01-23-2010, 10:01 PM
847.
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If Snake was a little less oblivious—for he was more likened to a brick than to anything else in that regard—he might have noticed any excess of attention upon himself. But there seemed to be a rift between him and others—one that he only allowed to be breached in battle, when all rules and limitations were taken away, all those boundaries that he had constructed around himself with painstaking caution. It had been for his own protection, his own health. Whatever the outside world was that he had eventually adapted to, it was drastically different from the environment that Snake had been raised in. There, everything was based on survival. You paired up with mates based on your survivability (which was actually how Snake's mother and Patriot had first gotten together) and to improve that of your children. No one helped out those that were weaker than them (unless it directly benefited them), so the population was kept down through the most base of natural selection. In the process of adapting to that original atmosphere, Snake had stripped himself of emotion, of closeness with others. The probability of betrayal, though small, was just not worth the risk, he had thought. Love was misplaced—survival was greater, so much more worthwhile. Emotions were like a tangling web, restricting you from your potential. They shortened your lifespan, they clouded their mind. They killed you.
Perhaps the sad thing about it was that this had not been induced by Patriot at all. Those had actually originated in Snake's mind, watching this strange world around him. He saw the heartbreak, the joy, the anger of others. He had, at one point, disliked them all. He had thought himself superior. But then he broke those feelings in him to pieces and felt nothing. He was neither superior nor inferior, but he did not believe everyone were equals. He had become a paradox unto himself, and he still didn't think he had to change that yet. This world was not really any different than that. Emotions were still hazardous. If his meaning in life was to fight to live another day, why should he care about anything else along the way?
That was why he kept distance between himself and others, why he didn't appreciate physical contact, why he refused to open up or to give any emotional advice to anyone. He had spent so many months creating the perfect mindset of a survivalist, a soldier. Why would he blast holes in the walls of such a fortress, just for the ones he wanted to let in? It would admit the ones he wanted to keep out just as readily.
He could feel the unblinking gaze of the cat on him, and it made him feel uncomfortable, so he kept his gaze away. It was silent except for the crackle and hiss of the fire until Daisuke spoke up, regarding the events that had started this segment of the war between the coyotes of Inferni and the wolves of Dahlia de Mai. When he looked at Daisuke now, his olive eyes were sharper than usual. "They have always been the aggressors in this," he said, his quiet voice showing a small bit of venom. "Their old leader was somewhat peaceable, but she was overthrown by the man who attacked our leader. He is the same that caused a first war between us, when he slaughtered a mother and child on these grounds, from what I have heard."
That was utterly disgusting to Snake. He was no humanitarian—he had no qualms with killing, but he only killed opponents that threatened him and those he protected. He was not an instrument in a war of attrition. Snake would not hurt innocents: those that could not fight, those who were ill and invalid, children, and so on. He believed those that hurt them were lower than any creature that possessed sentient thoughts.
He did not respond at the mention of Addison, merely because he did not know anyone by that name and didn't care enough to ask. But when it came to his home, he shook his head—the car that served as his den was warm and well-stocked, and he was very pleased with it. More so than he had with any other home (though all of his other ones had been terrible, if not temporary). And he almost shook his head to the second question, though he paused. "Not really... but I have been trying to fix that pistol I found in Halifax. I think there's something jamming the gears; I'm going to break it down into parts and fix it. Then I might go get some bullets from Halifax... But it's probably a slim chance that I'll get it to work ever." Still, it occupied him when he was bored out of his mind, or he couldn't sleep. He probably wouldn't use it if it worked, though. There was no honor in shooting a defenseless target, after all. That was what his natural weapons and his knife were for.
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If Snake was a little less oblivious—for he was more likened to a brick than to anything else in that regard—he might have noticed any excess of attention upon himself. But there seemed to be a rift between him and others—one that he only allowed to be breached in battle, when all rules and limitations were taken away, all those boundaries that he had constructed around himself with painstaking caution. It had been for his own protection, his own health. Whatever the outside world was that he had eventually adapted to, it was drastically different from the environment that Snake had been raised in. There, everything was based on survival. You paired up with mates based on your survivability (which was actually how Snake's mother and Patriot had first gotten together) and to improve that of your children. No one helped out those that were weaker than them (unless it directly benefited them), so the population was kept down through the most base of natural selection. In the process of adapting to that original atmosphere, Snake had stripped himself of emotion, of closeness with others. The probability of betrayal, though small, was just not worth the risk, he had thought. Love was misplaced—survival was greater, so much more worthwhile. Emotions were like a tangling web, restricting you from your potential. They shortened your lifespan, they clouded their mind. They killed you.
Perhaps the sad thing about it was that this had not been induced by Patriot at all. Those had actually originated in Snake's mind, watching this strange world around him. He saw the heartbreak, the joy, the anger of others. He had, at one point, disliked them all. He had thought himself superior. But then he broke those feelings in him to pieces and felt nothing. He was neither superior nor inferior, but he did not believe everyone were equals. He had become a paradox unto himself, and he still didn't think he had to change that yet. This world was not really any different than that. Emotions were still hazardous. If his meaning in life was to fight to live another day, why should he care about anything else along the way?
That was why he kept distance between himself and others, why he didn't appreciate physical contact, why he refused to open up or to give any emotional advice to anyone. He had spent so many months creating the perfect mindset of a survivalist, a soldier. Why would he blast holes in the walls of such a fortress, just for the ones he wanted to let in? It would admit the ones he wanted to keep out just as readily.
He could feel the unblinking gaze of the cat on him, and it made him feel uncomfortable, so he kept his gaze away. It was silent except for the crackle and hiss of the fire until Daisuke spoke up, regarding the events that had started this segment of the war between the coyotes of Inferni and the wolves of Dahlia de Mai. When he looked at Daisuke now, his olive eyes were sharper than usual. "They have always been the aggressors in this," he said, his quiet voice showing a small bit of venom. "Their old leader was somewhat peaceable, but she was overthrown by the man who attacked our leader. He is the same that caused a first war between us, when he slaughtered a mother and child on these grounds, from what I have heard."
That was utterly disgusting to Snake. He was no humanitarian—he had no qualms with killing, but he only killed opponents that threatened him and those he protected. He was not an instrument in a war of attrition. Snake would not hurt innocents: those that could not fight, those who were ill and invalid, children, and so on. He believed those that hurt them were lower than any creature that possessed sentient thoughts.
He did not respond at the mention of Addison, merely because he did not know anyone by that name and didn't care enough to ask. But when it came to his home, he shook his head—the car that served as his den was warm and well-stocked, and he was very pleased with it. More so than he had with any other home (though all of his other ones had been terrible, if not temporary). And he almost shook his head to the second question, though he paused. "Not really... but I have been trying to fix that pistol I found in Halifax. I think there's something jamming the gears; I'm going to break it down into parts and fix it. Then I might go get some bullets from Halifax... But it's probably a slim chance that I'll get it to work ever." Still, it occupied him when he was bored out of his mind, or he couldn't sleep. He probably wouldn't use it if it worked, though. There was no honor in shooting a defenseless target, after all. That was what his natural weapons and his knife were for.