[ It has little to do with denial, and perhaps less to do with any faith-based numbing agent.
What, then? For anybody else, it's the sheer distaste for the space he might occupy - the permanent, nagging presence of someone else in yet greater need, the threat of having to draw attention to himself. Thoughts which twist his own need into a threat (of inconvenience, of deprivation, of irritation,) are all that Sir Godfrey needs to turn his efforts to numbing himself to that periodic stab accompanying his steps.
Godfrey can't say this is all that holds him back where Aren is concerned, however. He spent enough time leading his congregation to know a man lost when he sees one. He's seen how Aren's gaze lingers over the strewn gore they so often left behind, how he watched the blood soak the soil. As though he would sink his fingers into it.
Medical curiosity - Godfrey tells himself this is the kinder, more reasonable assumption. He had already expressed an affinity for the medicinal sciences. His immediate conclusion feels unfair. Still, there is something about his fascination that Godfrey cannot settle in himself; he cannot make it sit right, no matter where he puts it. Always do his thoughts return to the lurid glee he'd thought he glimpsed in him as those hyenas burst on the road.
It flits behind his eyes now, as Aren cuts a tall shadow in the doorway of his military tent. He clears his throat. ]
Perhaps so. [ If he'd meant to kill him, there were better ways to go about it. This is what he tells himself as he eases down to his bedroll, ginger as his left side begins to shriek again. ] I've an old wound as well, though it's not ached before.
no subject
What, then? For anybody else, it's the sheer distaste for the space he might occupy - the permanent, nagging presence of someone else in yet greater need, the threat of having to draw attention to himself. Thoughts which twist his own need into a threat (of inconvenience, of deprivation, of irritation,) are all that Sir Godfrey needs to turn his efforts to numbing himself to that periodic stab accompanying his steps.
Godfrey can't say this is all that holds him back where Aren is concerned, however. He spent enough time leading his congregation to know a man lost when he sees one. He's seen how Aren's gaze lingers over the strewn gore they so often left behind, how he watched the blood soak the soil. As though he would sink his fingers into it.
Medical curiosity - Godfrey tells himself this is the kinder, more reasonable assumption. He had already expressed an affinity for the medicinal sciences. His immediate conclusion feels unfair. Still, there is something about his fascination that Godfrey cannot settle in himself; he cannot make it sit right, no matter where he puts it. Always do his thoughts return to the lurid glee he'd thought he glimpsed in him as those hyenas burst on the road.
It flits behind his eyes now, as Aren cuts a tall shadow in the doorway of his military tent. He clears his throat. ]
Perhaps so. [ If he'd meant to kill him, there were better ways to go about it. This is what he tells himself as he eases down to his bedroll, ginger as his left side begins to shriek again. ] I've an old wound as well, though it's not ached before.