Moonspear words are weapons

Tevinter could not help the bristle of his hackles, at Charon calling him a coward. For being a child. Terrified. It was a cruel thing to call Tevinter, like calling a small, niave child who was afraid of the monsters in his closet a coward. It wasn't something that someone did. Typically, an older brother would open up the closet door to prove that there was nothing there and nothing to be frightened of. That kind of sympathy was not afforded towards Tevinter by Charon, who claimed to be his older brother. Some older brother, and this annoyance was only strengthened when Charon then threw his own 'pity me' story out there, as if their situations were even related. Charon might have seen a bear kill his mother but he hadn't been the one in the position of his mother. To be the one the bear wanted to eat (for it was lucky that Tevinter had gotten away)? And...it did not help that Tevinter's eye sight was not “normal”, but for the sake of avoiding further ridicule he kept his muzzle clamped shut, tightly; and not without struggle.

Charon then threw out a name (Tevinter supposed that was what his last name was/had been) and added that he wasn't one because he was a coward, because he a small, defenseless child had abandoned his family because of his fear. Tevinter did not see it as abandoning. He saw it was self preservation. It was not that he did not want the comfort of his mother, or the presence of his siblings but that he'd been so traumatized, confident that the bear would find him and kill him even with them between it and him. The boy Charon recalled was not the boy that Tevinter remembered being. Perhaps he'd loved his family, but he'd snap at his siblings in attempt to keep the food for himself, he lorded himself over them, even his own mother. He was a little asshole. “I'm no coward,” Tevinter ground out, inclining his muzzle, though the fresh wounds were visible enough. A coward would not have picked a fight with a slumbering grizzly. Perhaps he was a bit of a reckless idiot but he was no coward. “I have conquered my fears.” Because that was what he was at his heart: a conqueror.

“You of all people should understand my situation, on the account of the bear and the family that went out of their way to take care of you. The adults that took you in, helpless and young as you were. They could have turned you out, could have left you to die,” And, honestly, that wasn't too much of a stretch to Vikings who sometimes left their own children to the Wilds to die. “but they didn't, just as Scimitar and Bazi didn't.” Yet, he was just repeating himself over and over, knowing that it was futile.

When Floki piped up that he was an Outrider too, Tevinter felt a small smile tug at the corner's of his lips. “Maybe we could go on some missions together?” Because despite the current tension between Charon and him Tevinter hoped to rekindle the relationship he'd once had with his twin. The plea, the offer Charon made, seemed to Tevinter to make no sense given his recent spew of insults and bitterness. In truth, Charon himself had given Tevinter no reason to want to join but he spared a glance at his twin and felt a decision rise like a lead weight in his heart. “If you would have me, I would work on trying to re-learn what I have lost of who I am.” He would say goodbye to Scimitar and Bazi. He owed them that much; providing Charon's (still bizarre) offer even continued to stand.