[Gabranth hardly cuts a softer figure to begin with, and he certainly doesn't now, with the way his brow is quickly threaded throughout with stubborn tension: that bullish determination to make things as he would have them, rather than what they are.
—but then, chasing the steady ease of a slow exhale (carried entirely on the back of Byerly's own candid, unmasked expression), he forces it away. Those pale eyes lower, fixing themselves on some distant, neglected corner of the room yet coated in dust. His voice almost thrumming with a low, subtle sincerity. All pretense gone. All ferocity absent.
If they are both so invested, then there's no need to fight this.]
He suffers. It cannot be unmade without— [The words don't come, or they don't fit right across his tongue, and he's never been good for this, but he does try now.] I would ask nothing of him that I would not give of myself.
So I ask you, with all due sincerity, Lord Rutyer: place faith in him. Treat him as you would a man in need of something to prove, rather than one in need of protection.
no subject
[Gabranth hardly cuts a softer figure to begin with, and he certainly doesn't now, with the way his brow is quickly threaded throughout with stubborn tension: that bullish determination to make things as he would have them, rather than what they are.
—but then, chasing the steady ease of a slow exhale (carried entirely on the back of Byerly's own candid, unmasked expression), he forces it away. Those pale eyes lower, fixing themselves on some distant, neglected corner of the room yet coated in dust. His voice almost thrumming with a low, subtle sincerity. All pretense gone. All ferocity absent.
If they are both so invested, then there's no need to fight this.]
He suffers. It cannot be unmade without— [The words don't come, or they don't fit right across his tongue, and he's never been good for this, but he does try now.] I would ask nothing of him that I would not give of myself.
So I ask you, with all due sincerity, Lord Rutyer: place faith in him. Treat him as you would a man in need of something to prove, rather than one in need of protection.