[In every ruin, in every failure, there are means and opportunity to rebuild. There's something meet in having this conversation in the smoking, Cwyld-scored ruins of Talam's deep past: However dire the Cwyld's eruption had been, humans and Monsters had survived and lived to build the world of the Looking-glass House.
How small was the loss of a idea grown too cramped for them to inhabit, given that context?
He breathes out a rueful noise at his Witch's words and shakes his head without breaking gaze. It's not denial, precisely--not laughter at L, but a dim species of ironic humor a sentiment he'd held so dear himself. To pretend nothing further would change between them would be to try and keep the dunes from shifting, or hold back an onrushing tide.
The truth similarly could not be restrained; what they know now, about themselves and each other, would not be put back. Still, it's a deer's instinct to tiptoe around something that feels of danger; the specific embedded in L's vagueness is something Myr has not had an answer for since the night his Witch tossed him out of a dream of the Leviathan.
Yet he has always thought better on his feet (hooves), and perhaps in speaking of the general...]
I am asking you to ask, amatus. [Their palms are close enough he'd know they're nearly touching even outside the dream, from the heat of L's skin.] An infant isn't selfish for needing care when she can't care for herself. A child isn't selfish for needing love and food and shelter to grow. Even we as grown men sometimes must rely on others to thrive--as I do on you, and you on me.
[The circumstances of their Bond are never far from his mind, even a year and more after the fact.] When we're denied what we need and surfeited on what we want to keep us quiet, it's easy to think all our longings are selfish ones.
[It isn't only L in his well-maintained seclusion he speaks of; the we is a deliberate one, rather than Myr's reflexive vanishing into the Circle or the herd. He knows his own first instinct in struggle is to swallow it and hide in his duty toward others. And perhaps that's wherein his fear and jealousy lay: L is no ornament, no project piece, no toy clutched for the comfort of his presence. He is Myr's Witch, and he helps, and the threatened loss of that strange and quiet support cut deep.
Unlike the infant he'd survive if abandoned; but in his current state, he doubts much he'd thrive. Nor is L precisely thriving in their current state, in part because of that specific desire that rests unacknowledged between them.
Talking in generalities hasn't found him a better answer, but as L's being as open as it's in him to be--handed Myr this fragile truth he'd so long avoided giving over--there is no dodging any longer.
He lifts his hands the fraction it takes to press them to his Witch's, pressure delicate as he'd use to hold a fledgling fallen from its nest.] In another circumstance, the truth would be I'd have you, in every way.
[Had L been another mage at Hasmal, in all his awkward brilliance, the conclusion would've been foregone that they'd end up in bed together.]
In this circumstance, I fear to hurt you, to use you, as others have. Even acting out of love, I'm not perfect, and you let your oughts and shoulds get in the way of your own wellbeing, amatus.
Someone needs to safeguard that for you, who knows you as a person and not a means. [And so long as that someone is, and had been, Myr...it made certain more earthly forms of love feel like a violation of what he'd been entrusted with.]
no subject
How small was the loss of a idea grown too cramped for them to inhabit, given that context?
He breathes out a rueful noise at his Witch's words and shakes his head without breaking gaze. It's not denial, precisely--not laughter at L, but a dim species of ironic humor a sentiment he'd held so dear himself. To pretend nothing further would change between them would be to try and keep the dunes from shifting, or hold back an onrushing tide.
The truth similarly could not be restrained; what they know now, about themselves and each other, would not be put back. Still, it's a deer's instinct to tiptoe around something that feels of danger; the specific embedded in L's vagueness is something Myr has not had an answer for since the night his Witch tossed him out of a dream of the Leviathan.
Yet he has always thought better on his feet (hooves), and perhaps in speaking of the general...]
I am asking you to ask, amatus. [Their palms are close enough he'd know they're nearly touching even outside the dream, from the heat of L's skin.] An infant isn't selfish for needing care when she can't care for herself. A child isn't selfish for needing love and food and shelter to grow. Even we as grown men sometimes must rely on others to thrive--as I do on you, and you on me.
[The circumstances of their Bond are never far from his mind, even a year and more after the fact.] When we're denied what we need and surfeited on what we want to keep us quiet, it's easy to think all our longings are selfish ones.
[It isn't only L in his well-maintained seclusion he speaks of; the we is a deliberate one, rather than Myr's reflexive vanishing into the Circle or the herd. He knows his own first instinct in struggle is to swallow it and hide in his duty toward others. And perhaps that's wherein his fear and jealousy lay: L is no ornament, no project piece, no toy clutched for the comfort of his presence. He is Myr's Witch, and he helps, and the threatened loss of that strange and quiet support cut deep.
Unlike the infant he'd survive if abandoned; but in his current state, he doubts much he'd thrive. Nor is L precisely thriving in their current state, in part because of that specific desire that rests unacknowledged between them.
Talking in generalities hasn't found him a better answer, but as L's being as open as it's in him to be--handed Myr this fragile truth he'd so long avoided giving over--there is no dodging any longer.
He lifts his hands the fraction it takes to press them to his Witch's, pressure delicate as he'd use to hold a fledgling fallen from its nest.] In another circumstance, the truth would be I'd have you, in every way.
[Had L been another mage at Hasmal, in all his awkward brilliance, the conclusion would've been foregone that they'd end up in bed together.]
In this circumstance, I fear to hurt you, to use you, as others have. Even acting out of love, I'm not perfect, and you let your oughts and shoulds get in the way of your own wellbeing, amatus.
Someone needs to safeguard that for you, who knows you as a person and not a means. [And so long as that someone is, and had been, Myr...it made certain more earthly forms of love feel like a violation of what he'd been entrusted with.]