[ Humans, as he knew them, would always find ways to better defend themselves from what they feared most. Whether it be to improve their own bodies, to make by themselves weapons that were beyond even his comprehension – he’s known these wars. He knows the shape of his own, mapped out to two sets of eyes while the rest of humanity lay in the dark. He wonders how much longer it will be until it is beyond them, inevitably. He wonders how much time he has left.
And it is thoughts like these, that breed a divide within him. It is that darkness that drags its nails through him, catches at his temples and at the backs of his eyes. It seethes there, like a knot he can’t untangle or a wound he cannot stitch. It’s been there all his life. ]
I wonder about that too, [ he breathes out, words heavy and strange as they tumble from his mouth. His eyes don’t flicker up. He has to wonder about it, with mankind. How much could anything take? Something in him loves the thought, but he meets it with immediate and impossible disgust. His mouth twists, uncertain. ] Would others care as much as we do?
[ No. No, likely not. That cynicism in him, that humor he finds from it all – it coils tight in his gut, seeps into his expression. But, it doesn’t for long. It isn’t allowed, because Ashitaka offers that question to him and Ryo, for the life of him, starts his struggle with the words to answer it.
The truth sits at the tip of his tongue, but his eyes are hard beneath the dark sweep of his lashes. He leans back against the hoverbike behind him, hand coming up to pull his trench coat tighter across his chest. Like men who shield their skins from searching arrows, Ryo keeps his heart hidden beneath the heavy fabric. His knuckles go whiter, paler beneath the sudden stress. ]
My world is beautiful, [ he says, after a long and silent moment. He presses his tongue against the inner corner of his lip, the meat of his thumb dug up against the hard curve of a button. He almost wants to laugh, but everything in him can’t seem to fix. The luminescent earth beneath him gives him nothing familiar to moor himself with. And to think of something that would – the ache in him threatens to overwhelm him suddenly, like a well after a storm. ] But, there’s no time for me to appreciate it.
[ There’s no time here. There’s no time back on his own soil. There’s no way to string together words – useless and unspoken – against the current of their possible and potential extermination. He can’t find how to say it, if he can even say it – and it makes no difference here, where confronting it is ever more impossible than before.
His world is beautiful. There’s so much in it, so much that had been stripped and soiled. But, it thrived around humanity, in mirror of what it could have been. And it thrived within him. It took roots, like the steady thrum of music through the steering wheel of his father’s car – like Akira’s laugh beside him.
Yes, that place too was a world beautiful enough. ]
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And it is thoughts like these, that breed a divide within him. It is that darkness that drags its nails through him, catches at his temples and at the backs of his eyes. It seethes there, like a knot he can’t untangle or a wound he cannot stitch. It’s been there all his life. ]
I wonder about that too, [ he breathes out, words heavy and strange as they tumble from his mouth. His eyes don’t flicker up. He has to wonder about it, with mankind. How much could anything take? Something in him loves the thought, but he meets it with immediate and impossible disgust. His mouth twists, uncertain. ] Would others care as much as we do?
[ No. No, likely not. That cynicism in him, that humor he finds from it all – it coils tight in his gut, seeps into his expression. But, it doesn’t for long. It isn’t allowed, because Ashitaka offers that question to him and Ryo, for the life of him, starts his struggle with the words to answer it.
The truth sits at the tip of his tongue, but his eyes are hard beneath the dark sweep of his lashes. He leans back against the hoverbike behind him, hand coming up to pull his trench coat tighter across his chest. Like men who shield their skins from searching arrows, Ryo keeps his heart hidden beneath the heavy fabric. His knuckles go whiter, paler beneath the sudden stress. ]
My world is beautiful, [ he says, after a long and silent moment. He presses his tongue against the inner corner of his lip, the meat of his thumb dug up against the hard curve of a button. He almost wants to laugh, but everything in him can’t seem to fix. The luminescent earth beneath him gives him nothing familiar to moor himself with. And to think of something that would – the ache in him threatens to overwhelm him suddenly, like a well after a storm. ] But, there’s no time for me to appreciate it.
[ There’s no time here. There’s no time back on his own soil. There’s no way to string together words – useless and unspoken – against the current of their possible and potential extermination. He can’t find how to say it, if he can even say it – and it makes no difference here, where confronting it is ever more impossible than before.
His world is beautiful. There’s so much in it, so much that had been stripped and soiled. But, it thrived around humanity, in mirror of what it could have been. And it thrived within him. It took roots, like the steady thrum of music through the steering wheel of his father’s car – like Akira’s laugh beside him.
Yes, that place too was a world beautiful enough. ]