Don’t -- [The Forgemaster cuts in, firmly, before smoothening the rawness from his tone.] be sorry. [He dimly shakes his head, his lips pressing into a tighter smile through the sting.] …I’m not.
[He is silent as she listens to the exchange, observing her reaction as always. Without a doubt, he would spring to Julia’s defense like a hellhound unchained and would have torn limb from limb the person responsible for poisoning Zevran. But he had neither now. Only himself, like old times.]
Would a stern glance and a simple warning not have sufficed on her part? Instead, there is this -- a threat dripping with a venomous, almost palpable hatred just waiting to be unleashed. Even your beloved Beast, furious as he was, wasn’t half as vicious when we crossed paths.
[He shuts the journal with a padded thump.]
Tell me… why is it you seem troubled by what it is you hear? Is she not merely... acting in your defense?
[A beat, his smugness expertly contained.]
She shows you kindness; of that I have no doubt. But think you, truly, she would speak a word of it to you were she to drag me someplace unseen and ravage my flesh in novel ways? Would she show you her fine work? Or would she hide it thinking it might spare you pain, and as not to let you see just how deep the darkness is within her? You might call a friend one whose faces you have not all seen... but not I. Not any longer.
[Action, March 1st]
[He is silent as she listens to the exchange, observing her reaction as always. Without a doubt, he would spring to Julia’s defense like a hellhound unchained and would have torn limb from limb the person responsible for poisoning Zevran. But he had neither now. Only himself, like old times.]
Would a stern glance and a simple warning not have sufficed on her part? Instead, there is this -- a threat dripping with a venomous, almost palpable hatred just waiting to be unleashed. Even your beloved Beast, furious as he was, wasn’t half as vicious when we crossed paths.
[He shuts the journal with a padded thump.]
Tell me… why is it you seem troubled by what it is you hear? Is she not merely... acting in your defense?
[A beat, his smugness expertly contained.]
She shows you kindness; of that I have no doubt. But think you, truly, she would speak a word of it to you were she to drag me someplace unseen and ravage my flesh in novel ways? Would she show you her fine work? Or would she hide it thinking it might spare you pain, and as not to let you see just how deep the darkness is within her? You might call a friend one whose faces you have not all seen... but not I. Not any longer.