[It's easy to miss, but there is familiarity in seeing the motion. She often does the same with her own tail. Still, while Trish's gaze lingers briefly, she doesn't say anything.
Atem wants to feel safe, on every level. It's something anyone would want, within reason.
The people who die tragically and young are the same ones who decide their safety matters less than the safety of others. In some ways, that remains true in Ryslig, but he's not wrong that as a baseline, their very existence here is going to hurt someone. To stay sane, to control the pain they cause, they have to hurt with intent. It's more than possible to become numb to it. But she...doesn't want to. She wants to live above it.
Atem, too, seems to have once believed of himself that he was stronger than what this world could to him, just as she felt about him herself in seeing how he carried himself through confident stances and clever words. Atem is sharp as a blade, cunning, and he...
He lost.
This world cut him deeper than he could cut through it with careful thought and wit. She wonders about this friend of his too, because that description sounds like frenzying, but not quite. Instead, she thinks of the distant look Giorno's eyes had taken in the past, when the two of them had been embroiled in ugly, heated arguments. Giorno went somewhere else too. The warm, gentle boy of gold was replaced with someone cold and angry, as if flipped by a switch.
...No, that's probably not the same either.
Still, Atem sounds more like the boy she remembers so fondly when he talks about caring if someone fell afoul of him in an altered state of mind. She wants to believe he'll never stop caring, but he continues.
He let go of his mind, apparently. Why, he doesn't say, but what matters is that the person who walked into this warpath was another monster. The mer shuts her eyes, trying to picture the moment herself. The idea of fighting another monster is chilling to her. She's not a fighter at all, and she can easily imagine losing and being left at that monster's mercy. Atem is brilliant, but he's probably not a fighter either, not in the traditional sense.
So she pictures Atem in a position like that, and her blood runs cold. Killing is one thing, but torture, torture is...a monster exerting their power over another in only the cruelest ways. It reminds her of how she assured Hinata that whatever he did when he was robbed of his senses, he would be forgiven. But Atem's story proves that isn't true at all, is it? She wants to believe monsters can be reasonable in the ways Atem and Hinata have been amenable to reason, on a level she could impress on them and be understood...but what do you do with someone who cannot or does not want to be reasoned with? Who is angry, and determined to pay back their pain?
When she opens her eyes again, the werewolf is looking at her.
cw continued throughout, honestly
Atem wants to feel safe, on every level. It's something anyone would want, within reason.
The people who die tragically and young are the same ones who decide their safety matters less than the safety of others. In some ways, that remains true in Ryslig, but he's not wrong that as a baseline, their very existence here is going to hurt someone. To stay sane, to control the pain they cause, they have to hurt with intent. It's more than possible to become numb to it. But she...doesn't want to. She wants to live above it.
Atem, too, seems to have once believed of himself that he was stronger than what this world could to him, just as she felt about him herself in seeing how he carried himself through confident stances and clever words. Atem is sharp as a blade, cunning, and he...
He lost.
This world cut him deeper than he could cut through it with careful thought and wit. She wonders about this friend of his too, because that description sounds like frenzying, but not quite. Instead, she thinks of the distant look Giorno's eyes had taken in the past, when the two of them had been embroiled in ugly, heated arguments. Giorno went somewhere else too. The warm, gentle boy of gold was replaced with someone cold and angry, as if flipped by a switch.
...No, that's probably not the same either.
Still, Atem sounds more like the boy she remembers so fondly when he talks about caring if someone fell afoul of him in an altered state of mind. She wants to believe he'll never stop caring, but he continues.
He let go of his mind, apparently. Why, he doesn't say, but what matters is that the person who walked into this warpath was another monster. The mer shuts her eyes, trying to picture the moment herself. The idea of fighting another monster is chilling to her. She's not a fighter at all, and she can easily imagine losing and being left at that monster's mercy. Atem is brilliant, but he's probably not a fighter either, not in the traditional sense.
So she pictures Atem in a position like that, and her blood runs cold. Killing is one thing, but torture, torture is...a monster exerting their power over another in only the cruelest ways. It reminds her of how she assured Hinata that whatever he did when he was robbed of his senses, he would be forgiven. But Atem's story proves that isn't true at all, is it? She wants to believe monsters can be reasonable in the ways Atem and Hinata have been amenable to reason, on a level she could impress on them and be understood...but what do you do with someone who cannot or does not want to be reasoned with? Who is angry, and determined to pay back their pain?
When she opens her eyes again, the werewolf is looking at her.
Swallowing, she nods for him to continue.]