I'm never gonna quit, got my legacy set in motion
His hands are aimless without a hilt to encircle now. They flex and then curl in at his sides, grappling the air like he could squeeze the old frustration from it. Somehow, he keeps standing on the wrong end of an argument, routinely misunderstood for all his attempts to do things right. "What good would the threat have been if I told you it was hollow?" He lifts his head, chin angling up, resolve his last shield now. "I was up there to help Stormbreak. To settle things with Koa. I was not asking you to do anything more but wait, but you wouldn't even spare me that, touting honor in place of sense." He swallows, mouth suddenly dry as the memory of it curls unwelcome and clear in his mind. Perhaps he should call Flora here, play it out for each of them. Maybe he'd been more monstrous than he remembered, and he'd be served by the sight of it, but equally, Zavien should see how stiff he'd been about the matter.
The doubt continues, even now, and that settles like a fresh wound alongside the older ones. That a man he's grown up alongside for his later years can still believe the worst of him is telling, the distance between them no longer seeming suitable to measure in seasons. "How can you hold Koa in such high esteem and me with so little?" The words come out more plaintive than he'd intended, something young and raw exposed beneath. It's a childish sense of injustice, of longing, writhing alongside the hurt. All his life spent trying to fit his feet into the shoes of others, only for it to fail this spectacularly.
"You know me, Zavien!" One of his hands cuts out in front of him forcefully. It hangs in the air for a moment before it curls in on his chest, breath heaving. Wherever Koa had gone, Kaisel had not been far, chasing his cousin's shadow like he could eventually catch it. The years that separated them meant Kaisel was always behind though, and maybe Zavien would only ever see him as the immature tagalong, even still. "Especially now." The amber of his stare blazes upon Zavien, molten with the outrage of being found wanting time and again. "Can you really stand there, having done the exact thing I did, and claim you don't understand?"
The doubt continues, even now, and that settles like a fresh wound alongside the older ones. That a man he's grown up alongside for his later years can still believe the worst of him is telling, the distance between them no longer seeming suitable to measure in seasons. "How can you hold Koa in such high esteem and me with so little?" The words come out more plaintive than he'd intended, something young and raw exposed beneath. It's a childish sense of injustice, of longing, writhing alongside the hurt. All his life spent trying to fit his feet into the shoes of others, only for it to fail this spectacularly.
"You know me, Zavien!" One of his hands cuts out in front of him forcefully. It hangs in the air for a moment before it curls in on his chest, breath heaving. Wherever Koa had gone, Kaisel had not been far, chasing his cousin's shadow like he could eventually catch it. The years that separated them meant Kaisel was always behind though, and maybe Zavien would only ever see him as the immature tagalong, even still. "Especially now." The amber of his stare blazes upon Zavien, molten with the outrage of being found wanting time and again. "Can you really stand there, having done the exact thing I did, and claim you don't understand?"
Kaisel
So welcome to the fire, I'm the one with the lighter
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
