[ Her reaction is placating, somewhat. It's not his fault, but it always feels that way. It is disgusting, and sometimes he feels like the only one who feels it so acutely.
She is kinder than he expected. A better friend than most.
His memories return to him in a jumbled soup where he has to pick out the relevant pieces, but after a few seconds of thought the picture does become clear to him again. ]
It was... one of my father's knights. He was out some distance during the attack, and managed to return in time to save me.
[ He nearly wasn't—it was sheer chance that he hadn't died of his injuries before Gustave had rescued him, and overall his voice is dry of any gratitude. It would have been better to die than to live on as a sole survivor. Better dead than infinitely despairing.
But the sentiment is unbefitting a knight or a prince, which he finally remembers that he is. His grief hardens into something else, an angry furrow of his brow and tense, heated tenor in his voice. ]
...And there is no reason for any such brutality. [ He still doesn't know why it happened, and it doesn't matter. No excuse would ever sate him. It would never appease the dead, their anguished souls. ] There are people who care nothing for the suffering of others, or the lives of good men and women. People who take for their own agendas, with little regard for how many are trampled along the way.
[ At the very least, he survived so he could kill anyone whoever did this, and anyone else who acted along the same, cruel vein. His father's demands have never rung any less clearly in his ears. ]
merry christmas!
She is kinder than he expected. A better friend than most.
His memories return to him in a jumbled soup where he has to pick out the relevant pieces, but after a few seconds of thought the picture does become clear to him again. ]
It was... one of my father's knights. He was out some distance during the attack, and managed to return in time to save me.
[ He nearly wasn't—it was sheer chance that he hadn't died of his injuries before Gustave had rescued him, and overall his voice is dry of any gratitude. It would have been better to die than to live on as a sole survivor. Better dead than infinitely despairing.
But the sentiment is unbefitting a knight or a prince, which he finally remembers that he is. His grief hardens into something else, an angry furrow of his brow and tense, heated tenor in his voice. ]
...And there is no reason for any such brutality. [ He still doesn't know why it happened, and it doesn't matter. No excuse would ever sate him. It would never appease the dead, their anguished souls. ] There are people who care nothing for the suffering of others, or the lives of good men and women. People who take for their own agendas, with little regard for how many are trampled along the way.
[ At the very least, he survived so he could kill anyone whoever did this, and anyone else who acted along the same, cruel vein. His father's demands have never rung any less clearly in his ears. ]