[Compassion would only shatter Myr right now, as a parent's sudden concern can reduce a child to tears over an injury she'd otherwise ignore. Perhaps that shattering would be for the better, or the worse; perhaps there would be something healing in it, or perhaps the knowledge he'd broken down so completely in front of Linden would eat holes in his heart beside those left by how his Circle had soured on him.
But that's a counterfactual, a future that won't happen--yet--not if he can keep walking this slender thread over the Void with his internal gaze averted from its memory of blood and pain and the things that brought him to that point.
(The mask is weighty, but weightier still is being seen for himself and bearing the consequences of it. This is not the place, a part of him dimly realizes; these are not things that can be revealed in a common dockside bar where anyone might hear. And yet...)]
I didn't know how else to stop seeing them.
[It had felt utterly necessary. It had felt logical, well-considered, perfectly rational despite the terror that was otherwise devouring his mind.
He was seeing things no one should have. They wouldn't go away when he closed his eyes, and as eternity expanded to fill the space of heartbeats, he didn't know if they would ever go away.
But without eyes, he couldn't see them anymore. So he'd chosen the simplest way out.
He makes a choked noise to recall it, bending over the bar with his head in his hands and fingers tangled now in his hair. Breathe--breathe, keep breathing, Maker and Andraste, only keep breathing and cling with every bruised fingertip to the here-and-now and not what reaches out to strangle you from the past behind you.]
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But that's a counterfactual, a future that won't happen--yet--not if he can keep walking this slender thread over the Void with his internal gaze averted from its memory of blood and pain and the things that brought him to that point.
(The mask is weighty, but weightier still is being seen for himself and bearing the consequences of it. This is not the place, a part of him dimly realizes; these are not things that can be revealed in a common dockside bar where anyone might hear. And yet...)]
I didn't know how else to stop seeing them.
[It had felt utterly necessary. It had felt logical, well-considered, perfectly rational despite the terror that was otherwise devouring his mind.
He was seeing things no one should have. They wouldn't go away when he closed his eyes, and as eternity expanded to fill the space of heartbeats, he didn't know if they would ever go away.
But without eyes, he couldn't see them anymore. So he'd chosen the simplest way out.
He makes a choked noise to recall it, bending over the bar with his head in his hands and fingers tangled now in his hair. Breathe--breathe, keep breathing, Maker and Andraste, only keep breathing and cling with every bruised fingertip to the here-and-now and not what reaches out to strangle you from the past behind you.]