[ The headpat makes Gil laugh softly. It's so completely incongruous with the sentiments being lavished onto Rau that it's comical, but at the same time it's a gesture of goodwill that needs appreciation. Rau is trying, in his own way, and Gil's dead heart is responding to it with endless fondness. ]
Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment.
[ Gil has never wanted to be destructive. As a geneticist he's dedicated his whole life to the act of of preservation, of creation even. First for the PLANTs and then, in his own twisted way and owed again to Rau (who is by all genetic metrics a Natural), for all of mankind.
Even when giving the order to kill, to annihilate fleets and countries, Gil would not like to think of himself as a destroyer. Those actions should have merely paved the way towards a future he'd envisioned to be that much more prosperous.
But if Rau, who speaks of violence with such disdain that it wraps back around to fondness (or is that the other way around?), wants to acknowledge his love as destructive? Then that feels like a stamp of approval to keep loving. Gil thinks it's a more noble kind of destruction than any other, at least. ]
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Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment.
[ Gil has never wanted to be destructive. As a geneticist he's dedicated his whole life to the act of of preservation, of creation even. First for the PLANTs and then, in his own twisted way and owed again to Rau (who is by all genetic metrics a Natural), for all of mankind.
Even when giving the order to kill, to annihilate fleets and countries, Gil would not like to think of himself as a destroyer. Those actions should have merely paved the way towards a future he'd envisioned to be that much more prosperous.
But if Rau, who speaks of violence with such disdain that it wraps back around to fondness (or is that the other way around?), wants to acknowledge his love as destructive? Then that feels like a stamp of approval to keep loving. Gil thinks it's a more noble kind of destruction than any other, at least. ]