Apologies. ( This, softened, careful, choice. Absent his brother's diplomacy, but infiltrating the echelons of strategic discourse, chosen to strip offence bare, where it serves no open purpose.
He abandons the cup, sits it at tender balance beside them on a slip of wooden nothing, an overgrown splinter that might have been a stalk or a tree's husk or a nightmare, manifested. The woods have a way of materialising their horrors here. He has learned. They have all learned too much of the lands, far more than they intended. )
But there are limitations to charm, eloquence and beauty.
( Her gifts of conversation are wasted on the unsophisticated. Her beauty will thrive and mature, but its strength will prove transient. And how will she compel people to achieve her wishes, then? )
no subject
He abandons the cup, sits it at tender balance beside them on a slip of wooden nothing, an overgrown splinter that might have been a stalk or a tree's husk or a nightmare, manifested. The woods have a way of materialising their horrors here. He has learned. They have all learned too much of the lands, far more than they intended. )
But there are limitations to charm, eloquence and beauty.
( Her gifts of conversation are wasted on the unsophisticated. Her beauty will thrive and mature, but its strength will prove transient. And how will she compel people to achieve her wishes, then? )
Trust is inescapable.