[Ortus beholds the Saint of Patience - Augustine - with his sad, heavy gaze as his snake Omen curls in cool comfort around his neck, and he meets the serpent's eyes with a certain look as Augustine brushes lightly across his scales. It is a look he has shared only a handful of times before, one he did not recognize the first time that Sir Magnus Quinn shot it at him behind his lady-wife's back, one he learned to return in time.
It is a look of fellow feeling. It is one that says, wordlessly, that whatever their necromancers may do, they are cavaliers, and there is an understanding of their duty between them; that in absence of any compelling reason not to be, they are comrades in common cause of care. It says look at what we put up with, half-exasperated and half-proud. It says, in this case, look out for him, will you?
Ortus knows what Alfred is, after all. He knows the terrible price that Augustine has paid for his Lord once before, and he has begun to understand what it means to cherish one who does not offer themselves up easily to such care.]
Augustine.
[The name trips off his tongue as softly as the Saint's hand rested on his brother. He speaks to him as he would speak to his own necromancer, with gentle manner and a quiet solicitousness that is so retiring as to be easily dismissed, if Augustine cannot bear it upon the brittle strength of his surface.]
I do not think you would find yourself as unwelcome as you fear. My Lady would intercede on your behalf. [He adjusts the box in his grip, glancing downward.] As would I.
But it is beyond me to ask you to shirk your duty, or forsake your House. I bear no ire against you, whatsoever lies between the Ninth and the First. [He looks up from beneath his long, dark lashes, solemnly.] I thank you for your kindnesses. I would return them, if I can.
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It is a look of fellow feeling. It is one that says, wordlessly, that whatever their necromancers may do, they are cavaliers, and there is an understanding of their duty between them; that in absence of any compelling reason not to be, they are comrades in common cause of care. It says look at what we put up with, half-exasperated and half-proud. It says, in this case, look out for him, will you?
Ortus knows what Alfred is, after all. He knows the terrible price that Augustine has paid for his Lord once before, and he has begun to understand what it means to cherish one who does not offer themselves up easily to such care.]
Augustine.
[The name trips off his tongue as softly as the Saint's hand rested on his brother. He speaks to him as he would speak to his own necromancer, with gentle manner and a quiet solicitousness that is so retiring as to be easily dismissed, if Augustine cannot bear it upon the brittle strength of his surface.]
I do not think you would find yourself as unwelcome as you fear. My Lady would intercede on your behalf. [He adjusts the box in his grip, glancing downward.] As would I.
But it is beyond me to ask you to shirk your duty, or forsake your House. I bear no ire against you, whatsoever lies between the Ninth and the First. [He looks up from beneath his long, dark lashes, solemnly.] I thank you for your kindnesses. I would return them, if I can.