inbox | un: v

[summonere]

Comments

[summonere]

I'm not offended either. Things change, it's all right.

[takeroot]

Fine, fine. I will concede that things change. That hardly precludes us from being friends, I should hope.

[summonere]

It might, in the end.

[takeroot]

Because we each are not each other's idealized selves? That is simply how people are.

[summonere]

Because people with different priorities go different ways.

[takeroot]

And that puts us at cross purposes? I'm certain my humble ambitions won't get in your way.

[summonere]

Oh yes, I noticed.

[takeroot]

V, honestly. What did you notice?

[summonere]

Your humble ambitions are safe from me, don't worry.

[takeroot]

Good god man, is that what you think of me? When have I ever once turned you away?

[summonere]

No, you wouldn't do something so overt. Your ability to remain pleasant while rebuffing someone must be a practiced one. In that vein, I wonder if you notice that you do it.

So let's try it again. Why don't you tell me what kind of person you are.

[takeroot]

As always, what would you like me to say? You called me desperate in so many words last time, but I have forgiven that. And if I've been dismissive then I am sorry, because I imagine I have yet to shake the habit of wondering when the other shoe will drop. That is unfair of me.

[Give him like...........five minutes to ruminate.]

Having spent my entire life trying not to become my father, I have no answer you aren't going to scoff at. It's taken me this long to stop looking over my shoulder for some sign of his shadow, let alone place myself into a context where I am more than someone's regrettably surviving son. When I tell you I am a man who wants only a simple life, it is because I have expired the script and am running blind.

I do want to be respected, but I have no interest in chasing water in the desert. The very idea exhausts me.

You had asked if you could help me with my myriad problems, so there they are.

[summonere]

We're as desperate as each other, and that's why I'm no help with your myriad.

I want to hear that the simple life is what you want in a world where you can be anyone you want. Not watch you disappear into it because you can't think of anything better.

[takeroot]

I am n [BACKSPACE... backspace... He won't argue about it.]

Do I seem like I'm disappearing?

[summonere]

Hard to tell, you avoid showing it to me so that I won't scoff at you.

[takeroot]

I'm sensitive to criticism. Add it to my list of terrible afflictions.

Still, you did bring it up. I would imagine there must be a reason.

[summonere]

I think about the person who promised to experience the world with me. And then I hear from someone else that all he wants is to be be the orphanage caretaker. With nothing between the two.

[takeroot]

In fairness, I love all of those children and they deserve to be raised better than I was.

But I keep experiencing nearly being murdered in this world and I've discovered I lack the stomach for it. Perhaps I was never enough to brave the world in the first place! I don't know.

[summonere]

You don't need to justify the children to me.

[takeroot]

I am justifying the rest, actually. I would die before I let any harm come to them, but I will not die for these imbecile gods and their insipid problems. The Emperor is a militant fool and the Priestess is so unaware of what goes on in her own territory that I've nearly been killed yet again on her watch!

V, I am sorry. I do value your friendship. It's this world that's difficult to believe in.

[summonere]

I have a war to fight.

[takeroot]

I won't try to dissuade you from that, you know. I may suggest that you take a nap every now and then, but I won't begrudge you something important to you.

[summonere]

No, you wouldn't. And I don't begrudge you.

The fact remains that we have changed, both of us.

[takeroot]

And you still insist that means we can't be friends? Am I the only one in your life with lesser designs?

[summonere]

I mean that it can't be the same friendship that it was.