[Serenely countered, though the look he offers Astarion is a bit more gentle. His eyes dart about the other elf's face, still trying to pick out what threads are genuine and what are put-on affectations. But this look . . . oh, he knows this look very well, for it was the same look he himself aimed up at the Fog Warriors once. The first time he'd trampled through some fishing lines without meaning to; he'd told them, all of him steeling for the blow that was sure to come—
Only to find nothing. Some exasperated sighs and rolled eyes, and they had set him to repairing them, but there was nothing like the hell he would have caught from Danarius.
But while he does know that feeling, he also knows how damned patronizing it can be to hear something like that laid out starkly. I know why you flinch, I know why you cower, and never mind that he knows through experience— still, it's a humiliating thing to hear directly.]
Try again. And if this fireplace continues to fall apart, as everything in this house is apt to do, there are at least a dozen more we can try.
no subject
[Serenely countered, though the look he offers Astarion is a bit more gentle. His eyes dart about the other elf's face, still trying to pick out what threads are genuine and what are put-on affectations. But this look . . . oh, he knows this look very well, for it was the same look he himself aimed up at the Fog Warriors once. The first time he'd trampled through some fishing lines without meaning to; he'd told them, all of him steeling for the blow that was sure to come—
Only to find nothing. Some exasperated sighs and rolled eyes, and they had set him to repairing them, but there was nothing like the hell he would have caught from Danarius.
But while he does know that feeling, he also knows how damned patronizing it can be to hear something like that laid out starkly. I know why you flinch, I know why you cower, and never mind that he knows through experience— still, it's a humiliating thing to hear directly.]
Try again. And if this fireplace continues to fall apart, as everything in this house is apt to do, there are at least a dozen more we can try.