You aren't wrong. But in our need to strive for greatness, we allow ourselves to be weaponized against the good we set out to do.
[If she had lived a life examining and creating people's worst fears then she was definitely going to love Halloween and all that it stood for. It had, of course, evolved over the years and meant something different to every person who celebrated it. Still, he considered this a good start.]
It seems he takes good care of you and everyone else then. [A baseline assessment, not committing one way or another. He preferred to meet people to decide for himself how much he might get on with them or if he would dislike them.
Then it seemed that they had hit on a subject of great distress for Alice. He dropped his hand away from hers when she looked at him with those tears streaming down her face, pain and anger evident. She didn't have to paint the scene in detail for him to understand that something tragic had occurred to her cat.
He moved the bat cats off of lounging on him so that he could sit up slowly, seeming to glide to a new position without making a sound. Tendrils of black smoke curled from his shoulders and hood. At first, he did nothing but watch her, and maybe a bit of old humanity he liked to deny triggered as he reached out to curl an arm under her legs and the other around her back as he picked her up and set her on his thighs where he could wrap an arm around her and gently rock her.
Two years ago, this would have been impossible for him. Before Chloe had worked on him.]
You did what you had to do to them. Your revenge is over, and you have a new start here that your cat would have wanted. [Comforting had never come easy to him, but kids made it a little easier. Paternal instincts cropped up in the weirdest way.] And if those boys ever struggle their way out of the sea... you and I can show them how rough we can play. Yes?
no subject
[If she had lived a life examining and creating people's worst fears then she was definitely going to love Halloween and all that it stood for. It had, of course, evolved over the years and meant something different to every person who celebrated it. Still, he considered this a good start.]
It seems he takes good care of you and everyone else then. [A baseline assessment, not committing one way or another. He preferred to meet people to decide for himself how much he might get on with them or if he would dislike them.
Then it seemed that they had hit on a subject of great distress for Alice. He dropped his hand away from hers when she looked at him with those tears streaming down her face, pain and anger evident. She didn't have to paint the scene in detail for him to understand that something tragic had occurred to her cat.
He moved the bat cats off of lounging on him so that he could sit up slowly, seeming to glide to a new position without making a sound. Tendrils of black smoke curled from his shoulders and hood. At first, he did nothing but watch her, and maybe a bit of old humanity he liked to deny triggered as he reached out to curl an arm under her legs and the other around her back as he picked her up and set her on his thighs where he could wrap an arm around her and gently rock her.
Two years ago, this would have been impossible for him. Before Chloe had worked on him.]
You did what you had to do to them. Your revenge is over, and you have a new start here that your cat would have wanted. [Comforting had never come easy to him, but kids made it a little easier. Paternal instincts cropped up in the weirdest way.] And if those boys ever struggle their way out of the sea... you and I can show them how rough we can play. Yes?