( No. He breathes. He is. He has, through the fetters and binds that wrap leathery to shape his body, waged insult, if not war. There is a scratch to his movements, the steel of his sharp edges ever stabbing, when he means to embrace. He knows this, of himself — that the qualities that create warm kindness in others coagulate glacially around his core.
Dusk swallowed the ship, like the angry, mean mouth of an elder, absorbing spoonfuls of congee — bitterly, with grudging stubbornness, knowing they live and thrive against reason, at the expense of their caretakers' patience — but refusing to let go.
She has tired, Emilia says. What right have they to fatigue? He has born this conversation with so many, and at each turn waits the death of a thousand cuts of strategic, self-preserving indifference.
He watches her — too tense. Too lone. Too strong. Strain is the destroyer of form. Misplaced pressure, turning surfaces round beneath weight, brittle. He hesitates. )
no subject
( No. He breathes. He is. He has, through the fetters and binds that wrap leathery to shape his body, waged insult, if not war. There is a scratch to his movements, the steel of his sharp edges ever stabbing, when he means to embrace. He knows this, of himself — that the qualities that create warm kindness in others coagulate glacially around his core.
Dusk swallowed the ship, like the angry, mean mouth of an elder, absorbing spoonfuls of congee — bitterly, with grudging stubbornness, knowing they live and thrive against reason, at the expense of their caretakers' patience — but refusing to let go.
She has tired, Emilia says. What right have they to fatigue? He has born this conversation with so many, and at each turn waits the death of a thousand cuts of strategic, self-preserving indifference.
He watches her — too tense. Too lone. Too strong. Strain is the destroyer of form. Misplaced pressure, turning surfaces round beneath weight, brittle. He hesitates. )
My presence angers you. I may extricate it.