No, they aren't. They never were, no matter how many times it'd been embossed into their minds or wedged into cramped corners with too few beds to speak of. Rejected over the course of sprawling lifetimes in all directions save from on high because no family was ever made like this. Not his kin. Not siblings, nor friends, nor lovers. Not the life he left behind. Not the people that he must have loved— (had anyone at all cared for him before Cazador set in?)— scraped off and replaced in the blink of a fetid eye as empty as any of Godey's hollow sockets. It was forced caring, like sick surrogacy, that flourished in those rooms. Those halls. Those mattresses and parties and greasy little whorehouses. Hearing another animal yelp close enough when you're in pain, and anyone— anything— would feel a tug of polarity stringing them together, whether they wanted to or not.
(And yet—)
He resists the urge for candor. Leaves it burning a hole through his throat like bitter bile, more nauseating by the seconds as they pass.]
I don't know.
[Was meant to have been yes. Was meant to have been It'd have been easier that way. For everyone. Is— ]
....I don't know.
[His face folds into shadow in retreat, a scant difference of inches for he can't bear anything more than that, even whilst needing cold air in his lungs. Old habits. Less old than the rest. Farther than the rest, too, still leashed to Thedas by its touch.
And there at last, under the law that dictates anything frozen runs hard:]
no subject
No, they aren't. They never were, no matter how many times it'd been embossed into their minds or wedged into cramped corners with too few beds to speak of. Rejected over the course of sprawling lifetimes in all directions save from on high because no family was ever made like this. Not his kin. Not siblings, nor friends, nor lovers. Not the life he left behind. Not the people that he must have loved— (had anyone at all cared for him before Cazador set in?)— scraped off and replaced in the blink of a fetid eye as empty as any of Godey's hollow sockets. It was forced caring, like sick surrogacy, that flourished in those rooms. Those halls. Those mattresses and parties and greasy little whorehouses. Hearing another animal yelp close enough when you're in pain, and anyone— anything— would feel a tug of polarity stringing them together, whether they wanted to or not.
(And yet—)
He resists the urge for candor. Leaves it burning a hole through his throat like bitter bile, more nauseating by the seconds as they pass.]
I don't know.
[Was meant to have been yes. Was meant to have been It'd have been easier that way. For everyone. Is— ]
....I don't know.
[His face folds into shadow in retreat, a scant difference of inches for he can't bear anything more than that, even whilst needing cold air in his lungs. Old habits. Less old than the rest. Farther than the rest, too, still leashed to Thedas by its touch.
And there at last, under the law that dictates anything frozen runs hard:]
Yes.