01-14-2010, 08:36 PM
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516.
He was not very soothing—he didn’t take it personally, he had doubted it would work anyway. He was not exactly someone you could cuddle up next to and cry on their shoulder. Just the sight of her tears made him extremely nervous. To think about it, he had never seen anyone cry before. Never, not that he could remember. He had seen tears well up in his mother’s eyes (out of anger more than sorrow) though she had usually restrained herself. It was a somewhat disturbing thought. Was this natural? Did everyone cry when they got hurt? He certainly never had, and he had been beaten and slashed within inches of his life before. He supposed he didn’t have the sort of emotion that found its way out through one’s tear ducts. He mostly tried not to look at her face, his face flushing from where he saw the salty tracks that the tears had left in the thin fur.
Snake noticed movement from the corner of his eye—Vieira had lifted her arm to wipe the tears from her face. He was oddly relieved; such outward displays of emotion were horribly awkward for him. After he asked his questions, she took her time answering. He could feel the turmoil in the air, the tenseness that seemed to radiate from her injured body. He did not press the subject; if she wanted to reply, she would do it on her own time. If not, he would not force her to answer. Eventually, after several moments of what must have been some serious inner conflict, she nodded.
A grim expression appeared on the sandy-furred coyote’s features and his mouth became little more than an indistinguishable line. He was somewhat disappointed in Kaena, though he couldn’t pin this entirely on her. If Vieira was going to be of any use in this war, she would need to be toughened up and trained. Perhaps the wounds across her back would give her some motivation.
“Don’t tell her what?” his said, his voice low and uncharacteristically hoarse. “What happened? She can guess, unless you expect her to believe you fell and got wounds on your back that look suspiciously like claw-marks.” A breath escaped his parted jaws in a swift hiss, making him seem for a moment very much like his namesake. “Kaena should not have sent you out alone. If she wanted to use you for border patrols, she could send you with someone or train you to know what to do if you were attacked like that.” He stared reflectively into the fire, trying to think of what he could say to the Centurion. Even if Vieira wanted him to say nothing, that was one request of hers that he could not go through with. Snake may be a cold-blooded killer when it came to situations in which he felt morally responsible to take one more bastard out of the world, but he did not condone unnecessary harm to innocents. He may have been a soldier, but he fought enemies. He was not an agent of attrition.
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516.
He was not very soothing—he didn’t take it personally, he had doubted it would work anyway. He was not exactly someone you could cuddle up next to and cry on their shoulder. Just the sight of her tears made him extremely nervous. To think about it, he had never seen anyone cry before. Never, not that he could remember. He had seen tears well up in his mother’s eyes (out of anger more than sorrow) though she had usually restrained herself. It was a somewhat disturbing thought. Was this natural? Did everyone cry when they got hurt? He certainly never had, and he had been beaten and slashed within inches of his life before. He supposed he didn’t have the sort of emotion that found its way out through one’s tear ducts. He mostly tried not to look at her face, his face flushing from where he saw the salty tracks that the tears had left in the thin fur.
Snake noticed movement from the corner of his eye—Vieira had lifted her arm to wipe the tears from her face. He was oddly relieved; such outward displays of emotion were horribly awkward for him. After he asked his questions, she took her time answering. He could feel the turmoil in the air, the tenseness that seemed to radiate from her injured body. He did not press the subject; if she wanted to reply, she would do it on her own time. If not, he would not force her to answer. Eventually, after several moments of what must have been some serious inner conflict, she nodded.
A grim expression appeared on the sandy-furred coyote’s features and his mouth became little more than an indistinguishable line. He was somewhat disappointed in Kaena, though he couldn’t pin this entirely on her. If Vieira was going to be of any use in this war, she would need to be toughened up and trained. Perhaps the wounds across her back would give her some motivation.
“Don’t tell her what?” his said, his voice low and uncharacteristically hoarse. “What happened? She can guess, unless you expect her to believe you fell and got wounds on your back that look suspiciously like claw-marks.” A breath escaped his parted jaws in a swift hiss, making him seem for a moment very much like his namesake. “Kaena should not have sent you out alone. If she wanted to use you for border patrols, she could send you with someone or train you to know what to do if you were attacked like that.” He stared reflectively into the fire, trying to think of what he could say to the Centurion. Even if Vieira wanted him to say nothing, that was one request of hers that he could not go through with. Snake may be a cold-blooded killer when it came to situations in which he felt morally responsible to take one more bastard out of the world, but he did not condone unnecessary harm to innocents. He may have been a soldier, but he fought enemies. He was not an agent of attrition.