It's the comma that makes it read like Batstealer is doing the clearing:
But Batstealer would watch over me until I could stand up again, and clear the ice off my face. vs. But Batstealer would watch over me until I could stand up again and clear the ice off my face.
I wouldn't change it because I think that's incredibly sweet, but I don't know if you want him to be capable of something that emotional.
sarkat: I know we're talking about a gnome, but it seems to me to be a good interpretation of anyone in shock. I've observed four classes of verbal response to the kind of loss that Axelandra has gone through: 1) Silence, usually because if you say anything, *everything* is going to come out. 2) Short sentences, like Axelandra is using, which seems to be because you can't think about enough of it at once to form long sentences, so you pick some small context and put it into words and move on to the next part. 3) Incredibly long, rambling sentences because, I think, if you think about the sentence you don't have to think so much about what you're saying. 4) Perfectly normal, because you're desperately pretending that everything is perfectly normal.
There are other verbal responses, of course, but in terms of word-count, those are what I've seen. Though, now that I think about it, those pretty much cover all the options. I think a gnome would tend either towards lots of short sentences or lots of long ones, but Axelandra's clipped tone conveys a less... whiny, child-like kind of pain.
But Batstealer would watch over me until I could stand up again, and clear the ice off my face.
vs.
But Batstealer would watch over me until I could stand up again and clear the ice off my face.
I wouldn't change it because I think that's incredibly sweet, but I don't know if you want him to be capable of something that emotional.
sarkat: I know we're talking about a gnome, but it seems to me to be a good interpretation of anyone in shock. I've observed four classes of verbal response to the kind of loss that Axelandra has gone through:
1) Silence, usually because if you say anything, *everything* is going to come out.
2) Short sentences, like Axelandra is using, which seems to be because you can't think about enough of it at once to form long sentences, so you pick some small context and put it into words and move on to the next part.
3) Incredibly long, rambling sentences because, I think, if you think about the sentence you don't have to think so much about what you're saying.
4) Perfectly normal, because you're desperately pretending that everything is perfectly normal.
There are other verbal responses, of course, but in terms of word-count, those are what I've seen. Though, now that I think about it, those pretty much cover all the options. I think a gnome would tend either towards lots of short sentences or lots of long ones, but Axelandra's clipped tone conveys a less... whiny, child-like kind of pain.
Good stuff.
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