Gilded Bay strength before weakness

For a brief moment, Guildenstern’s expression had shifted to a devilish smirk. He snorted in response to the comment from his brother. Did Rosencrantz believe that he bowed to anyone? Surely, his brother must have been joking. The pale beast’s purpose in those packs was never to serve the leadership as a dutiful slave. He had been there to help them accomplish the tasks that they could not on their own. No matter how long he had lingered with their brood, he was never truly one of them. Without the appropriate payment, he did not budge for others. The pallid brute was many things, but he served himself before others and always would. As capable as he was, nothing compelled him more than the promise of reward at the end of a challenging feat.
 
“These packs were no friend to me, brother. I have lived as a Berserkir just as you, only reaping more rewards, I would wager,” Guildenstern said with a soft bob of his head in a half-shrug. It was not surprising that Rosencrantz was motivated by the idea of beating the next fighter he crossed. It was always something that he had been spurred into action for. The two brothers had scored against each other countless times in their youth. It had been a long time since Guildenstern had tested the mettle of his sibling. He wondered if the desire to do so still lingered beneath the surface of his brother’s flesh – urging him. It was a feeling that he was all too familiar with.
 
When Rosencrantz mentioned the concept of finding peace, Guildenstern cupped his ears forward and drew his head up. That was a peculiar thing to have come from his brother. It almost felt as though the words had been imagined and he had not spoken them at all. Perhaps the woman he had spoken of before had softened him in some ways. “Peace? You believe such a thing exists? Or that you could ever find it?” the knight inquired, skeptical of the concept and not bothering to hide that from his tone. It seemed that many things had changed in the years they were apart. There was a chance that Rosencrantz was not the same wolf he had once been. There was even more of a chance that his own growth had passed up Guildenstern, who had remained very much the same.
 
“It’s what I know,” he answered the question with a shrug.