Pain is an old friend; validation is something else.
It's not that others have never tried to grant it - Evandrin and Elias are ever radiant with righteous fury on his behalf - but there's always been...a dissonance there, a gap in understanding or acceptance on either side, barriers of guilt and disappointment.
Raei. This is a whisper, and for all that it's frayed with the same heart-stricken fury it resonates with a very different warmth, one that eases his shoulders just slightly. He never would have guessed, before, that gods had nicknames just as so many other siblings do; he never would have thought, of all of them, the Lord of Torment and the Redeeming Light -
She tried to do the same thing I did, but she is redemption. She knew him when he was something else. He told her that he missed her, he told her that he would try.
And the Hell of it is, Zerxus is damned sure that only one of those was a lie.
Kahl is not, in this moment, enraged, aside from passing flares of bitterness, firy comet-tails in the wake of his own stony brittle jealousy. He's not even surprised. Kahl knows what to expect from Hells. He is cold-eyed, if not truly cold-hearted.
Zerxus's anger can have the space and time to emerge, to disentangle from his weariness and pity and defensive pride, precisely because Kahl is not, himself, radiantly angry on his behalf. Kahl is not radiantly angry that Asmodeus has hurt him, or even that Zerxus has continued to let him. He doesn't like it, but he already knows this is what both of them would do; they have not promised him to do anything else. Kahl has not decided in advance which horrors Zerxus ought to be angry about - only that the anger he has deserves the space to burn.
So she was a real threat, Kahl understands, instantly, brutally. She had a real chance, where Zerxus does not, of effecting a change he wished to refuse. And he reacted as he would to a threat.
In other words: yes. He remembers, on the last day of his life, Nydas chiding him for having the wrong priorities, for overstepping in a way that wasn't productive, and backing down in an instant.
(He remembers the cold steel of his brother's blade, so ready to smother the flames if he would just let it - )
In this place, in Kahl's domain, there is no one here to see. In this place, even if the world were here, still no one could tell, as the salt tears mix with the acidic rain already on his face. Here, he can cry, and nothing breaks but him.
The truth of Kahl, the the truth of the world: under fury, pain. One of the brushes against Zerxus's cheek, as soft and dissolute as wood ash. Others gather in his lap, a blanket of velvet and mist.
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It's not that others have never tried to grant it - Evandrin and Elias are ever radiant with righteous fury on his behalf - but there's always been...a dissonance there, a gap in understanding or acceptance on either side, barriers of guilt and disappointment.
Raei. This is a whisper, and for all that it's frayed with the same heart-stricken fury it resonates with a very different warmth, one that eases his shoulders just slightly. He never would have guessed, before, that gods had nicknames just as so many other siblings do; he never would have thought, of all of them, the Lord of Torment and the Redeeming Light -
She tried to do the same thing I did, but she is redemption. She knew him when he was something else. He told her that he missed her, he told her that he would try.
And the Hell of it is, Zerxus is damned sure that only one of those was a lie.
no subject
Zerxus's anger can have the space and time to emerge, to disentangle from his weariness and pity and defensive pride, precisely because Kahl is not, himself, radiantly angry on his behalf. Kahl is not radiantly angry that Asmodeus has hurt him, or even that Zerxus has continued to let him. He doesn't like it, but he already knows this is what both of them would do; they have not promised him to do anything else. Kahl has not decided in advance which horrors Zerxus ought to be angry about - only that the anger he has deserves the space to burn.
So she was a real threat, Kahl understands, instantly, brutally. She had a real chance, where Zerxus does not, of effecting a change he wished to refuse. And he reacted as he would to a threat.
Interesting.
no subject
In other words: yes. He remembers, on the last day of his life, Nydas chiding him for having the wrong priorities, for overstepping in a way that wasn't productive, and backing down in an instant.
(He remembers the cold steel of his brother's blade, so ready to smother the flames if he would just let it - )
He's not sure when, exactly, he started crying.
no subject
The truth of Kahl, the the truth of the world: under fury, pain. One of the brushes against Zerxus's cheek, as soft and dissolute as wood ash. Others gather in his lap, a blanket of velvet and mist.