It's a mild echo; it's not for him to be judgmental, to be quick-tempered — no hot-headed, hot-blooded mammal, he — mildly questioning, as if trying to ensure he hasn't somehow simply misheard his (unfathomably) young nephew. The tilt of his head, as he watches Ize's hands busy themselves cleaning this fancy bit of metal, is far too avian for any mammal present or watching to even contemplate in any depth without the risk of sympathetic muscle spasm.
"Failure... fault... self-castigation..." A small twitch of his shoulders is a shrug, apparently, serving to dismiss all of these words as nothing but synonyms to prove his point.
It hurts, of course, to see someone so young bearing a weight so terrible, so terribly heavy; but — well, this notion with which he's credited his brother still hangs heavy in the air between them:
... when an offer of compassionate help is rejected, even if the consequences for the sufferer are severe ...
"Who placed this responsibility on your shoulders? To say that you, and you alone — as young as you are — are the one who bears responsibility for all those around you — who was it, fledge, who decided she didn't want to bear her responsibilities any longer, and shifted them to you? Or have you taken on the weight of the world all on your own?"
It would just figure, that a descendant of Alfred's would do that.
no subject
It's a mild echo; it's not for him to be judgmental, to be quick-tempered — no hot-headed, hot-blooded mammal, he — mildly questioning, as if trying to ensure he hasn't somehow simply misheard his (unfathomably) young nephew. The tilt of his head, as he watches Ize's hands busy themselves cleaning this fancy bit of metal, is far too avian for any mammal present or watching to even contemplate in any depth without the risk of sympathetic muscle spasm.
"Failure... fault... self-castigation..." A small twitch of his shoulders is a shrug, apparently, serving to dismiss all of these words as nothing but synonyms to prove his point.
It hurts, of course, to see someone so young bearing a weight so terrible, so terribly heavy; but — well, this notion with which he's credited his brother still hangs heavy in the air between them:
... when an offer of compassionate help is rejected, even if the consequences for the sufferer are severe ...
"Who placed this responsibility on your shoulders? To say that you, and you alone — as young as you are — are the one who bears responsibility for all those around you — who was it, fledge, who decided she didn't want to bear her responsibilities any longer, and shifted them to you? Or have you taken on the weight of the world all on your own?"
It would just figure, that a descendant of Alfred's would do that.