[But then he reaches for her, and everything changes.
She ought to bite him, or — or set him on fire, she could do that now, with their hands still clasped and her aether (no, manna, it's called manna) feeling stronger all the time. She ought to stay mad at him, and in a way she is still mad at him, but it's like for a moment a once-blurry picture suddenly snaps into focus, and she has to look and look as fast as she can before it loses all its detail again.
He's reminded her of people she knows and misses before now. Ardbert is the one she always comes back to, Ardbert who carried his agony and his guilt for a hundred years, left behind to live when all of his friends had died, kept back for a purpose that no one could tell him and all but going insane from the waiting. There's something of Emet-Selch in him, too, in flashes — something in the despair and disappointment and jaded outlook on everything around him, the cruelty he seems capable of leaping to on a moment's notice.
But it isn't...cruelty, is it...?
It isn't until she picks up the flickers of sister that she realizes who it is she's trying to pinpoint. That she's seen this brand of guilt before. Seen it in a man so driven by his fear of failure and inadequacy and guilt that he'd lost his own body to an Ascian from trying so hard to save the people he wanted to save.
Ryne had thought Thancred hated her, too, and — oh.
Oh.
Oh, she knows what this is, and knowing it might just make all the difference.]
You're going to walk me home now.
[And she hopes, herself, that she's finally landing the right guess, the lucky roll of the dice, because if she's got his number then she knows exactly what to do with him now.]
And when I'm stronger you're going to teach me how to fly.
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[But then he reaches for her, and everything changes.
She ought to bite him, or — or set him on fire, she could do that now, with their hands still clasped and her aether (no, manna, it's called manna) feeling stronger all the time. She ought to stay mad at him, and in a way she is still mad at him, but it's like for a moment a once-blurry picture suddenly snaps into focus, and she has to look and look as fast as she can before it loses all its detail again.
He's reminded her of people she knows and misses before now. Ardbert is the one she always comes back to, Ardbert who carried his agony and his guilt for a hundred years, left behind to live when all of his friends had died, kept back for a purpose that no one could tell him and all but going insane from the waiting. There's something of Emet-Selch in him, too, in flashes — something in the despair and disappointment and jaded outlook on everything around him, the cruelty he seems capable of leaping to on a moment's notice.
But it isn't...cruelty, is it...?
It isn't until she picks up the flickers of sister that she realizes who it is she's trying to pinpoint. That she's seen this brand of guilt before. Seen it in a man so driven by his fear of failure and inadequacy and guilt that he'd lost his own body to an Ascian from trying so hard to save the people he wanted to save.
Ryne had thought Thancred hated her, too, and — oh.
Oh.
Oh, she knows what this is, and knowing it might just make all the difference.]
You're going to walk me home now.
[And she hopes, herself, that she's finally landing the right guess, the lucky roll of the dice, because if she's got his number then she knows exactly what to do with him now.]
And when I'm stronger you're going to teach me how to fly.