[It would be easy to make a jab at her. To use this show of vulnerability against her, and it's not as though Emet-Selch didn't have the impulse. It wasn't as though he'd forgiven her or likely ever would- so why should he care about the insecurities of someone like this?
(And even if he didn't use it now, some yet-resentful corner of his mind knows that it's a vulnerability that could be utilized at another time, when he's in a more spiteful mood.)
But while accepting a coexistence in this world with these heroes didn't require knowing them, or being involved with them, it was harder yet to divorce his interest entirely, to be indifferent as he should be. So he thinks about it instead.
It's a problem he doesn't entirely understand himself; the Ascian had a plethora of self-confidence, and his issues (of which there are a few, maybe, he could grudgingly recognize that sort of) lied elsewhere.]
Is it actually comfortable in the end, or merely convenient? The familiarity of distance.
[Okay, that part he could understand more, and he pauses.]
Still. From avoiding it, ignoring it to the point of developing a second self to cope... to being aware of it on one's own... 'tis an improvement, is it not?
no subject
[It would be easy to make a jab at her. To use this show of vulnerability against her, and it's not as though Emet-Selch didn't have the impulse. It wasn't as though he'd forgiven her or likely ever would- so why should he care about the insecurities of someone like this?
(And even if he didn't use it now, some yet-resentful corner of his mind knows that it's a vulnerability that could be utilized at another time, when he's in a more spiteful mood.)
But while accepting a coexistence in this world with these heroes didn't require knowing them, or being involved with them, it was harder yet to divorce his interest entirely, to be indifferent as he should be. So he thinks about it instead.
It's a problem he doesn't entirely understand himself; the Ascian had a plethora of self-confidence, and his issues (of which there are a few, maybe, he could grudgingly recognize that sort of) lied elsewhere.]
Is it actually comfortable in the end, or merely convenient? The familiarity of distance.
[Okay, that part he could understand more, and he pauses.]
Still. From avoiding it, ignoring it to the point of developing a second self to cope... to being aware of it on one's own... 'tis an improvement, is it not?