[ His attempts to persuade Yu that the robes are, in fact, a shade of gold that's meant to be as warm as the sun and not the sickly pallor of jaundice unsuccessful, Lavi turns his mind to the task at hand. Focuses his thoughts into controlling every detail of his appearance, the angle of his smile, the front of anxiety found in wringing fingers and downcast gaze.
Like most people who claim to act altruistically, the Scarbacks feed on his expertly crafted concern, use his nervous energy to supplement their own calm. The meeting itself is disappointingly uneventful--gratitude is shared on both sides of the table, laughter and gentle words, but the solutions offered are as old as the Order itself.
Tried and true, perhaps, but where they suggest meditation and spiritual reprieve in supplement to their inability to mend the physical, Lavi hears only empty claims at peace.
If the demons of this world were so easily rebuked by meditation, Yu would be the last person to suffer them, and Lavi among the first.
Still he is polite, respectful. His ordinarily informal tone traded for something cool and reverent, the pangs of irritation and guilt locked up behind a wall in his mind. The mental partition proves invaluable, even if weaker than he'd like, for the conversation itself ends on another note of gratitude, another offering of meaningless well wishes. They suggest doctors within the Company, those highly-trained and well-moneyed hands surely capable of tending to a fractured mind, but he returns only another word of thanks and polite dismissal.
They understand his trepidation, at least on a surface level. The same doctors they recommend are those that they would shun from the robes for a distinct lack of altruism, self-serving or otherwise.
But while they offer no true solutions to their problem, they grant Yu passage to the temple as needed to aid his recovery, swear themselves to secrecy about what little they do know.
And just like that, Lavi's two worlds bleed together a little more. The lines get blurrier, harder to redraw.
--> timeskip/end
Like most people who claim to act altruistically, the Scarbacks feed on his expertly crafted concern, use his nervous energy to supplement their own calm. The meeting itself is disappointingly uneventful--gratitude is shared on both sides of the table, laughter and gentle words, but the solutions offered are as old as the Order itself.
Tried and true, perhaps, but where they suggest meditation and spiritual reprieve in supplement to their inability to mend the physical, Lavi hears only empty claims at peace.
If the demons of this world were so easily rebuked by meditation, Yu would be the last person to suffer them, and Lavi among the first.
Still he is polite, respectful. His ordinarily informal tone traded for something cool and reverent, the pangs of irritation and guilt locked up behind a wall in his mind. The mental partition proves invaluable, even if weaker than he'd like, for the conversation itself ends on another note of gratitude, another offering of meaningless well wishes. They suggest doctors within the Company, those highly-trained and well-moneyed hands surely capable of tending to a fractured mind, but he returns only another word of thanks and polite dismissal.
They understand his trepidation, at least on a surface level. The same doctors they recommend are those that they would shun from the robes for a distinct lack of altruism, self-serving or otherwise.
But while they offer no true solutions to their problem, they grant Yu passage to the temple as needed to aid his recovery, swear themselves to secrecy about what little they do know.
And just like that, Lavi's two worlds bleed together a little more. The lines get blurrier, harder to redraw.
Not that he won't keep trying. ]