12-20-2019, 03:00 AM
In a way, the two were very similar in their internal monologues, both trying to talk themselves out of a gaping pit of anxiety-filled indecision - one of them was certainly struggling with it more, admittedly, but the resemblance was still there. He never considered himself an anxious person, but if you showed him the evidence? Well, he might have to reconsider that and start working on some things.
A gross exaggeration, of course; Abathur's indecision was far more temporary, less paralyzing and more caution-inducing. It wasn't the spiraling thoughts of self-doubt, of inadequacy, of being unacceptable for speaking out of turn or asking questions. He didn't struggle with any of that, besides the struggle of being a giant spider in a cat's world. Roy did, however, and he even knew some of that information, from their very first interaction. He still found it despicable that anyone could apologize or feel insecure about their natural instinct to explore the world and its internal mechanisms.
Curiosity was all that separated them from the beasts, after all.
All eyes, suddenly, were on the boy sitting across from him - he let out a quiet 'um,' nothing more than a mumbled plea for acknowledgement, but Abathur felt it. The shaky quality of his voice was intense, to him, something that made the ugly little defensive glob of knowledge want to defend its ideals once more. Some may think it noble to stick to your guns like that. Abathur simply didn't want to deal with that right now. He had a philosophy on how to handle his personal issues and any troubles in life, and that was all he needed to share with anyone, ever. Ranting to a small child about the need for asking questions because said child couldn't get a sentence out without starting it over 3 times? That was... not something he wanted to do.
The urge was still there, though, a rage directed at whoever hurt the poor little boy.
After the question was asked, silence reigned for a few moments more, tense as always, before Abathur responded with his own eloquent reply: "Um." He hadn't expected an interest in his interests, of course, and as such he was certainly unprepared to answer a question about a book that he selected apropos of nothing other than proximity. The small 'um' was a moment to buy time, to try and remember what the book was that, combing through his memory with some level of desperation, so as to not blow his cover.
After he spent way more time than was acceptable sitting there silently, he suddenly piped up once again, not moving at all from where and how he was when the question was asked. "Ecological effects of mushrooms, general role in food web, potential modern scientific applications of them," he said, the memory coming to him in a flash. When he said 'modern,' though, he meant 'modern as of the early 20th century' - an unfortunate side effect of being annihilated via nukes was that the ex-human ex-population didn't have much opportunity to update the public library. A shame, truly.
A gross exaggeration, of course; Abathur's indecision was far more temporary, less paralyzing and more caution-inducing. It wasn't the spiraling thoughts of self-doubt, of inadequacy, of being unacceptable for speaking out of turn or asking questions. He didn't struggle with any of that, besides the struggle of being a giant spider in a cat's world. Roy did, however, and he even knew some of that information, from their very first interaction. He still found it despicable that anyone could apologize or feel insecure about their natural instinct to explore the world and its internal mechanisms.
Curiosity was all that separated them from the beasts, after all.
All eyes, suddenly, were on the boy sitting across from him - he let out a quiet 'um,' nothing more than a mumbled plea for acknowledgement, but Abathur felt it. The shaky quality of his voice was intense, to him, something that made the ugly little defensive glob of knowledge want to defend its ideals once more. Some may think it noble to stick to your guns like that. Abathur simply didn't want to deal with that right now. He had a philosophy on how to handle his personal issues and any troubles in life, and that was all he needed to share with anyone, ever. Ranting to a small child about the need for asking questions because said child couldn't get a sentence out without starting it over 3 times? That was... not something he wanted to do.
The urge was still there, though, a rage directed at whoever hurt the poor little boy.
After the question was asked, silence reigned for a few moments more, tense as always, before Abathur responded with his own eloquent reply: "Um." He hadn't expected an interest in his interests, of course, and as such he was certainly unprepared to answer a question about a book that he selected apropos of nothing other than proximity. The small 'um' was a moment to buy time, to try and remember what the book was that, combing through his memory with some level of desperation, so as to not blow his cover.
After he spent way more time than was acceptable sitting there silently, he suddenly piped up once again, not moving at all from where and how he was when the question was asked. "Ecological effects of mushrooms, general role in food web, potential modern scientific applications of them," he said, the memory coming to him in a flash. When he said 'modern,' though, he meant 'modern as of the early 20th century' - an unfortunate side effect of being annihilated via nukes was that the ex-human ex-population didn't have much opportunity to update the public library. A shame, truly.
tags - "speech"