Moonspear fulthark

It wasn’t promising, the words that he offered.

A grimace could have set on Dirge’s features—it should have. Instead he held fast to the stoicism that often graced him, even faced with the propositions that laid before him. There was nothing more to be done in this situation, nothing more that he could do to uphold whatever moral compass he had. The yellow-bellied canine could state that he wouldn’t be a burden, that he could fend for himself, which presumably he had done, but doubt lingered still in the recesses.

And rightly so, for the wavering fade of those words seemed to lose all confidence and all self-awareness just as swiftly and surely as they had come. Turning him away most certainly would condemn him to misfortune, and taking him in seemed to imply that in spite of good intent it would invite trouble for one or the other.

There were no guarantees what had made Larus the way he was; it was a risk too high.

“And not enough,” he supplied.

He had to think not of what would become of this individual; they had mouths to feed and more to come, they had their own issues to deal with. They were not so needy as to take whatever they could get; they could choose, he reminded himself. Softness would do him no good here, and he sighed.

“We have too much in our hands to hold yours too. If you want a place here then you’ll have to pull yourself together and show me, not grovel and beg and meander with your point. Do that, and perhaps we’ll see, but as it stands it would serve you well to find charity elsewhere.” Curt words to be chased with an even curter turn; he did not want to see reaction or lack thereof. He wanted to wash his hands of this jarring scene and be done with it.