but it does seem slightly more in tune with how Merle and Dav are playing than anything anyone else who’s watching picks up on.
It ends up lasting five hours, with Davenport victorious. “You win again, C-” Merle says, before his train of thought gets unexpectedly derailed and he forgets what he’s gonna say.
“Davenport,” says Davenport smugly. They shake hands and meet up again a week later. Everyone in the Bureau is shooketh. The Director chugs another fishbowl of fermented grape juice.
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