Maybe they were too different to be able to debate things like this. No, but he and Galina - and he and Lyra, and he and Lancaster - held different beliefs of how to approach this ‘life’, and what to do with it, but he had always enjoyed their discussions. Perhaps because they had beliefs, and Azazel, when it came down to it, had none.
Logic couldn’t win against pure chaos. He pretended not to have beliefs, he supposed, but had his reasons for things, had his desires - and it turned out it was not particularly pleasing to have Azazel trying to tear them apart.
How could he get through to her? Maybe the problem was that the two of them, whether they liked it or not, were almost too much the same. She just couldn’t see it, that he had always harboured the temptations to do as she did; that he had needed to construct him a life that he liked just as passionately. “Yes,” he answered intently, staring squarely at her, as if she might remember how it felt to have human - or not quite human - connection. “Because it feels good,” and it felt good in a way - being needed, wanted, loved - that lasted longer than the high of draining someone of blood. Even with the way human lives wasted away. She had proved it, that thrill of connection: he didn’t even much like her anymore, and still he felt a thrill when she brushed her fingers through his hair. Surely she could feel it too. It was what she had wanted as a girl, wasn’t it? To feel somehow more alive?
“Maybe one day you’ll figure it out,” Ishmael said in a murmur, holding their closeness for as long as he could before he walked out, as if he could possibly coax her to the right conclusion, “that there’s more than one way to make a mark.”
Logic couldn’t win against pure chaos. He pretended not to have beliefs, he supposed, but had his reasons for things, had his desires - and it turned out it was not particularly pleasing to have Azazel trying to tear them apart.
How could he get through to her? Maybe the problem was that the two of them, whether they liked it or not, were almost too much the same. She just couldn’t see it, that he had always harboured the temptations to do as she did; that he had needed to construct him a life that he liked just as passionately. “Yes,” he answered intently, staring squarely at her, as if she might remember how it felt to have human - or not quite human - connection. “Because it feels good,” and it felt good in a way - being needed, wanted, loved - that lasted longer than the high of draining someone of blood. Even with the way human lives wasted away. She had proved it, that thrill of connection: he didn’t even much like her anymore, and still he felt a thrill when she brushed her fingers through his hair. Surely she could feel it too. It was what she had wanted as a girl, wasn’t it? To feel somehow more alive?
“Maybe one day you’ll figure it out,” Ishmael said in a murmur, holding their closeness for as long as he could before he walked out, as if he could possibly coax her to the right conclusion, “that there’s more than one way to make a mark.”
