OPEN - You are broken and callow, cautious and safe

[loversinverted]

WHO: Diabhall and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all - what Diabhall has been up to throughout October. The first layer of the stone mask seems to be eroding....
WHEN: Backdated to span the month of October. What is time, anyway?
WHERE: The Gallows offices and dining hall, a tavern in Kirkwall, and wherever else anyone wants him!
NOTES: Will edit with content warnings as I go - thread starters below. Please let me know if you want something custom for one of your characters!

Starters below!

Comments

[loversinverted]

It's not an asshole move at all, really. He doesn't look hurt, and he shrugs a little at the apology.

"You didn't know. Besides, it is more complicated that only that - where I came from, I was in a pact for my magic. If I had ceased, my soul would have been devoured. I needed to keep going. I couldn't have done that as I was."

He rattles all this off as if it is pure sense, as even and droning as if he were explaining how rain wets the ground.

[armd]

Yeah, it's– fairly unnerving, actually. It makes Abby wonder if she's nuts for thinking it sounds so horrible when, from the tone of his voice, they could be discussing the weather.

"Is that normal?" She can't help being blunt, a side-effect of her confusion, "Where you came here from, I mean. Or is that an extreme situation."

[loversinverted]

The bluntness matters little to Diabhall - of course she is bound to have questions. The questions are...well, they're biting a little more deeply than usual, but no matter. The slight twitch of his eye is an aberration.

"Do you mean what I did, or the terms of the pact? If it's the former...no. I know of no one else who has done what I have done. But the latter - it varies. It depends on the entity one is dealing with."

[armd]

She meant the former, but it is nice to have an extra thread of information. It still doesn't make much sense to Abby; what does it feel like? To have your emotions ripped away?

Well. Presumably like nothing, right.

She huffs, and shakes her head. "Have you felt anything else since you got here? Or was that a... big first for you just now."

What a rotten way to kick all that off again.

[loversinverted]

The question is a fair one - he sets his jaw for a moment, thinking.

"...There have been...anomalies. Moments. But this had magnitude I haven't felt in years. I don't..." Briefly, there is a flutter of wariness, of worry in the steady drone of his voice. He doesn't care for it.

"I don't like what this may mean."