There is something about saying something without forethought -- too honest -- that hearing a laugh in response makes his stomach drop into something like nausea. For a moment, it casts everything in a light he hadn't anticipated. The possibility that everything he had feared would happen in the ritual room, up until this very moment, all the way back to every word or glance he second-guessed in their meetings? Was all in his head.
Which, even after the obvious danger, was one of the reasons he never responded and kept it to himself.
He is surrounded by viscera and crumbling masonry, standing in as literal an interpretation of the Hells as you could get without exiting this plane, and for just an instant he feels hideous and it is infuriating that this emotion penetrates the fear ruling everything else. All he can do is internally scold himself.
But only a possibility. The 'joining' and the form it took. The Dark Urge's very deliberate turn of phrase here and throughout. That stops it from being a certainty but there is already so little room in his mind for even a phantom anxiety.
Then the bhaalspawn doesn't touch him, but it isn't the relief it should be, because the closeness as he circles spells it out very clearly: this is still happening, but he's not going to just get it over with. He can feel his eyes on him. The word toy makes something inside him squirm uncomfortably.
Everything he hoped for? Not in the slightest.
But something slips into place. Something that feels certain. This is going to happen. Pain will be an unavoidable side-effect. He has no idea what state he will be in when there is at last any sort of reprieve.
And nothing he is about to say is about delaying or stopping any of that. For the moment it is because he should, and he doesn't know how capable he will be of saying it afterward. And the Dark Urge may yet silence him.
Gortash's eyes go to the floor.
"It isn't." He swallows. "In any situation where I saw myself going to you, it did not involve disrespecting your temple. I did not know the nature of my being brought here and believed my life to be in immediate danger. I was not told, and I do not know why." If he had been told? If Bane had said to him his failure and sent him away, his anger and his heartbreak would have been correctly aimed. But in the end, he would have done his duty. "For what I have done, I apologize."
no subject
Which, even after the obvious danger, was one of the reasons he never responded and kept it to himself.
He is surrounded by viscera and crumbling masonry, standing in as literal an interpretation of the Hells as you could get without exiting this plane, and for just an instant he feels hideous and it is infuriating that this emotion penetrates the fear ruling everything else. All he can do is internally scold himself.
But only a possibility. The 'joining' and the form it took. The Dark Urge's very deliberate turn of phrase here and throughout. That stops it from being a certainty but there is already so little room in his mind for even a phantom anxiety.
Then the bhaalspawn doesn't touch him, but it isn't the relief it should be, because the closeness as he circles spells it out very clearly: this is still happening, but he's not going to just get it over with. He can feel his eyes on him. The word toy makes something inside him squirm uncomfortably.
Everything he hoped for? Not in the slightest.
But something slips into place. Something that feels certain. This is going to happen. Pain will be an unavoidable side-effect. He has no idea what state he will be in when there is at last any sort of reprieve.
And nothing he is about to say is about delaying or stopping any of that. For the moment it is because he should, and he doesn't know how capable he will be of saying it afterward. And the Dark Urge may yet silence him.
Gortash's eyes go to the floor.
"It isn't." He swallows. "In any situation where I saw myself going to you, it did not involve disrespecting your temple. I did not know the nature of my being brought here and believed my life to be in immediate danger. I was not told, and I do not know why." If he had been told? If Bane had said to him his failure and sent him away, his anger and his heartbreak would have been correctly aimed. But in the end, he would have done his duty. "For what I have done, I apologize."