Deepwood Weald a shadowy hand turns the page

Was it truly sacrificial if he enjoyed it, even a little? There were perks to holding a territory, for managing subordinates. Though admittedly, he couldn’t have claimed to really need to manage anyone except maybe his youngest children; Moonspear was almost entirely related. They respected the natural law of order and yet defied it too—Hydra’s sisters, her brothers too, none of them had dispersed into the wild to seek their own claims. Nor had his older children, at least not yet.

“I’m sure we can find something you can have as a keepsake,” he said thoughtfully. She thought him kind, so he ran with it. But his kindness was edged, as he had higher aspirations of being rewarded by being kind. Perhaps she would choose fealty to them when the weather grew colder and her options narrowed, remembering his kindness and charm. He could have pushed the topic, but who was he to forsake the option of simply wandering? The world held a great many things and among them may have been her hidden treasure she had yet to discover.

And Dirge, for all he was, could not deny that.

“Your meal’s getting cold,” he went on then, gesturing to it. An option for her to excuse herself if she so desired it, though he found he enjoyed her company in the brief span they had crossed paths. Zsuzsa was a distraction he found he had needed, ever trying to avoid the spiral of thoughts that would have led him down paths of the past, and to things better left to fray along the edges of the tapestry of his history.