Not Paying Attention

While Gonyaul was still suspicious of Alcuin’s motivations for pursuing violence, he was most grateful for the generosity he showed in sharing a meal with them. Gonyaul savored the meat and vegetables slowly, a look of pure bliss on his face. A few times while eating he even failed to stifle a small noise of delight as his taste buds rejoiced. It had been a spell since they had eaten so well. For Gonyaul, typically it was rationed foods that wouldn’t perish easily and intermittent fasting. The latter brought on due to his propensity to give away some of his earnings to people in need.

In all honestly, he wasn’t paying much attention at all to the conversation Voah and Alcuin were invested in. For starters, he disapproved of the entire venture. So he found himself easily drifting off into distracting thoughts which were more to his liking. He thought he should start looking out to the desert twice a day in the hopes of seeing Islana emerge. He wondered if it would be possible for him to go see this white-eyed man and Fang woman to apologize and deescalate the situation. Where was the cat he helped yesterday? He should have saved some of the meal in order to bring to the widow with the twins, as he wrinkled his nose in regret now that his plate was empty. Or, one of his favorite pastimes, playing the mind game ~what would Alexis do?~

Suddenly it dawned on him. It was quiet. They had stopped talking. He looked up from his daydreaming and saw them both staring at him as if he should know the answer to some unspoken question. Was there food on his face perhaps? He looked back behind him and looked back. Yes, they were indeed looking at him as if he had something important to contribute. If only he had been paying attention. Alas, he was at a loss and had to respond in a way that would indicate he wasn’t listening.

“What?”