Re: The Icarus/The Fallen
"Isn't it obvious?" he asked. Enlil felt it was very obvious why no one should receive lessons from him. "I'm what we call trouble. I'm feckless and reckless and I don't give a good goddamn what happens to me. I'm a terror and a blight." But his voice was soft and melodic as he made the claims, and the scythe that cut a smile into his cheek remained as it was. He looked vastly entertained and mildly conspiratorial, as a man sharing confidences would. It was entirely clear that he didn't mean his own words, at least to himself. This late in the evening he'd no true concept of what his upward flight had been a result of, or he didn't in this very moment, but he was certain it hadn't been as bad as all that.
Enlil watched as Nathaniel's expression faltered. He was intrigued by the shifting of bone and muscle to form the melting emotions that were so clearly expressed on the face of someone who claimed to feel nothing at all. "To feel is to hurt. To feel is to chafe and to cry and to scream. To feel is to burn in all the good ways, but to also burn in all the bad way. Do you want both?" he asked. He was not asking out of idle curiosity, and this was not a rhetorical question that he posed. He was truly interested. "Now that I think on it, I would want to feel no matter the cost, but as I already feel then it would be a loss to me. I expect as it is unknown then there is no loss associated with the concept to you."
But the time for confidences was nigh. Enlil allowed the grip to a wrist that could be felt to be scarred upon touch. The healed tissue of the lichtenberg scar was raised against papery soft skin. The scar was mauve, visible now at the end of his white cuff and on pale skin. Enlil's hand was dragged to rest on Nathaniel's chest. He thrummed his fingers there lightly. "I think the better question is to ask if you feel anything."