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Post by moralhazard on Apr 9, 2019 15:10:57 GMT
Caim asked if she was all right. Kara glanced up at him, and nodded, once, then looked away. She had never had much skill at keeping her emotions off her face; it seemed she still didn’t.
Kara looked up again when Dhaunmyr returned, eyes sweeping over him and fixing immediately on the food. She kept herself utterly, perfectly still as he set the trays down. She counted the seconds to herself, waiting, with every inch of controlled patience she possessed, letting Dhaunmyr take his child-sized slice. She even looked to Caim, and if he seemed eager would wait for him as well, although by that time she was nearly trembling with the effort of control.
Only then would Kara reach forward, slowly, and take one of the enormous thick slices of seeded bread. She knew plain food would be best for her stomach, but there was butter - beautiful, soft-looking butter - and Kara couldn’t help herself, piling a sticky yellow cliff of it into her bread. She took the first bite almost reverently, chewing and swallowing carefully. She would savor each bite, but also hesitate almost not at all between them, and the slice would disappear fully in moments.
Next, Kara turned her attention to the fruits. There were small fruits of all sorts, little red cherries and bigger orange-yellow stone fruits, with rinds of melon, oranges, even strawberries. She studied the bowl as if she might never see another fruit again, clearly lost in deep deliberation. After a moment, a small brown hand reached out and selected an orange nearly bigger than it was. Kara peeled it, bringing the peel to her nose to smell it as unobtrusively as she could, before prying loose a first wedge and eating it, savoring the sharp sweet juicy taste.
Kara was still steadily working her way through the orange when Dhaunmyr began to speak again. She looked up at him, popping another orange slice into her mouth and chewing slowly as he spoke. Dark elf, not drow. Kara nodded. She would remember. Her eyes flicked to Caim when Dhaunmyr mentioned his past; she had noticed how the usually cheerful, talkative tiefling shied away from any discussion of who he had been before Waterdeep.
Could she trust a dark elf? Kara pried loose another slice of orange and ate it with the same enthusiasm she’d brought to every bite so far. It wasn’t like he was an orc. He had given her every reason to trust him so far; if he meant her harm, he had had many chances. Kara couldn’t say what would come, but she felt no natural distrust of him.
“You can’t control your past.” Kara said, quietly; that was all she wanted to say about it. She finished the orange and turned back to the bread, hesitating for just a moment before taking another slice and another slab of butter. Unlike before, she took one bite, then lowered the bread to take a short break. She didn’t know when she might have such nice bread again, and she wanted to make it last.
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Post by orby on Apr 10, 2019 23:51:48 GMT
The silent nod from Kara wasn't terribly reassuring somehow, but then Dhaunmyr was returning with food and drink, casually heading off potential questions with that same air wordiness. Frowning, Caim's eyes dropped almost guiltily and he reached for a piece of bread as if trying to look busy. "I wouldn't have asked."
And he wouldn't have. The surface level things, opinions and how that sun sensitivity worked and whatnot, that was all just conversation and curiosity. But no amount of curiosity would have him prying into anyone's background. It seemed almost like encouraging such questions in return, and he'd be a hypocrite to ask and not answer himself.
He notably didn't argue the point. Maybe it wasn't fair to suggest that everything had been uncomfortable, but he didn't want to share that story.
Food was a nice distraction, at least. He spread a bit of butter on the bread, much more sedate as he bit into it than Kara's enthusiastic eating. It was simple but good, nothing he wasn't used to. In all Waterdeep's wild newness, he'd almost been a little surprised that food was still food. The stews and eggs and breads and whatnot they'd served at the Sailor's Corner were all things he'd had before at the temple, cooked by a different hand but ultimately still familiar. The spread Dhaunmyr had brought over had more fruit than he'd had since the temple, but the Corner just seemed more inclined towards heartier fare.
Kara's input was unexpected, and Caim paused just briefly mid-bite, glancing to her. She'd seemed content enough in her quiet, letting Dhaunmyr do all the talking.
It was good input, though. Caim glanced her way, eyebrows raised, but after a moment the corners of his mouth quirked up slightly and he nodded his silent agreement.
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Post by enchilada on Apr 11, 2019 14:13:43 GMT
“I suppose not. However, there’s no one who can safely say they’re without influence from that which grew them. A duergar raised in the duergar clans is still arguably affected by the culture after she leaves her home. Perhaps she thinks the peoples of her home are cruel and twisted, and decides to become happy and joyful, or perhaps she is too twisted to ever recover.” Dhaunmyr, as usual, wittered on. He spoke at length, with little regard for meaning. “Perhaps she wants everyone to see her as a gray dwarf, or even just a surface dwarf, perhaps one of the mountains. Maybe she doesn’t want to be a duergar. But the base instincts remain. If you went to the Underdark, if you wanted to fit in, although you would be enslaved or sacrificed immediately, you would ultimately keep your... You.”
Dhaunmyr stripped off the crust, tearing off a less than bite sized piece to chew for a really rather exaggerated amount of time.
“Besides, let’s not forget the ridiculousness of any kind of move. From a town to a city, we already have our minds made up what it will be like, and sometimes we are proved wrong. Sometimes. And even then we may choose to look elsewhere for ‘real’ answers. For example, I personally thought humans had terrible vision. We had humans, you know. They had a lovely area just for themselves behind the house, but they were awful at moving around. And if they made enough of a mistake, sometimes we had human. But now I understand it’s to do with light, I don’t really understand why they never just made light. It’s very easy.”
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Post by moralhazard on Apr 11, 2019 15:22:41 GMT
With the immediate desperate need for food sated, Kara had time to consider the ale. She ate a second bite of her bread, slowly, then lowered the bread and reached for the ale with her free hand. She took a small, careful sip of the sour drink, and set the glass back down. She would need to be careful; more than a few mouthfuls would set back her healing.
Kara made a gesture resembling a nod at Dhaunmyr’s initial response, which boiled down to that one couldn’t escape one’s past either. She knew that to be true. He was going on at length again, and Kara listened with only one ear, focusing her attention again on the bread.
At least until Dhaunmyr’s comments about having humans. Kara went still, the bread halfway to her mouth, and slowly lifted her gaze to look at the dark elf, something tight and hard in her eyes. She set the bread down, stomach suddenly churning beneath her ribs, and curled her hands together in her lap. One thumb, slowly, stroked the chafed lines on the opposite wrist, feeling the slightly raised scars.
The Underdark. Kara could remember being told about it as a child. She tried to block out the actual memory, not wanting to think of her brothers teasing her that a drow would come and steal her away. She couldn’t help but remember; she had cried, but not at the threat of kidnap by Grigor - it was when Kosef told her that the drow probably wouldn’t even want her because she was too small. She had cried and then flung herself at him and they had wrestled until he yelped. Now the memory hurt as much as it warmed her.
There wasn’t much Kara could think to say to Dhaunmyr in response to that. Her gaze softened, and she looked away, down at her scarred wrists, trying to bring herself back to the present. Most times good memories were no easier than bad. If Dhaunmyr had liked all that, he would have stayed in the Underdark; he would never have helped her. It didn’t make her see him any differently, although the thought of eating humans was repulsive. Her stomach heaved, once, and Kara clenched her jaw against the nausea, refusing to throw up such good food.
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Post by orby on Apr 12, 2019 1:39:35 GMT
That hint of a smile fell away as Dhaunmyr talked, a horrified look slowly taking its place. Next to him, Kara seemed to stiffen as well, and Caim glanced her way briefly with a concerned unease.
He fought the urge to think the worst. The elf being here meant something, wasn't that what they were all just saying? People left their homes and came here because they were unhappy with whatever home was. That had been a comforting thought a minute ago, something that made him feel a bit less out of place. And yet Dhaunmyr spoke so casually of slavery and sacrifice and implied worse and it struck Caim with a twisting feeling deep in his gut.
(All that and worse in the world, real reasons to run away, and here Caim was in hiding because he hadn't been allowed to go outside. What kind of spoiled child did that make him?)
His fingers tightened on his piece of bread, claws digging into the crust. Suddenly, he didn't feel much like eating.
"...Doesn't it bother you?" he asked after a moment, voice quieter as he tore uncertainly at the bread. He'd read about the Underdark before, not extensively but it had certainly come up in his books. He knew about those horrors in an intellectual, distant sort of way, but he couldn't imagine seeing it, having any kind of part in it, and still talking about it in such a nonchalant manner. "All that..."
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Post by enchilada on Apr 12, 2019 17:19:43 GMT
“Doesn’t it? Of course it does. Otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed so long.” Dhaunmyr sighed. “But perhaps it’s too much an ask to explain it in such depth. In honesty it is all too much to keep on the tip of the tongue. We can go through it in detail, or I will speak only in passing. It’s unlike stumbling upon the society, the horrors are complete in terms of creation of my own mind. Without education of the surface, perhaps I would not know that such a society was a horrible terrible thing. In truth, the preparation of said meal has too much put me off any kinds of meats. It didn’t... look any different to any rothe cut I’d prepared before. It was... it was... animals are just as alive as anything else. I didn’t cry then, but since I have cried for the reasoning that I was holding a small chunk of uncooked lamb. It just makes me feel sick. Then again, most food makes me feel sick.”
Dhaunmyr realised now the difference in company. Not all with whom he spoke were necessarily prepared for a lot of what he had to say, although, arguably, not his fault. He didn’t know. The Underdark was sick and twisted, but surely the kinds of people he used to know, would have called this place just as sick and twisted as the natives would call them. He tore a small piece of the crumb, looking at it almost disdainfully in his left hand.
“There was a woman, you know. She wasn’t like that. Not when she was a maid, at least. And my cousins, the other merchant family, they came from a very different part of the Underdark. They never said anything, it was just a slight cultural difference, in their eyes. We were an old family, really only with ties in the more easterly corners, but my matron’s matron wanted power. She wanted to be closer to the demon queen, to her ideals. I really didn’t understand my cousins. But I think they really prepared me for up here. It’s so hard to process, you know? And all because of one goddess, too. Just one difference. Just one betrayal. I find that so-so— it’s fascinating, no?”
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Post by moralhazard on Apr 13, 2019 11:48:50 GMT
Kara’s stomach turned again, and she shivered. The preparation of said meal - for once she wished Dhaunmyr had found a few more confusing words to wrap around that sentence. There was a difference between knowing that it was rumored that human flesh was eaten in the Underdark, and Dhaunmyr talking about eating and preparing it. One betrayal. Sundabar has been conquered by orcs. Kara knew, from the history she had learned after the war, that drow too had had a hand in waging it. It wasn’t personal for her against drow, not like orcs, but it was said Lilth herself had incited them to join with the orcs. The Darkening: drow work. Kara could picture all too well the misery and fear those slaves had felt. She could remember being chained in the dark, made to work as a slave, terrified of what each new day might bring, with all her strength towards surviving. One hand tightened on the other’s wrist, hard enough to hurt - hard enough to bruise, but Kara couldn’t let go. She didn’t like to think of it. These things had happened to her; she tried her best to accept that. If she thought of them too often she would go mad. If she hadn’t already. Slowly, slowly Kara loosened her grip; it took enormous effort to force each finger open. Her entire wrist was red where she had held it, her own fingers leaving defined stripes in her skin. She shuddered again, unaware that her face was clammy again, almost as it had been during the fever. Kara wanted to speak. She wanted to tell Dhaunmyr to stop talking; she wanted to tell him she was sorry. She wanted to ask him why he had left it behind. She wanted to ask him how he had left it behind. But she didn’t know where to start, or how to phrase any of it - and so instead she sat in silence, unconsciously tracing her fingers over the new soon-to-be bruises on her wrist, the little sparks of pain helping to keep her here, in Waterdeep, instead of back behind.
((Word count: 11887))
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Post by orby on Apr 13, 2019 21:25:22 GMT
That was...somewhat comforting, wasn't it? It was at least what he'd wanted to hear, that Dhaunmyr wasn't enthused or even apathetic about the horrors of the Underdark. The was some twinge of guilt in feeling satisfied to hear that the disgust for it all lingered in such a substantial way -- he shouldn't wish such unpleasantness on anyone. But the alternative would be being completely unaffected by it all, unphased by the slavery and murder (and something like cannibalism, almost?) and surely that was worse. That would be a person he couldn't find a way to think decently of at all.
It really wasn't a great subject to discuss over breakfast to begin with. And glancing sideways again at Kara, Caim's discomfort only grew. She'd stopped eating entirely, already odd given her previous eagerness for the food, and her face had that same pale ill look it'd had when she'd been actively bleeding out on him.
He could 't really blame her. The topic had left him feeling sick as well.
"I'm sorry, could we...talk about something else, maybe?" There was a faint attempt at a smile, just trying to avoid insult and preserve some of that pleasant morning mood. Surely there was some of it left still, buried somewhere under the all stiff awkwardness and horror. But the way he kept fiddling with his bread, trailing crumbs over the tabletop, spoke of his unease with the whole situation.
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Post by enchilada on Apr 15, 2019 21:42:41 GMT
Dhaunmyr’s eyes widened, bright baby blue and sparkling, but with the glimmer of a noble who’d nearly been outed as having an affair with his maid, not someone who’d brought up killing and eating humans over a light breakfast. A brief fear of a scandal that would be wormed out of in a flash of golden coins. The tumble, the drop. The copper on the ground, quite audible in his mind. So were other noises, among them drips, creaks, the occasional more personified sound crackling like thunder, more than any was the chop on the hard marble slab, chop. Horrid leeching wet noises. Crunches. A groan as there was an odd tear, unlike fabric or parchment. But then the drop. It cleared it away. It was followed by birdsong, a quick open of a door, pop of wine corks, and finally, voices, real ones, calm ones. Suddenly the room felt quite hot and sticky, and all too bright.
Or at least, he’d note the thoughts down to add to the diary entry he was concocting in his mind, and in his notes.
“Ah! Ah — my mistake, I’m afraid. One often forgets what is considered good talk for a table around here — oh! Perhaps I have told you all there is about me, and you’ve seen the rest, remarkably beautiful elf salesman wandering from place to place, perhaps my ear may find delight and wonder in knowing of you two! Perhaps you wouldn’t mind, ah, humouring me for a second when I ask something so plain and easy as this! What brings you here? Not necessarily to Waterdeep, but what... brings you to today?”
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Post by moralhazard on Apr 15, 2019 22:04:29 GMT
It was a relief when Caim asked Dhaunmyr to move on. Kara was sorry for feeling that way. She knew – she had not been the only one to survive from Sundabar’s prisons. She was not the only one to suffer during the war; there were those who had had it worse, much worse. She couldn’t speak of it herself; she had never been much of a talker, and anyway it wasn’t as if words could really explain how it had been, at least not her words.
Others though – despite that, she had known others who seemed compelled to speak of it. To force you to relive their suffering with them. With some, it bled the poison off the wound; Kara had seen it happen. With others, it only pulled them deeper into a dark haze of misery. Kara couldn’t explain why it took some that way and not others. She could barely stand to listen, most times; some wounds were too close to her own. Dhaunmyr’s, it seemed, touched something in her.
Kara lowered her gaze to her wrist, inspecting the damage she’d done to herself and dismissing it as nothing serious. Her color was improving already, although she didn’t look quite herself again, still a little clammy, and she didn’t pick up the bread, not quite ready for that just yet.
Kara looked up at Dhaunmyr when he asked what brought her here. She glanced around the inn, then back at Dhaunmyr. He had brought her here; didn’t he remember? It had only been a few minutes ago.
Was this what he wanted? In exchange for rescuing her, for carrying her across the city the night before, dragging her to Caim, buying her bread and fruit. She owed him, and she had offered, and he had wanted this meal, her conversation, such as it was. Kara shifted slightly in her seat, weighing the words in her mind. What could she say? What brought her to today? She hadn’t died yet. She didn’t know how, exactly. There were things she had survived that could easily have killed her. More than once she had wished they had, although she didn’t anymore. Was it stubbornness? Fate? Luck, whether good or bad? Kara didn’t believe Helm would bother himself with her, and she was sure didn’t interest any other god.
How much could she speak of? Would she be one of those sucked into memories like quicksand, flailing and struggling until every bit of her was lost beneath the surface? Was it possible that it might… help? To speak of it? Kara rejected the thought, immediately.
But she owned Dhaunmyr, didn’t she? Something, at least, and what he wanted was a secret, hidden part of her. He didn’t know what he was asking, not if he called it plain and easy. Kara’s hands balled up into fists in her lap again, and she focused on the table, finding it easier than looking at Dhaunmyr or Caim. Abruptly, she wished she hadn’t invited Caim. Would it be easier to speak with just Dhaunmyr? No. Kara didn’t think so. It wouldn’t be easy even if it was only her ears that the words fell on. You couldn’t forget what you spoke of. But, then, if she were alone, then no one else would need to see inside of her.
Kara opened her mouth to speak and words failed her. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t speak of Sundabar, the war, the burning and destruction of everyone and everything she had ever loved. She couldn’t speak of the nightmares and the shame of being forced to leave, the burning desire kindled in her heart to protect the weak and helpless, the ache of working to protect the wealthy instead.
A better idea occurred to her.
“I worked as a caravan guard,” Kara’s voice was hoarse and scratchy. She reached for the ale, taking a long sip, and set it back down. “Four nights ago, two others took a girl into the woods,” Kara paused, trying to think through the story, the way to tell it. She didn’t know. Her throat hurt already; she wished she could stop talking. “I – stopped them,” she shrugged, shifting in her chair.
“One – was angry. He challenged me. We fought – last night,” Kara’s hand rested on her thigh, where the wound had been, the other reached up to touch her shoulder, the skin there still slightly tender. She stopped there. Hadn’t she answered the question? That was the fight that had brought her here, to this moment. She hoped it would be enough for Dhaunmyr.
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Post by orby on Apr 16, 2019 1:13:15 GMT
Slavery and slaughter should have been the worst possible subject for conversation. There should have been nowhere to go but up. But the elf's redirection is suddenly aimed back at them, and Caim's attempt at a smile shrinks a bit, discomfort somehow only growing.
That's another mark against him, at least in his own mind. What kind of person felt more queasy talking about their own mild discomfort than about the horrors cause and endured by those in the Underdark?
Thinking as much doesn't ease the sick feeling, though. He definitely didn't want to talk about what came before Waterdeep. And since then... What even was there to say? It wasn't like he'd really done much of anything here so far. He had nothing to work towards, no goals beyond an urge to be helpful somehow and a vague sense that he'd eventually have to figure out a more sustainable way to live. What he was doing now, existing pointlessly and slowly working through stolen funds... This couldn't last forever.
In some moments, his newfound freedom was all he could have asked for, open-ended and full of possibility. In others, though -- moments like this -- he just felt wildly out of his depth. Such independence was for people who knew what they were doing; proper adults, not children playing at it. Age meant nothing when it seemed the whole world could smell the naïveté on him and treated him as was appropriate.
If there were words to answer Dhaunmyr with, he couldn't find them. He briefly regretted indulging any curiosity at all -- of course it would come back to this and he'd be stuck facing his own aimlessness. Of course.
But then that awkward stretch of silence was unexpectedly broken by Kara instead, saving him from having to answer.
"That's..." He blinked, processing her words a bit slower through the disconnect between them and her hesitant manner. Of course he'd wondered unhappily over what had happened to cause such grievous injury, but he found he couldn't fault her recklessness now. The way his eyebrows knit together slightly was still faintly concerned, but his tone was sincere. "That was good of you, Kara. And brave."
But she still looked so uncomfortable for some reason, like admitting to a good deed was shameful somehow. She fussed at her shoulder where the flesh had so recently been shredded. Did it still bother her, or was it just the memory of it? Caim frowned slightly, leaning in a little. "You can be proud of that."
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Post by enchilada on Apr 16, 2019 23:31:08 GMT
“Well. I suppose. Truly, my ideal in life that keeps me going onwards is the belief I may one day become respected enough by this city, or another, to be deemed worthy of some form of genuine, official recognition. I will know that it is possible for any, in this world, to do something worth the effort of even arranging a summons for just a handshake and a formal thanks, and that this surface truly is different. I was warned about the feelings people have about certain... types of people. I fear that being a wandering stranger who looks as I will hold me from the goal, but this I have never really felt towards me in malice. Fear can be healthy. I want people to be firstly scared of me. Drow are not safe — to an outward eye, I truly am one. But to experience anything beyond a cautionary glance, that would upset me, although it is yet to truly take hold. But to introduce oneself with a known name, perhaps one with a status given before it, that would be instantly calming. Of course some would remain suspicious, but I suppose ‘tis only fair. I still don’t understand how certain types of people struggle to see their own hands before their faces in pitch of night.”
Dhaunmyr didn’t really care to have a title, or land, or a beautiful mansion in the woods. Dhaunmyr wanted a handshake from a leader, and an official thanks. He wanted to do something spectacular. He wanted to be, as cliched as it may have been, a hero. He wanted to believe that the surface was different, not just because it didn’t publicly murder people, but because it was more open minded. A foreigner, a foreigner from a hated and abomination filled land, would be openly regarded as one who saved the city, the kingdom, whatever. Or even something less adventurous. He could do something charitable, once profits actually hit his pockets. He could perhaps do something almost politically bent to improve lives without doing anything drastic. Dhaunmyr could simply make a good contribution to the guild. He knew he wasn’t anybody, maybe more so than in the Underdark. There he was at least the consort of a priestess. Here he was just another stall. Just another merchant. Just another face.
“Honestly, nature blesses the ones who are pre-cursed.”
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Post by moralhazard on Apr 17, 2019 2:20:27 GMT
Kara shrugged, slightly uncomfortable with Caim’s praise. Good, brave. She didn’t think of her actions in those terms. They had been right; that was all that mattered. He told her to be proud of them, and Kara just shrugged again, lowering her hand from her shoulder. She wasn’t proud of having worked with men who would pull a young girl into the woods for their amusement. She was only glad to have left the Freewolves.
Dhaunmyr seemed to accept her answer. Kara relaxed a little in relief, feeling her obligation discharged, her duty performed. This had taken more bravery than fighting Horund; that she hadn’t had a choice but to do. Once the fighting started there was never any fear. With people, the worst of it was in the silence after she spoke, when she rarely knew how what she said would be received.
Dhaunmyr wanted - praise? Acceptance? Recognition? Kara couldn’t fathom it. Maybe she had had such dreams once. If she let herself she could remember being a trainee in the Stone Shields - wanting to protect her city, to serve its people first and foremost, but sneaking in the occasional day dream of being known as an amazing guard, a bastion of justice. Those dreams were long gone.
Kara didn’t respond; she didn’t have much to say. She had no idea what Dhaunmyr meant with his last statement, but she didn’t ask; she thought it likely he would explain anyway. That was a nice thing about Dhaunmyr; he was a bit cryptic, but he talked enough that eventually she could make sense of it.
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Post by orby on Apr 19, 2019 20:54:59 GMT
Dhaunmyr carried right on with his stream of words, so unphased and self-focused it was like he hadn't heard Kara speak at all. And Kara just fell silent, either uncomfortable with the subject or just as bewildered as him at Dhaunmyr's rambling. Caim was hardly what anyone would call an expert, but these components didn't really make for a decent conversation at all. Not that it could be much worse than the slavery and murder talk just before that. That had definitely not been prime breakfast conversation material.
If nothing else, neither of them seemed inclined to ask him to contribute anything on the subject, and that was relaxing in a way this whole mess of a conversation certainly wasn't.
Caim smiled slightly as he glanced between the two of them, hesitant and awkward in that way that suggested it less about expressing happiness and more about clinging to the idea of it. He tore off a small section of bread, biting and chewing to give himself an extra moment or two to come up with some response that would put this all back on track. Nothing genius came to him, so it was not a particularly productive moment.
"That's...good," he said eventually, rather lamely. It wasn't, really. What he could make sense of in Dhaunmyr's mess of words wasn't really any sentiment he could sympathize with, however hard he tried -- he didn't want people to fear him, he didn't crave any kind of status or recognition. The most he could think to actively want in this moment was some success in living on his own and interacting with others. It would have been enough for him to have managed something so ordinary as sharing a pleasant meal with others, and clearly he wasn't doing great at even that much.
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Post by enchilada on Apr 19, 2019 21:22:25 GMT
Dhaunmyr had pretty much been staring daggers at Caim for no discernible reason for a few moments before he finally plastered a smile that really wasn’t particularly happy. “You’re supposed to also put in your answer, then we move on. That’s how it works.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t break it.”
He’d spent too much time in the drawing room, withdrawing room, that was. Heavy topics were for women. It wasn’t becoming to speak of them. Then again, that was a skewed set of topics anyway. The every day was by no means heavy, so what he’d spoken about was perfectly normal for him to talk about over dinner, the kind of thing that your suitor may have laughed at, gently slapped your hand or your shoulder, oh you’re so funny dear! Oh how delightful! Look how well he can speak.
These times when he was crammed in with brothers and sons, well, there, they didn’t really discuss anything at all. It was projected. Their bonds didn’t matter, so you just made yourself agreeable to those around you. You asked a fun little question, or said something universal, like the next big festival, or the best merchant to buy knives from for preparing mushrooms. Then you moved on. You were just friendly. That was it.
In fact, it resembled the conversations he had with nobles and similar, rich people at pointless echo chamber parties. He couldn’t really... talk about anything in particular. At least not with people he wasn’t direct friends with.
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