His Hands Matched His Tongue

His Hands Matched His Tongue
A long walk home, riddled with regret
Uncommonly comfortable, but still I believe
That in time I think I’ll see
Just what’s been weighing down on me
An unearthly void collapsed
Exposing what was trapped
To release this serendipitous design

The smell of smoke, the evening sky was bruised
Belated conversations saturate anticipation
For the answers that simply won’t come

But not I, I won’t ask
Forget my place amongst the grass
The leaves and the trees remember me
And in my naiveté it might be seen
The pail has leaks and even if
You put all your water into it
You end up with nothing left to drink
The well has gone dry and I with it

Oh, someday she’ll be gone
Oh, someday she’ll be gone
Oh, someday she’ll be gone
Oh, someday she’ll be gone

We’ll still have her song to sing

Sing softly, bring me to the lake
Sing softly, sing me to the lake

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter returns home from his outing in 1878, and decides to stay at the lake with Ms Terri.

What’s in a name?
‘His Hands Matched His Tongue’. Hands and tongues show up a lot in the acts, but speaking generally, hands represent action. If your hands match your tongue, then you did what you said you would, you kept true to your intentions, or in other words, ‘Hunter Is A Good Boy With Integrity (For Now)’.

Whose viewpoint?
Back to Hunter now.

🌲🌲🌲

>A long walk home, riddled with regret
Hunter is walking back to his and Ms Terri’s cabin after going out to the Tree in 1878, regretful either that he even considered leaving or that he was incapable of it (and hence cannot find the truth). Maybe a mix.

>Uncommonly comfortable, but still I believe / That in time I think I’ll see / Just what’s been weighing down on me
Though he’s given up on the prospect of leaving the lake and finding the truth about himself and Ms Terri, that surrender in itself has given him some peace of mind. Still, he trusts that eventually, he will come to find out the truth that’s been troubling him, whether it’s simply by himself growing older and more experienced, or by Ms Terri eventually seeing that he’s too old to shelter anymore and divulging the truth.

>An unearthly void collapsed / Exposing what was trapped / To release this serendipitous design
Unsure about this, but could be another tie back to 1878 — an ‘unearthly void’ could be a hole, its collapse could be the failure of one of Ms Terri’s secrets to stay hidden, and the rest of these lines allude to how Hunter figured out he and Ms Terri had escaped from anywhere in the first place. If so, then Hunter is highly conscious that his current idyllic quality of life is a direct result of action by Ms Terri, and not simply luck or coincidence.

Metaphorically speaking too, ‘void collapsed’ / ‘what was trapped’ may be the negative emotions of pain and anguish that Ms Terri is hiding from Hunter — he figured out this one secret during a moment where she had a slight breakdown. Perhaps she was crying?

>The smell of smoke, the evening sky was bruised
Hunter comes out of the treeline and sees the cabin now, with smoke wafting out of the chimney. The sky is flush with orange and purple, and Ms Terri is cooking dinner.

>Belated conversations saturate anticipation / For the answers that simply won’t come
Hunter comes inside to eat dinner with Ms Terri. They talk at the table, but Ms Terri says nothing about where she’s been or the circumstances around why they left (or where they left, specifically). Though Hunter hopes that Ms Terri will mention the elephant in the room, as might be expected after her first secrets escaped, he also recognises that this is simply his own desire, and that in every opportunity where she could pursue the topics he wants to hear about, she does not pursue them. In a way, he accepts this.

>But not I, I won’t ask / Forget my place amongst the grass / The leaves and the trees remember me
Hunter has decided not to press Ms Terri for answers, or pursue the truth, respecting her wishes that he stay ignorant. He accepts himself as a creature of the idyllic lake, as he has always known himself to be until recently, and without realising it, maintains his innocence and purity by doing so. Note how he also anthropomorphises the scenery of the lake — this whole place is his home and extended family.

This decision is why his hands match his tongue. At least part of his motive in trying to find the truth was trying to help Ms Terri, and defying her deepest wish fundamentally runs contrary to that. Instead, he will help her by letting her maintain her lie. By humbling himself here, his good intentions and good actions stay consistent to each other.

>And in my naiveté it might be seen / The pail has leaks and even if / You put all your water into it / You end up with nothing left to drink
Though Hunter may be ignorant, even he can tell that the charade Ms Terri is trying to maintain is not sustainable. There are times where the depression and pain below seep through, and even were it not for that, there are glaring, obvious problems that cannot be patched and that if questioned, destroy the whole tower (a big one would be, ‘who is my father?’). Ms Terri is investing all she can into loving Hunter, but not even an endless stream of pure love and happiness can subsume or substitute for reality.

>The well has gone dry and I with it
…And of course, Ms Terri doesn’t have an endless stream of pure love and happiness. The poor woman is exhausted, and now that Hunter’s older, keeping him happy and hiding the truth from him is significantly harder. Rather, it’s actually getting to the point where hiding things is starting to hurt Hunter, but not as much as the truth would, Ms Terri seems to judge. You could debate whether she’s correct or not — I’d say that for now, she is, and Hunter seems to trust that she is, too.

Still, Hunter knows about the lie now, and seeing Ms Terri force herself is itself a cause for pain.

>Oh, someday she’ll be gone
Everyone we love will die one day. Hunter considers that he won’t be able to depend on Ms Terri’s protection indefinitely. There’s going to have to be a time where he does step up and assert himself, and a deadline on when he can get answers from Ms Terri.

This is also overt foreshadowing for Ms Terri’s death in act II.

>We’ll still have her song to sing
The story will continue even after Ms Terri dies. Ms Terri’s song, since fundamentally, the conflict of the story is Ms Terri’s — she may have tried to escape evil, and may have tried to destroy evil, but failed on both counts. Hunter remains as the hope that evil can be escaped from or destroyed, and it’s because of Ms Terri that this hope even exists. Flame is gone / Fire remains.

You can also take ‘her song’ as being the ‘sing softly, bring me to the lake’ lines that follow, assuming she has actually sung these to Hunter, showing her desire for a better future.

>Sing softly, bring me to the lake / Sing softly, sing me to the lake
Hunter reprises the plea from the previous song: let me have a good ending and future. Haha, oh Hunter…

Can also be Hunter comforting himself against the thought of Ms Terri dying initially, then shifts into narrative plea on repetition.

The Pimp and The Priest | Act I | The River North