Arrow Lake Reunion

The boy's shrug — so careless to the darkling — and enervated excuse that of which Sinaaq could find no answer to his questions within, was unacceptable. What in the hell did the child think that was? He needed something much more sufficient than the fact that Adlartok couldn't trust anyone. What reason did he have to feel such a way? When Sinaaq had always went above and beyond the call of duty for him. Selling himself as a prisoner to ensure that Artok was safe, settling down in Wintersun because even injured as Sinaaq had been he hadn't wanted Artok to starve, or to be without. Brow raised over molten eye as he studied the grayscale creature so much like Sinaaq himself that the darkling couldn't help but be furious about. Was this how he was? Unwilling to listen to anything but the dark hisses within his mind? Stubborn. Incorrigibly so? Except, to Sinaaq there was a significant difference between him and Adlartok. The boy had not suffered so nearly as much as Sinaaq had — Sinaaq had nearly killed himself to make sure of that, and the simple lack of gratitude and distance only angered the darkling further.

The consideration that he should have let Glimmer take the boy, let him be treated as poorly as Sinaaq himself as been not just by his father but by his own mother who had been willing to literally let him starve to death, flitted across the Arrluk's mind as regret surged through him. Regret for loving him, because for all Adlartok was speaking of now he was doing the exact same thing to Sinaaq that everyone did — eventually. Torture him, leave him. Destroy him. “What reasons do you have for your so called distrust other than your own misunderstanding?” Sinaaq could not help but hiss, feeling as if the boy had stabbed him in the back, slicing through bone and sinew to his heart where he repeatedly jabbed the rusted, red hot poker over and over again into it. It hurt because despite himself Sinaaq had retained what little of hope he could scrounge up. Simply to watch it burst into flames before his own eyes.

“I know you harbored affection for Solia, Adlartok,” It hurt to even speak her name. His heart gave a painful lurch in his chest, her name burning his lips. Still, it was about high time Sinaaq let on to the boy in regards to his knowledge of Artok's crush on her. “How do you think that I feel? I lo-” He couldn't do it, couldn't make him say the word. He choked on it as if he'd swallowed ashes, suffocating. “It doesn't matter now.” Sinaaq could no longer remember precisely what had happened anymore, having thought about it over and over until his fact became contorted. Until he could not decipher what had actually happened and what he'd added and refined during his time obsessing over it. “But you will need a better explanation that what you have thus offered me to tell me why you cannot come with me now. I have never let you down, Artok. So why?”