[He doesn't shrug Bariyan off, but he looks away, turning his head so that his gaze is fixed on some indistinct point across the lake. His echoing voice is quiet, bitter, laced with miserable resignation.]
Some of us were called to a mission. We had orders to overtake a pirate ship and sail its stolen goods to their rightful owners.
I assaulted the ship, along with the others. I--killed--no--slaughtered so many of them-- [he pauses, because it wasn't that. They were pirates; cutthroats, pillagers, base scum. He does not mourn their deaths. He mourns that he felt so alive while killing them.]
Some of them were young, perhaps prisoners, ... I was aware enough to push them away, send them to Chloe--another transport--but.
[He clenches his open, bloodied palm into a fist.] The rest I killed without mercy, with the terrible powers I was given, and in the only way I knew how. You don't know, Bariyan. You have not seen. These powers--they do not simply kill. They devastate.
[he grits his teeth; his sharp canines biting into his lower lip.]
A number of transports saw me, watched me. And--their faces--
[he stops again, shutting his eyes, and laughs weakly.] They looked just like you did. Like you always have, until this very moment.
[Even in the tunnels, Koltira had interpreted Bariyan's reaction to him as nothing but the most distant and deep of suspicions. As was right, as was proper.]
no subject
Some of us were called to a mission. We had orders to overtake a pirate ship and sail its stolen goods to their rightful owners.
I assaulted the ship, along with the others. I--killed--no--slaughtered so many of them-- [he pauses, because it wasn't that. They were pirates; cutthroats, pillagers, base scum. He does not mourn their deaths. He mourns that he felt so alive while killing them.]
Some of them were young, perhaps prisoners, ... I was aware enough to push them away, send them to Chloe--another transport--but.
[He clenches his open, bloodied palm into a fist.] The rest I killed without mercy, with the terrible powers I was given, and in the only way I knew how. You don't know, Bariyan. You have not seen. These powers--they do not simply kill. They devastate.
[he grits his teeth; his sharp canines biting into his lower lip.]
A number of transports saw me, watched me. And--their faces--
[he stops again, shutting his eyes, and laughs weakly.] They looked just like you did. Like you always have, until this very moment.
[Even in the tunnels, Koltira had interpreted Bariyan's reaction to him as nothing but the most distant and deep of suspicions. As was right, as was proper.]