[The insistence erupts from him without his giving it permission; he turns sharply back towards Godfrey and stalks towards him, fingertips dragging against the table as he stops just short of where the man is actually bound and seated, and there's heat and hurt in his gaze as his eyes seem somehow sharper than before, irises once golden brown now tinged red by the surge of frustration.
Compared to Godfrey's palpable rage, he is still restrained, but barely— tears prick at the corners of his now clearly inhuman eyes, and there's a tic above his jaw that shows just above the line of his neatly-kept beard.]
This is no lecture, Godfrey. Believe me, you would know full well if it was.
[His refusal is all but hissed, though he can hear his own voice threatening to become thick with emotion once more. When it came to interrogations, he was generally considered to be the best their clan had to offer— sharp, clever, cool, calculated, but he feels none of that now.
These are hardly the usual circumstances, in his defense.]
I will not begrudge you your anger, because it is rightfully yours, and I have wronged you— irrevocably, I am well aware— but it was never my intention to harm you! Exactly the opposite— and you cannot tell me what I did or do not feel, because it is clear you do not understand me. I am not so far from human. We come from you! Not every one of us who is condemned to such a life loses their very soul.
[His face is mere inches from Godfrey's now, and he does not know when he had chosen to lean down; it had happened without his realizing, as though getting closer and declaring himself where he could not look away would make things stick.]
If you knew even a fraction of what I have done, what I have endured in my efforts to keep you safe, you would not doubt that I know well the meaning of what it is to love, and given the chance, I would suffer it all again if it meant keeping you from their grasp— but your being here means that it was all for nothing.
no subject
[The insistence erupts from him without his giving it permission; he turns sharply back towards Godfrey and stalks towards him, fingertips dragging against the table as he stops just short of where the man is actually bound and seated, and there's heat and hurt in his gaze as his eyes seem somehow sharper than before, irises once golden brown now tinged red by the surge of frustration.
Compared to Godfrey's palpable rage, he is still restrained, but barely— tears prick at the corners of his now clearly inhuman eyes, and there's a tic above his jaw that shows just above the line of his neatly-kept beard.]
This is no lecture, Godfrey. Believe me, you would know full well if it was.
[His refusal is all but hissed, though he can hear his own voice threatening to become thick with emotion once more. When it came to interrogations, he was generally considered to be the best their clan had to offer— sharp, clever, cool, calculated, but he feels none of that now.
These are hardly the usual circumstances, in his defense.]
I will not begrudge you your anger, because it is rightfully yours, and I have wronged you— irrevocably, I am well aware— but it was never my intention to harm you! Exactly the opposite— and you cannot tell me what I did or do not feel, because it is clear you do not understand me. I am not so far from human. We come from you! Not every one of us who is condemned to such a life loses their very soul.
[His face is mere inches from Godfrey's now, and he does not know when he had chosen to lean down; it had happened without his realizing, as though getting closer and declaring himself where he could not look away would make things stick.]
If you knew even a fraction of what I have done, what I have endured in my efforts to keep you safe, you would not doubt that I know well the meaning of what it is to love, and given the chance, I would suffer it all again if it meant keeping you from their grasp— but your being here means that it was all for nothing.