( I didn't see why we should give a shit about saving humans after they killed most of my kind.
That prompts a quietness to fall over him, the teasing slipping away and his countenance becoming a little more contemplative. He sometimes forgets — or maybe forgetting isn't the right word for it. He doesn't think about it, maybe, is the more correct way of saying it — the horror of Geralt's past. The things that humanity has done to him. That people are responsible for.
He's learned a lot, over the last ten or fifteen years. Grown a lot, from the man his father raised him to be. Some mindsets are so ingrained they're hard to completely shake, even though he's tried and has proven himself willing to understand. It's not a conscious choice for his first instinct to be wariness, to think of humanity as a potential victim first and foremost.
He knows better rationally and logically, he does, he really does know. It's just- difficult. It takes constant deliberate thought to battle that mindset, and it doesn't always occur to him immediately to try. He's better than he was, but not as good as he should be. It's hard not to feel knee-jerk defensive about that, hard to swallow it down and just let himself acknowledge the ways in which he's wrong.
But he doesn't have a problem with pride, or with ego, and so he does, after a beat. He can make room in his mind for both concern and openness, even if he doesn't relish the internal conflict. His ability to do that is probably why Geralt can stand to be friends with him at all. )
It's different. ( He says, and it's not an argument exactly. He doesn't sound like he's altogether carrying too much conviction about the assertion. It's just- ) I've never seen a Witcher eat people. Besides, I got a pretty good idea of what you're capable of. These things? Who knows what they could do if they decided they had a bone to pick with us. They could level a city. I'm still not sure I wanna be held responsible for that.
no subject
That prompts a quietness to fall over him, the teasing slipping away and his countenance becoming a little more contemplative. He sometimes forgets — or maybe forgetting isn't the right word for it. He doesn't think about it, maybe, is the more correct way of saying it — the horror of Geralt's past. The things that humanity has done to him. That people are responsible for.
He's learned a lot, over the last ten or fifteen years. Grown a lot, from the man his father raised him to be. Some mindsets are so ingrained they're hard to completely shake, even though he's tried and has proven himself willing to understand. It's not a conscious choice for his first instinct to be wariness, to think of humanity as a potential victim first and foremost.
He knows better rationally and logically, he does, he really does know. It's just- difficult. It takes constant deliberate thought to battle that mindset, and it doesn't always occur to him immediately to try. He's better than he was, but not as good as he should be. It's hard not to feel knee-jerk defensive about that, hard to swallow it down and just let himself acknowledge the ways in which he's wrong.
But he doesn't have a problem with pride, or with ego, and so he does, after a beat. He can make room in his mind for both concern and openness, even if he doesn't relish the internal conflict. His ability to do that is probably why Geralt can stand to be friends with him at all. )
It's different. ( He says, and it's not an argument exactly. He doesn't sound like he's altogether carrying too much conviction about the assertion. It's just- ) I've never seen a Witcher eat people. Besides, I got a pretty good idea of what you're capable of. These things? Who knows what they could do if they decided they had a bone to pick with us. They could level a city. I'm still not sure I wanna be held responsible for that.