[When Sayo begins her predatory circling and vicious rant (an orifice vomiting venom and writhing tendrils of clinging black hate--), Paul shifts. It's a much more subtle alteration of stance and focus than Sayo or Kaworu's explosive pain. His spine straightens, his pupils dilate, his expression flattens. He turns as she walks only so much as is required to stay acutely attuned to her, a magnetic arc of attentiveness with her as its fixed point.
A rising tide of blood, the stink of it coating his nose and his mouth, worming into his own humming veins. A mouth echoing maddened loathing, inward and outward. (You're hurting him--)
There is surely some kind of meaning to be divined from Sayo's tumult of words. There is some sad, lonely story there, the kind that would have made Paul's heart ache, once.]
Don't talk to him like that.
[As cool and edged as one of the knives still in their sheaths at his side, and then Paul half-steps aside to let Kaworu lunge for her.
He heard the shift in Kaworu's positioning, the ragged affront in his voice - it didn't take a Paleblood to see what was coming next. Catharsis, Paul thinks, and can't quite remember why. He'll intervene if it escalates too far, but this, clearly, is what Sayo wants. Who is he to deny her that self-abnegation?
no subject
A rising tide of blood, the stink of it coating his nose and his mouth, worming into his own humming veins. A mouth echoing maddened loathing, inward and outward. (You're hurting him--)
There is surely some kind of meaning to be divined from Sayo's tumult of words. There is some sad, lonely story there, the kind that would have made Paul's heart ache, once.]
Don't talk to him like that.
[As cool and edged as one of the knives still in their sheaths at his side, and then Paul half-steps aside to let Kaworu lunge for her.
He heard the shift in Kaworu's positioning, the ragged affront in his voice - it didn't take a Paleblood to see what was coming next. Catharsis, Paul thinks, and can't quite remember why. He'll intervene if it escalates too far, but this, clearly, is what Sayo wants. Who is he to deny her that self-abnegation?
How many times has he wished for the same?]