The previous repetitions were different. I prefer to work in the shadows, you know. I didn't make myself available to everyone like I've done this time.
[ he's rather cautious actually, something hwylryn has probably started to pick up on despite his bombastic nature. ]
I know, I know. But there really wasn't anything else he could offer me. I don't make deals just because.
( He'll give Ish that he had nothing else he wanted - but that he cared for it enough... Well, maybe he should think of it as - he's glad he's interesting to Ish, too.
As for the truth, he considers this. )
Mmm... Maybe I'm curious if you like his version of me more or less than the version of myself I've shown.
( Hwylryn can present what he likes, but, at the end of the day, he still leaves himself open to interpretation. Much of what he tells other people of himself are rumors - "it's said that..." and "legends say that..."
Maybe because much of himself has been lost to the years, and all he has left is the crevice Gwawlyn has split open in his heart, his love, and these stories people know. )
It was a matter of necessity. To profit, you need to engage in risk.
[ he smiles. ]
I'd be an idiot to only take him at his word. Everyone tells a story a different way, regardless of their intentions, and knights like him—I'm familiar enough with them, though the one I was most familiar with was considerably more suave.
[ this is a compliment to cain if anything. ]
Either way—everything that you are, and I'm sure I haven't seen all of it: your whimsy, folly, your free spirit, I still don't understand them. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. Something like that, someone like that, really can't be described by someone else. It's something to be witnessed with your own eyes.
There's no way I'd like his version better. It's not complete and it never will be.
( His feelings toward Ish are complicated. Ish has set up this little game for his own selfish ends
- and they are selfish! even if it's to the end that hwylryn suspects, it's selfish! and he knows it and he looks it in the eye because he's selfish, himself! -
and Ish has placed them in this circumstance where he is losing people at a rate that, to him, feels like there's a friend gone every minute, and more will be taken from him soon.
(and does this address all those he'd lost already, but cannot recall? his heart aches for that, too.)
His heart had already shattered, before he'd come - and now he's dragging the sharp edges of himself through routine just to make it to the end, for when he'll be released, and allowed to rest.
It is cruel.
But he has lived too long (maybe too long) to divide this world into things he likes and dislikes. He has all the quizzical confusion of a Northern heart, and all the zest and intrigue of a Western spirit. He has needled at Ish idly until he got caught on a hook, and became curious - something small that began a shift from this is our host, and he is cruel, and he is capricious, and there is nothing to be done about it to this is our host, and he is cruel, and he is these other things, and i wonder why, and i like that i don't know. And in all his years he has pursued interest in others, very rare is it that these people have turned their gaze back to him.
Even if it is only idle curiosity, because he is novel to Ish. Even if Ish may not be the first to meet his gaze. He is the first person like Ish is who has.
And though he is hurt - hurting - he likes that. His heart moves too easily. He cannot help what he likes. Despite his grief, and despite his loss, he is - simple. He likes what he likes, and he is what he is. The only reason he's begun to collapse beneath his own weight is because reality does not allow for it. )
... Then I hope you enjoy what you see, as you watch. ( saying this despite knowing ish is a westie who likes pain and suffering. sighs. (not entirely neg). ) For as long as I stay around.
( ... Because he may die. Will die, surely. Whether by someone's hand, or when he is returned home, to battle...
But such as it is. Even a thousand lifetimes isn't enough to finish knowing another person. He likes the idea of this being something incomplete - without punctuation; a empty pages, meant for continuation. Ones that may never be filled. )
... But I guess I don't mind being an unfinished story for you to puzzle over, either. Please stay alive long enough to remember me.
You're not boring, Hwylryn. I'm something born from pure emotions, something impure from the start. I watch, but I'm not passive. I'll sit in the audience and then move into the stage.
I'll tell you a secret— [ it is and isn't one, because he's said it before in not so many words, as he tends to do. ]
If I die, I'll just come back. Promise.
[ he says this with all of the weight of the sins he's committed and all of the levity of someone who's thrown away everything he was, until just the bones and a scarred heart were left.
they're still holding hands aren't they? he's aware of that in the moment for a different reason than he usually is, and it is for that one that he squeezes them together, gently. a punctuation not loud, but quiet. ]
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no subject
[ he's rather cautious actually, something hwylryn has probably started to pick up on despite his bombastic nature. ]
I know, I know. But there really wasn't anything else he could offer me. I don't make deals just because.
[ a beat and a tilt of his head. ]
Do you want me to ask you and compare the truths?
no subject
( He'll give Ish that he had nothing else he wanted - but that he cared for it enough... Well, maybe he should think of it as - he's glad he's interesting to Ish, too.
As for the truth, he considers this. )
Mmm... Maybe I'm curious if you like his version of me more or less than the version of myself I've shown.
( Hwylryn can present what he likes, but, at the end of the day, he still leaves himself open to interpretation. Much of what he tells other people of himself are rumors - "it's said that..." and "legends say that..."
Maybe because much of himself has been lost to the years, and all he has left is the crevice Gwawlyn has split open in his heart, his love, and these stories people know. )
no subject
[ he smiles. ]
I'd be an idiot to only take him at his word. Everyone tells a story a different way, regardless of their intentions, and knights like him—I'm familiar enough with them, though the one I was most familiar with was considerably more suave.
[ this is a compliment to cain if anything. ]
Either way—everything that you are, and I'm sure I haven't seen all of it: your whimsy, folly, your free spirit, I still don't understand them. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. Something like that, someone like that, really can't be described by someone else. It's something to be witnessed with your own eyes.
There's no way I'd like his version better. It's not complete and it never will be.
[ maybe he is insatiable in one particular way. ]
no subject
- and they are selfish! even if it's to the end that hwylryn suspects, it's selfish! and he knows it and he looks it in the eye because he's selfish, himself! -
and Ish has placed them in this circumstance where he is losing people at a rate that, to him, feels like there's a friend gone every minute, and more will be taken from him soon.
(and does this address all those he'd lost already, but cannot recall? his heart aches for that, too.)
His heart had already shattered, before he'd come - and now he's dragging the sharp edges of himself through routine just to make it to the end, for when he'll be released, and allowed to rest.
It is cruel.
But he has lived too long (maybe too long) to divide this world into things he likes and dislikes. He has all the quizzical confusion of a Northern heart, and all the zest and intrigue of a Western spirit. He has needled at Ish idly until he got caught on a hook, and became curious - something small that began a shift from this is our host, and he is cruel, and he is capricious, and there is nothing to be done about it to this is our host, and he is cruel, and he is these other things, and i wonder why, and i like that i don't know. And in all his years he has pursued interest in others, very rare is it that these people have turned their gaze back to him.
Even if it is only idle curiosity, because he is novel to Ish. Even if Ish may not be the first to meet his gaze. He is the first person like Ish is who has.
And though he is hurt - hurting - he likes that. His heart moves too easily. He cannot help what he likes. Despite his grief, and despite his loss, he is - simple. He likes what he likes, and he is what he is. The only reason he's begun to collapse beneath his own weight is because reality does not allow for it. )
... Then I hope you enjoy what you see, as you watch. ( saying this despite knowing ish is a westie who likes pain and suffering. sighs. (not entirely neg). ) For as long as I stay around.
( ... Because he may die. Will die, surely. Whether by someone's hand, or when he is returned home, to battle...
But such as it is. Even a thousand lifetimes isn't enough to finish knowing another person. He likes the idea of this being something incomplete - without punctuation; a empty pages, meant for continuation. Ones that may never be filled. )
... But I guess I don't mind being an unfinished story for you to puzzle over, either. Please stay alive long enough to remember me.
no subject
[ despite this, he's grinning. ]
You're not boring, Hwylryn. I'm something born from pure emotions, something impure from the start. I watch, but I'm not passive. I'll sit in the audience and then move into the stage.
I'll tell you a secret— [ it is and isn't one, because he's said it before in not so many words, as he tends to do. ]
If I die, I'll just come back. Promise.
[ he says this with all of the weight of the sins he's committed and all of the levity of someone who's thrown away everything he was, until just the bones and a scarred heart were left.
they're still holding hands aren't they? he's aware of that in the moment for a different reason than he usually is, and it is for that one that he squeezes them together, gently. a punctuation not loud, but quiet. ]