[Linden might feel no need to back off, yet, but the careful way he echoes Myr's half-joke, and the following declaration for the SQUIP-- That's a boundary spoken, solid as a wall, and Myr won't transgress it. Whatever his complex and uneasy feelings--the strongest of them that Linden's in need of saving from what he's chosen--Myr cannot deny the evidence of his senses that says that's a love-match, warped as it may be. Seduction (whatever skill he might have at that) can't be a weapon in his arsenal right now, nor anything like it, even if flirting comes to him easy as breathing. Not until he knows better the dimensions of what he'd be impinging on.
Compassion comes easier to his hand, anyway, and won't involve a panic attack later on down the line.]
I imagine, [he says, slow and thoughtful and careful,] being close to it now isn't easy. [He's only his own experience to go on, as the one injured and not a caretaker, but he could extrapolate from exactly how badly he'd behaved what others might have felt around him. Maybe the SQUIP was better than that.
Maybe it was worse.
Either way, it isn't hard to infer that it's an awful situation.]
If it's ever something you need an ear for, I'll gladly lend one. [His are better than a human's, you see?
They're even good at detecting when it's time to move on from a topic.]
Midsummer, sometime. When I was a kid I picked my own date--fifteenth of Solace--to celebrate it on, so I wasn't left out on the fun in the Circle. Mattered less after my Harrowing, though. [One corner of his mouth quirks up at the memory.] I've had twenty-eight of them now, and somehow I'm a little surprised I'm only two years your senior.
[Perhaps because Linden took up so little space, or perhaps because he came across as that kind of brilliant that burned itself out sooner than later.]
Birthdays back in your world--what'd you do for them? The particular or the general you, as you'd like.
no subject
Compassion comes easier to his hand, anyway, and won't involve a panic attack later on down the line.]
I imagine, [he says, slow and thoughtful and careful,] being close to it now isn't easy. [He's only his own experience to go on, as the one injured and not a caretaker, but he could extrapolate from exactly how badly he'd behaved what others might have felt around him. Maybe the SQUIP was better than that.
Maybe it was worse.
Either way, it isn't hard to infer that it's an awful situation.]
If it's ever something you need an ear for, I'll gladly lend one. [His are better than a human's, you see?
They're even good at detecting when it's time to move on from a topic.]
Midsummer, sometime. When I was a kid I picked my own date--fifteenth of Solace--to celebrate it on, so I wasn't left out on the fun in the Circle. Mattered less after my Harrowing, though. [One corner of his mouth quirks up at the memory.] I've had twenty-eight of them now, and somehow I'm a little surprised I'm only two years your senior.
[Perhaps because Linden took up so little space, or perhaps because he came across as that kind of brilliant that burned itself out sooner than later.]
Birthdays back in your world--what'd you do for them? The particular or the general you, as you'd like.