Scars

Free Will

As a goose, Quentin didn't need to think about anything. That wasn't always a good.

He couldn't think, couldn't process, his tiny brain simply didn't have the capacity. All he felt was impulse, raw an animalistic telling him what to feel. All he could do was feel without any explanation as to why.

But when he came back it was a new kind of frustrating.

As his lips would blister under the oppressive bite of the tundra his head went numb. So did his appendages. A fair amount could also be attributed to the lichen vodka, which was one of the crueler devices mankind had ever conceived.

Quentin couldn't feel, so all he thought about was the whys. Over-analyzing every second of his life, every decision he made to wonder where it went wrong. He blamed people, he thanked people, he realized how many didn't have an effect at all. But he couldn't really feel any of the pain, it was just so far away.

But apart from his inner monologue--which at this point was a tad more than stale and depressive--Quentin was meant to learn magic under Mayakovsky, who was the cruelest thing mankind ever conceived.

He reeked of booze and his sweaters of vomit. The choice to wear white was clearly a poor one. Quentin imagined Eliot and Margo here, attempting some sort of makeover.

But Quentin, as it where, had just been told his latest assignment. Mind Control.

It was a difficult feat in the best of circumstances, and the best at it were usually manipulative cunts. One girl was particularly gifted at this feat, Quentin made a mental note to steer clear in the future. But Quentin wasn't doing the spell, he was letting a moth, that ugly, inconsequential little creature, crawl along his hand.

"Idiot! Can you not do the spell or what?"

"I won't. It's a living thing, I won't control it."

"Notice how you said, it? Its a bug, that any other day you would have crushed underfoot."

"Quentin's right." Alice perked up. "We shouldn't be learning this at all, they should have free will."

Quentin exhaled as Mayakovsky recentered his attention. He was so close to Alice's face she could feel herself getting dunk of his breath.

"This animals, they do not think like you and me. There is no "free will" for them. There is only impulse. Bug knows no difference."

"But-"

"Both of you, now!"

"What are we?-"

"Special exam , just the two of you."

Quentin and Alice looked at each other, both fearful and resigned. They follow him to a wide hallway, at the end of which was a great set of doors.

Quentin and Alice, without clothes, where shoved out them. Then impulse, the effort to survive, turned them into foxes.

Mayakovsky was right in a sense. Emotions, urges, they weren't the same. They were lawless, chaotic, unclouded. Every thought became action if it made you warm. Made you alive for a split second longer.

Quentin, who was arguably no longer Quentin, then had sex with Alice Quinn.