“More important things… of course. That’s exactly my point. You psychoanalyze everyone but yourself. You know every hidden thought and reason behind each of your friends’ gestures, but feel no need to explain your own quirks and oddities. I mean…” Cedric’s shadow gestured broadly at himself. “Look at this! What you’re doing right now! You’ve summoned an illusion of a physical manifestation of an aspect of your personality, just to avoid talking to yourself. Which would be insane enough on its own, but there’s nobody else here - which, frankly, makes this behavior downright pathological.”
Cedric narrowed his eyes. “…I have my reasons. Now can we get back to worrying about someone who might actually need help?”
“Ohhhh myyyy gooood. It’s like your IQ dropped by a couple digits just from the topic becoming about you.” Cedric’s shadow let out a pitying laugh. “You. Have. Your. Reasons. Really? Really!? This just in, news flash! Cause and effect is still a thing! Shock, awe, my mind has been thoroughly blown. And here I thought people did things completely randomly.” He took a deep breath, as though trying to calm himself. He wasn’t, though - Cedric’s shadow was incapable of being anything other than totally in control. “Of fucking course you have your reasons, idiot. I’m asking what those reasons are. You have no idea, do you? You haven’t questioned it - you haven’t wondered why someone who lives in their own head as much as you do, would be so bizarrely adverse to talking to yourself… a totally normal way for people to sort through their thoughts.”
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“That’s because it isn’t important.” Cedric waved his hand dismissively.
“R-i-i-i-ght. Your unusual behavior means nothing, but everyone else’s means the world.” Cedric’s shadow snorted derisively. “Are all egos this hypocritical? All right then, let’s move onto something else. Why do you hate me so much?”
Cedric snarled, an unusually open display of hostility. “You know why.”
“Yeah. I do. We gave it a lot of thought - back when we were ten and in the middle of a traumatic experience.” A disturbingly peaceful smile spread across the face of Cedric’s darker half. “So, let’s go through it again. Rationally. Calmly. Calculating for all that new information we got from the fiasco with Dyllan. No dodging the question, Cedric. Why do you hate me?” A flicker of a sneer twitched in his smile. “It couldn’t possibly be just because you think that hating me will make everyone else like you more… could it?”