[Ahh that's an area we didn't go to at all. Closest we got was Nikko, where we stayed in the most amazing historic self-catering cottage out in a little farming village. Japan has some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen anywhere, so I'm sure going farther into them will only get more grand! Boo on rain, but happy birthday!! and also hurrah for getting the move sorted!]
As he listened, Aurus gave a small nod of understanding--they had guns in Tyria. Conceptually, he had no trouble knowing just what Charles meant.
The real meaning, though, was not in the gunshot or the severing of nerves. It was in the cruel irony: Charles had lost the connection between body and mind, while in its place, the connection between mind and mind--his and others'--flourished. Of course Aurus didn't know how literally true this irony was, that Charles had to make the choice between his legs and his powers. To him it seemed only to have the force of a metaphor, but it was a powerful metaphor.
It was also, in its way, exactly what he had been waiting for: a crack in the facade through which another side of Charles was revealed.
It mattered very much, Aurus felt, that neither of them were inviolable. For all their mutual confidence and composure, neither of them had been untouched by life. Charles, arguably, was more damaged. Not physically damaged, Aurus didn't think of him that way--but his emotional wounds were still more raw, whereas Aurus's had spent more time working over his own. Perhaps, he thought, that might mean the incipient connection between them could become a sort of balm. But no salve would ever help unless the wound was cleaned and exposed first.
Reaching out, he placed his hand over Charles' where it gripped the arm of his chair. It was a risk, he knew--the man might recoil, pull away from him, but he chose to do it anyway. "I'm sorry. Chance can be very cruel." He meant these words in earnest, and they were reflected in his eyes which looked at Charles not with pity but with empathy and that same timbre of warmth that they'd held before this tale was told. However haunted Charles might be, it was by specters of which Aurus was not daunted.
no subject
As he listened, Aurus gave a small nod of understanding--they had guns in Tyria. Conceptually, he had no trouble knowing just what Charles meant.
The real meaning, though, was not in the gunshot or the severing of nerves. It was in the cruel irony: Charles had lost the connection between body and mind, while in its place, the connection between mind and mind--his and others'--flourished. Of course Aurus didn't know how literally true this irony was, that Charles had to make the choice between his legs and his powers. To him it seemed only to have the force of a metaphor, but it was a powerful metaphor.
It was also, in its way, exactly what he had been waiting for: a crack in the facade through which another side of Charles was revealed.
It mattered very much, Aurus felt, that neither of them were inviolable. For all their mutual confidence and composure, neither of them had been untouched by life. Charles, arguably, was more damaged. Not physically damaged, Aurus didn't think of him that way--but his emotional wounds were still more raw, whereas Aurus's had spent more time working over his own. Perhaps, he thought, that might mean the incipient connection between them could become a sort of balm. But no salve would ever help unless the wound was cleaned and exposed first.
Reaching out, he placed his hand over Charles' where it gripped the arm of his chair. It was a risk, he knew--the man might recoil, pull away from him, but he chose to do it anyway. "I'm sorry. Chance can be very cruel." He meant these words in earnest, and they were reflected in his eyes which looked at Charles not with pity but with empathy and that same timbre of warmth that they'd held before this tale was told. However haunted Charles might be, it was by specters of which Aurus was not daunted.