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“You are setting quite the precedent here,” said Germal. “I will be quite demanding with my question, now.”

“Ha! You really don’t know me very well at all, do you?! How delightfully surprising! Unlike you, Germy, I do not obsess over keeping all my knowledge to myself. In fact, giving lectures about the secrets of the world is something I quite enjoy!”

“You certainly do love to listen to yourself talk.”

“I won’t deny it! If only there were more who were bold enough to listen! Now tell me. How do you define yourself?”

Germal took a minute to answer. “...Truthfully, Demon? I define myself as one who would return this world to order. The way it was, long ago.”

“Order, you say? Interesting! Now do you mean ‘order?’ Or do you mean ‘Order?’”

“I am confused. What is the distinction you are referring to?”

A lie, for certain. Perhaps the greatest of all the lies the Liar had yet told.

Which was no surprise, of course, but this time was special. This time, Morgunov found it intensely annoying. “Confused, you say? Why should you be confused? Ah! Perhaps because you do not wish to acknowledge your great nemesis, hmm? To hear it named truly?”

Germal fell quiet at that.

Morgunov decided to let the silence linger for a bit. In truth, he’d been holding a few things back this whole time. A few memories. Locked away for safekeeping, just in case Germal started getting uppity with his mind reading again.

But those memories were now beginning to unlock themselves. As per their locking conditions, no doubt. A timed trigger? Hmm, unlikely, considering time seemed to have largely stopped in this strange space.

Ah. An emotional trigger, then. Related to his long-held ruminations on Order and Chaos.

Yes.

“You Primordials are beings of Chaos, are you not? Your great enemy, therefore, must be Order. So it makes no sense that you would seek to ‘put the world to Order.’ Unless, of course, you were using deliberately misleading language, and your idea of ‘order’ means something totally different, eh? Perhaps even the exact opposite thing! Eheh! But I’m sure a stand-up Gentleman like you would never do something like that!”

“...You remember more of Bellvine than you have let on.”

“Mm! Perhaps I do! But y’know, I feel talking to you is also helping me to remember even more things, too! So thanks for that. Maybe you’re not such a bad guy, after all.”