He wonders how somedays he feels like that shark—sharp-toothed and hungry and cold. He thinks on these days that he could tear out someone’s throat and never think twice about it. He could watch them strewn across the forest floor and only feel the barest hint of amusement at it. There is something very cold at the center of him, immovable and inhuman, and he wonders if he has a pulse at all.
And yet there are other days where he is the minnow. He’s the boy who cried when he realized that his bother was not coming back for him. When his namesake became his birthright. He is the boy who felt outnumbered in any crowd, constantly looking for some advantage, constantly aware of his weakness. On these days, he feels desperate for some kind of affection—to be plucked out and loved completely.
How tragic that she found the shark.
“I can tell that,” is all he says when she affirms his suspicions and he smiles, but his face looks all the colder for it. He doesn’t acknowledge her name or give her his own in return. (Why give someone that kind of power over him? Why let them know the most vulnerable parts of him at all?) Instead he just gives her that strange, piercing look, red eyes washing over her as if trying to pick out what lies beneath.
There’s a moment where he studies her before he finds her gaze and holds it.
“How did you end up at a place that you don’t know, Elestren?”
He always did like how his tongue could twist a question into a threat.
I want to see your sadness. I want to share your sin.
I want to bleed your blood. I want to be let in.
@[Elestren]