A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.
In the silence that stretches out between them like horizons beyond the last pretty word to leave her mouth she is still basking in the shield he has made from his body.
And when at last he gives her his opinion on her platform the conversation, admittedly surprisingly, is already more productive by leaps and bounds than any to take place before it. Phasus, who he has noted to love the sound of her own voice (he isn’t wrong; she is a simple creature in many ways), is delighted at the mere notion of being listened to, regardless of whether the opposing side has altered it’s view any or not. She has been bred for manipulation (see it now in the jut of her hip, or the way she looks out from under the curl of her dark lashes instead of head on), but of course she is not above succumbing to it herself. Try as she might she is no god.
He is right to listen, and to use patience.
Let her think she is heard.
Let her think she is valid — and then, then watch all of that stubborn resolve fall away like snow melted only by the heat of her own hand.
He isn’t done though. He goes on to tell her a personal note, about a lost love that he could not in good conscious turn away if he vision had come to fruition. She watches as grief takes him in its cold grasp and his head falls while his eyes cloud, though she is, admittedly, not particularly moved by the drama of the scene. Phasus does not empathize with many. That’s what happens when you don’t love much beyond yourself. But there is an opening in his heartbreak that she sees (there, in the hole of his loss, that one that he is bleeding out from), and one that she is not above exploiting.
She doesn’t speak then, though she does find it difficult to grasp the logic behind his reasoning. He wouldn’t need to turn his love away. He could choose her. He could go with her. They could be anywhere together, but here.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says when he is finished entirely, referring to the vulnerability he had previously shown her earlier in their conversation (and the last point she had been listening for, after which she promptly lost herself in her own schemes).
“Would you mind though, if for argument’s sake alone, I used her as an example?” She pauses, as though in consideration of his feelings while in reality she is counting seconds before plunging forwards; the subtle nuances of conversation do not evade her, and so she waits a respectable amount of time while feeling nothing for his suffering.
“Let’s say that she is safe here — as beautiful as ever, and the sickness hasn’t found her. Perhaps she has children, too — sweet, fragile things barely on their own legs. They’re yours. Now, you are the one who is ill and finds this place. Are you willing to jeopardize her health, their health, by deciding that here in this tundra is where you must stay when you have the whole world behind you? Would you not choose instead to better yourself on the mainland first before returning home?”
And here she allows a second, dutiful pause to follow the first. She lowers her eyes, and shakes her delicate face as though the concept is too much to bear. It isn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she continues, allowing her voice to break in all of the right ways. “I know it’s a difficult imagery to see. I lost someone, too, once…” And here she trails off, giving him time to imagine the nonexistent lover, or child, that has her tripping over her words and dropping her guard. Inside, she is wriggling with delight at her own cleverness.
“It’s what, in the end, helped me to make sense of all of this.”
phasus
@[Jesper] Sorry this is so late! And it's not great, but I wanted to tie things up a little. I figure this will be a good place to leave it and bring us to the current all residents thread. We can say after this they decided to sit and think on everything and went their separate ways, if that works for you.