Malice
Horangi Lokkir nodded along with his wife's words, laughing when she laughed, silent when he needed to be silent, slowly taking and measuring her every word. As he took her offer to sit beside her, however, he placed his feet widely apart, elbows resting on his knees, hands cradling his head. A long breath snaked its way out from his lips, fingers adjusting so that they now held his head upright and covered his mouth. Mismatched eyes looked at his wife who he knew was sincerely trying her best to make this alliance work and nodded. "It... your arm. It does make me uncomfortable. My own battle wounds you could say," he said, words he attempted to lighten with an empty laugh.
As much as one side of him yearned to continue talking about the grander fate of nations, anxieties gnawing at him to wring every bit of knowledge and information he could from someone who not long ago could have been described as a hated enemy, duty beckoning him to craft every plan and contingency to ensure the best future not for Qaeltine or this continued union, but for Hudvalr and Hudvalr alone - he too was tired.
He too wanted to only indulge in the simple curiosity of who this stranger was sitting beside him, a stranger who he was bound to for life.
But there was something she needed to know first. "To be honest with you Aeris," he began, pausing as he allowed her name to awkwardly flow from one letter to the next, the Qaeltine language still too smooth and soft for his tongue. "The strides your nation makes to preserve your bodies disgusts me," his eyes searching deep into her own for any sort of reaction, all too painfully aware of how his right socket throbbed in phantom pain. "It is not an uncommon view in Hudvalr, admittedly. But then often the only ones who see the depravity of your 'modern medicine' are people like you and me."
Lokkir's gaze shifted down into hands that were now placed in his lap, though his focus was already gone from this room. "In battle, one is forced to ignore the humanity of your enemy, to think of them as nothing more than another target, to ignore the thought that those you fight have their own families, their own aspirations, their own fears, all so that you and those who stand beside you can still hold on to theirs."
"For me it was easy. I led my own aerial unit, raining spells down on those who often looked no more than ants. I never had to come face-to-face with you and your own until I had to fight directly with your airships."
Lokkir took in a shaky breath to steady himself. "The first time I had to board one, there was no life on that ship. No humanity to be found. Only husks of metal and flesh shaped like men. And that terrified me. How could I relate to something that should have died from wounds that would kill any mortal man? How could I make peace with something that knew only how to rend and kill, something that showed no remorse when they ripped my men apart limb from limb?" Each word become more pained than the last, one hand rising to cover his right eye.
And then suddenly he burst into harsh laughter, trying to cut the tension he had made in the air. "I apologize. I'm sure you didn't expect tonight to have been so heavy, and I'm sure you were hoping I would maybe tell you what my favorite color was rather than a melodramatic tale of woe. But I know I hate it whenever people look at me with disgust and fear when I don't know why so... now you know."
As much as one side of him yearned to continue talking about the grander fate of nations, anxieties gnawing at him to wring every bit of knowledge and information he could from someone who not long ago could have been described as a hated enemy, duty beckoning him to craft every plan and contingency to ensure the best future not for Qaeltine or this continued union, but for Hudvalr and Hudvalr alone - he too was tired.
He too wanted to only indulge in the simple curiosity of who this stranger was sitting beside him, a stranger who he was bound to for life.
But there was something she needed to know first. "To be honest with you Aeris," he began, pausing as he allowed her name to awkwardly flow from one letter to the next, the Qaeltine language still too smooth and soft for his tongue. "The strides your nation makes to preserve your bodies disgusts me," his eyes searching deep into her own for any sort of reaction, all too painfully aware of how his right socket throbbed in phantom pain. "It is not an uncommon view in Hudvalr, admittedly. But then often the only ones who see the depravity of your 'modern medicine' are people like you and me."
Lokkir's gaze shifted down into hands that were now placed in his lap, though his focus was already gone from this room. "In battle, one is forced to ignore the humanity of your enemy, to think of them as nothing more than another target, to ignore the thought that those you fight have their own families, their own aspirations, their own fears, all so that you and those who stand beside you can still hold on to theirs."
"For me it was easy. I led my own aerial unit, raining spells down on those who often looked no more than ants. I never had to come face-to-face with you and your own until I had to fight directly with your airships."
Lokkir took in a shaky breath to steady himself. "The first time I had to board one, there was no life on that ship. No humanity to be found. Only husks of metal and flesh shaped like men. And that terrified me. How could I relate to something that should have died from wounds that would kill any mortal man? How could I make peace with something that knew only how to rend and kill, something that showed no remorse when they ripped my men apart limb from limb?" Each word become more pained than the last, one hand rising to cover his right eye.
And then suddenly he burst into harsh laughter, trying to cut the tension he had made in the air. "I apologize. I'm sure you didn't expect tonight to have been so heavy, and I'm sure you were hoping I would maybe tell you what my favorite color was rather than a melodramatic tale of woe. But I know I hate it whenever people look at me with disgust and fear when I don't know why so... now you know."
