"Suited." [ He shakes his head. ] I told you that our contradiction was a refutation.
[ Rau tugs his hand free, leans in and presses the fingers hard over Gil's heart, like he wants to claw after Rey's bullet up to the wrist. It is ungentle, implacable. His head dips low, so that his mouth is an inch from Gil's ear. He does not raise his voice, but the words spill out with fierce, absolute conviction. ]
We were a perfect test of "destiny" — if "can" and "should" and "suited" and the matter we're made of could define the world, then he and I would be one and the same. But he was better than the filth, [ the word is a snarl, ] that he was spun from, or perhaps we — [ his free hand taps the bridge of the mask and the face that Rey never grew into; it is a palpably self-loathing "we" that encompasses the predecessor and the self, but not the might-have-been successor ] — were worse than what we were made of.
In either case, he and I, [ not "we" this time, ] are the ultimate proof that "suited" is meaningless, that "destiny" cannot force the world's maladies back into a box. And that is the identical part of the rejection that he and I offer: humanity will only and always "want."
[ He inhales sharply, exhales just as sharply, then pulls free, stands back again and recomposes the usual facade. One hand settles at his hip, the other pushes stray wisps of hair from his face, repairing the tiniest cracks in the stone veneer. After a moment, he smiles broadly and brightly but thinly, his fangs hidden away again; his voice is back to steady politeness. ]
It is only human for you to want, to dream. I do not reproach you for dreaming itself.
But it was foolish to think that you could save anyone else from the same.
no subject
[ Rau tugs his hand free, leans in and presses the fingers hard over Gil's heart, like he wants to claw after Rey's bullet up to the wrist. It is ungentle, implacable. His head dips low, so that his mouth is an inch from Gil's ear. He does not raise his voice, but the words spill out with fierce, absolute conviction. ]
We were a perfect test of "destiny" — if "can" and "should" and "suited" and the matter we're made of could define the world, then he and I would be one and the same. But he was better than the filth, [ the word is a snarl, ] that he was spun from, or perhaps we — [ his free hand taps the bridge of the mask and the face that Rey never grew into; it is a palpably self-loathing "we" that encompasses the predecessor and the self, but not the might-have-been successor ] — were worse than what we were made of.
In either case, he and I, [ not "we" this time, ] are the ultimate proof that "suited" is meaningless, that "destiny" cannot force the world's maladies back into a box. And that is the identical part of the rejection that he and I offer: humanity will only and always "want."
[ He inhales sharply, exhales just as sharply, then pulls free, stands back again and recomposes the usual facade. One hand settles at his hip, the other pushes stray wisps of hair from his face, repairing the tiniest cracks in the stone veneer. After a moment, he smiles broadly and brightly but thinly, his fangs hidden away again; his voice is back to steady politeness. ]
It is only human for you to want, to dream. I do not reproach you for dreaming itself.
But it was foolish to think that you could save anyone else from the same.