[There is a feeling gnawing at Myr's spine, at the base of his brain, that there are two people here he needs to save and not one alone.
But he doesn't have the tools, the understanding, the language, the reach to rescue one of them, and they are tangled up in each other so inextricably that if one drowns the other will.
O Creating Glory, o Lady of Mercy, please, I am not the instrument for this. Don't ask this of me.
Maybe They weren't; this isn't Their world, after all. Yet--having found the problem, it's his to fix (or deliver into the hands of someone more capable--but who?). The habits of faith are so deeply, dearly graven into him he can't give them up.
But he can look away from them internally and not make a choice, yet, except to take step by dragging step through the current crisis.]
You didn't offer. But you knew what he'd ask enough to be ready for it. Isn't that good-as?
[(What he would make of that note L had started and abandoned, did he but know.)
The rest of L's reasoning, while perfectly logical from a certain slant, gets a huff of frustration and upset out of Myr.]
He's still a child, [stating the obvious,] and there are reasons we don't,
[let children choose for themselves, he'd been about to say, when the approach of footsteps cuts him short. The waiter's back, stepping into the awkward lacuna Myr's left in the conversation.
He waits until he hears his teacup set in front of him, breathing, breathing to leash his own emotions, before turning a wan smile up in the waiter's direction. He's made a snap decision.]
--D'you know, I think I will order something--to go, if you'd be so kind. The one with all the vegetables...?
["Off the Garden Path?"] --That, and a sweet roll.
Linden? My treat. [And at least half his omelette is going to his Bonded as it is, if he can help it. Once they're somewhere that's a better venue for what this is turning into.] They've got one with fruit and syrup.
no subject
But he doesn't have the tools, the understanding, the language, the reach to rescue one of them, and they are tangled up in each other so inextricably that if one drowns the other will.
O Creating Glory, o Lady of Mercy, please, I am not the instrument for this. Don't ask this of me.
Maybe They weren't; this isn't Their world, after all. Yet--having found the problem, it's his to fix (or deliver into the hands of someone more capable--but who?). The habits of faith are so deeply, dearly graven into him he can't give them up.
But he can look away from them internally and not make a choice, yet, except to take step by dragging step through the current crisis.]
You didn't offer. But you knew what he'd ask enough to be ready for it. Isn't that good-as?
[(What he would make of that note L had started and abandoned, did he but know.)
The rest of L's reasoning, while perfectly logical from a certain slant, gets a huff of frustration and upset out of Myr.]
He's still a child, [stating the obvious,] and there are reasons we don't,
[let children choose for themselves, he'd been about to say, when the approach of footsteps cuts him short. The waiter's back, stepping into the awkward lacuna Myr's left in the conversation.
He waits until he hears his teacup set in front of him, breathing, breathing to leash his own emotions, before turning a wan smile up in the waiter's direction. He's made a snap decision.]
--D'you know, I think I will order something--to go, if you'd be so kind. The one with all the vegetables...?
["Off the Garden Path?"] --That, and a sweet roll.
Linden? My treat. [And at least half his omelette is going to his Bonded as it is, if he can help it. Once they're somewhere that's a better venue for what this is turning into.] They've got one with fruit and syrup.
[He'd inquired.]