For a single moment, Mayerling relaxes with Sharon's promise. As chilling as the words are, the guarantee that stopping such horrors lay not only on his shoulders eases something within him. Sharon's next words raises his suspicions, and his eyes focus intensely on Sharon over all those words could mean. Mayerling has witnessed them and the actions that follow too many times. Rarely is the outcome pretty, whether the words are successfully kept or not. Atrocities have littered the world in such a name, and people have died needlessly too. Mayerling would not have Sharon die to prevent herself from needing to kill him. Nor—
His concern stays with him, a companion, as he listens to her reasons for the bond—a simple explanation with potentially meaningful consequences. Had Sharon left it at being concern for him, Mayerling would have rejected it for the reason he had already said. Mayerling will not yoke her because of the burden he was born with. He has born it millennia. He can bear it further, without adding burdens to her (beyond the promise he already exacted due to her love for him). Vice versa. Such little words, yet Sharon wandered Folkmore without him handling her anger, the basis of this conversation. The idea Sharon could use his help—that he could help her to any meaningful degree the way she helps him by her very presence—makes his heart sing beneath the heaviness of the topics they discuss.
"Please do not kill people here, Sharon," Mayerling says, "certainly not on my behalf, for that would weigh down my heart far more than my own death. Should someone threaten my life, I would understand. Yet killing someone to prevent me from feeding upon them defeats the purpose of the promise I asked of you. I asked it for their sake, for their safety, if it is I that has placed them in danger.
"I ask not from some moral high ground. I assure you, Sharon da Silva, that no matter how many people you have killed, I have killed more. Some I have killed for good reason, some merely to survive, and some I am honor bound to admit rooted in selfish reasons. I have walked your Otherworld, and I know your ambitions to kill Pthumerians and would not be surprised should you wish the same toward Thirteen."
His lips quirk into a smile. "I know not what awfulness you believe me ignorant of that would turn me away from you," Mayerling says, "so how about you tell me the worst of it, something which you think would turn my stomach and my soul. Should it fail to do that, you can remember I see the good you so readily forget or turn a blind eye to."
He has not forgotten D trained her to be a vampire hunter, what that must require of her for him to see such potential and the training besides.
no subject
His concern stays with him, a companion, as he listens to her reasons for the bond—a simple explanation with potentially meaningful consequences. Had Sharon left it at being concern for him, Mayerling would have rejected it for the reason he had already said. Mayerling will not yoke her because of the burden he was born with. He has born it millennia. He can bear it further, without adding burdens to her (beyond the promise he already exacted due to her love for him). Vice versa. Such little words, yet Sharon wandered Folkmore without him handling her anger, the basis of this conversation. The idea Sharon could use his help—that he could help her to any meaningful degree the way she helps him by her very presence—makes his heart sing beneath the heaviness of the topics they discuss.
"Please do not kill people here, Sharon," Mayerling says, "certainly not on my behalf, for that would weigh down my heart far more than my own death. Should someone threaten my life, I would understand. Yet killing someone to prevent me from feeding upon them defeats the purpose of the promise I asked of you. I asked it for their sake, for their safety, if it is I that has placed them in danger.
"I ask not from some moral high ground. I assure you, Sharon da Silva, that no matter how many people you have killed, I have killed more. Some I have killed for good reason, some merely to survive, and some I am honor bound to admit rooted in selfish reasons. I have walked your Otherworld, and I know your ambitions to kill Pthumerians and would not be surprised should you wish the same toward Thirteen."
His lips quirk into a smile. "I know not what awfulness you believe me ignorant of that would turn me away from you," Mayerling says, "so how about you tell me the worst of it, something which you think would turn my stomach and my soul. Should it fail to do that, you can remember I see the good you so readily forget or turn a blind eye to."
He has not forgotten D trained her to be a vampire hunter, what that must require of her for him to see such potential and the training besides.