'Lost in spirit, but present in body.' It's not the same, but for a moment, that falter in his steps... there was a thought that occurred to him unbidden then, underlying the more immediate, obvious one. It's a horrible thing to think, though. Switch tracks for now, run on parallel tracks for a bit. It's all snarled and tangled together anyway but as long as he doesn't acknowledge it and give it more weight or notice than it deserves, it'll vanish back into the aether it deserves to rot away in.
Emmet doesn't think of himself as good at leading conversations. Oftentimes the straight line from point A to point B he favors tends to kill them, or otherwise leave people floundering in awkward silence for a response. And that's fine with him. Or at least it was, before, when the people who needed to understood him and the ones who didn't were inconsequential.
These days it is something he has had to try to soften, but all the same... he did say earlier he would talk about it, if Ingo wanted. And Ingo asked, so. The silence stretches out for a bit as Emmet sorts his thoughts before he says, staring at somewhere on the wall: ]
... I almost didn't stop you. Sort of. Passing thought, entertained. Discarded, but. Wouldn't have left you alone, would have followed because I was worried, but still.
[ He probably would have pulled Ingo away regardless, but still. 'But still' seems to be what he keeps returning to here. They don't know that the forest is filled with the remnants of those who have fallen there before yet. That comes later. But even so, it's not hard to imagine something happening with one of them compromised and the other fighting back panic out of will and grit and not much more. ]
It's not you. It's not anything, really. I'm unhappy with myself for what I was thinking then. That's all.
[ He is talking in circles around it. Uncharacteristic, maybe. But it's a horrible thing to think. It's greedy and selfish. It's not something he wants to voice in front of Ingo, irrational, fleeting thought or not, because Emmet is certain that voicing it would only hurt, that Ingo would take it to heart, take it in entirely the wrong way, if he said he almost let Ingo wander towards the fog because maybe it might knock a memory loose, if the phrasing Ingo had used, 'that they may be lost in spirit, but very present in body' did not only make Emmet fear for what might have happened if Ingo really had wandered off into the mists but also let creep in the insidious, poisonous thread of, isn't that kind of like how it is now?
It's a horrible thing to think. Ingo is still Ingo. What Emmet said when they first found each other is still true. He isn't lost anywhere, spirit or otherwise, he's right here. He might not be entirely the same as he was, but, well.
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'Lost in spirit, but present in body.' It's not the same, but for a moment, that falter in his steps... there was a thought that occurred to him unbidden then, underlying the more immediate, obvious one. It's a horrible thing to think, though. Switch tracks for now, run on parallel tracks for a bit. It's all snarled and tangled together anyway but as long as he doesn't acknowledge it and give it more weight or notice than it deserves, it'll vanish back into the aether it deserves to rot away in.
Emmet doesn't think of himself as good at leading conversations. Oftentimes the straight line from point A to point B he favors tends to kill them, or otherwise leave people floundering in awkward silence for a response. And that's fine with him. Or at least it was, before, when the people who needed to understood him and the ones who didn't were inconsequential.
These days it is something he has had to try to soften, but all the same... he did say earlier he would talk about it, if Ingo wanted. And Ingo asked, so. The silence stretches out for a bit as Emmet sorts his thoughts before he says, staring at somewhere on the wall: ]
... I almost didn't stop you. Sort of. Passing thought, entertained. Discarded, but. Wouldn't have left you alone, would have followed because I was worried, but still.
[ He probably would have pulled Ingo away regardless, but still. 'But still' seems to be what he keeps returning to here. They don't know that the forest is filled with the remnants of those who have fallen there before yet. That comes later. But even so, it's not hard to imagine something happening with one of them compromised and the other fighting back panic out of will and grit and not much more. ]
It's not you. It's not anything, really. I'm unhappy with myself for what I was thinking then. That's all.
[ He is talking in circles around it. Uncharacteristic, maybe. But it's a horrible thing to think. It's greedy and selfish. It's not something he wants to voice in front of Ingo, irrational, fleeting thought or not, because Emmet is certain that voicing it would only hurt, that Ingo would take it to heart, take it in entirely the wrong way, if he said he almost let Ingo wander towards the fog because maybe it might knock a memory loose, if the phrasing Ingo had used, 'that they may be lost in spirit, but very present in body' did not only make Emmet fear for what might have happened if Ingo really had wandered off into the mists but also let creep in the insidious, poisonous thread of, isn't that kind of like how it is now?
It's a horrible thing to think. Ingo is still Ingo. What Emmet said when they first found each other is still true. He isn't lost anywhere, spirit or otherwise, he's right here. He might not be entirely the same as he was, but, well.
Neither is Emmet. ]