Sore spot? [Lorenz scoffs.] Hardly. If you should manage to find a complaint worthy of consideration, I would hear it. The likelihood of that however-
[And it strikes, like a bell rung in consummate clarity sending stray thoughts awry. Count Gloucester. His words falter, as does his expression. (False) frustration gives way to shock as those words and their implication registers. Certainly that is his title. Certainly there is no other who could inherit it. Such an address should hardly give him pause, save for the fact...]
Claude. [The name is murmured, astonishment robbing of his usual imperious tone as he realizes what has happened. That Claude would not deign to call him so. Could not. This Claude has, and therefore...
Ah, but is this not that wretched familiarity?
Against his wishes, the smile that emerges is... resigned and a little helpless. A little too fond to mask. For months he had wondered, worried even if he knew he should not. How many times over the course of his duties as a newly titled Count had he wondered what mischief Claude might be getting up to? Only for it to be followed by a weighty knowledge that he could no longer simply go and see for himself. That, more than miles, now he lacked even such basic knowledge as to Claude's location?
... In his more seasoned years, there really is no other word for it save obsession, is there? The thought makes him embarrassed.
And so when the firefly darts by, illuminating that damnable grin he was certain would be there and spreading a memory upon the cloud of fog that surrounds them, he closes his eyes. He does not need to see it. The scene alone- one so common in the later moments of the war and yet so tentatively unique all the same- is enough to stir a recollection. He remembers that moment. Careful honesty and tentative concern. Their relationship has ever been conflicted, but in the end had they not both been true to what mattered?
Which, naturally, brings them to this...
When he opens his eyes again, his expression twists in a way that Claude might not quite expect. Annoyance, irritation- anger.] I hope you at least are prepared to explain yourself. [His voice is laced with scorn as he folds his arms, but the look in his eyes belies the truth- amiability.]
no subject
[And it strikes, like a bell rung in consummate clarity sending stray thoughts awry. Count Gloucester. His words falter, as does his expression. (False) frustration gives way to shock as those words and their implication registers. Certainly that is his title. Certainly there is no other who could inherit it. Such an address should hardly give him pause, save for the fact...]
Claude. [The name is murmured, astonishment robbing of his usual imperious tone as he realizes what has happened. That Claude would not deign to call him so. Could not. This Claude has, and therefore...
Ah, but is this not that wretched familiarity?
Against his wishes, the smile that emerges is... resigned and a little helpless. A little too fond to mask. For months he had wondered, worried even if he knew he should not. How many times over the course of his duties as a newly titled Count had he wondered what mischief Claude might be getting up to? Only for it to be followed by a weighty knowledge that he could no longer simply go and see for himself. That, more than miles, now he lacked even such basic knowledge as to Claude's location?
... In his more seasoned years, there really is no other word for it save obsession, is there? The thought makes him embarrassed.
And so when the firefly darts by, illuminating that damnable grin he was certain would be there and spreading a memory upon the cloud of fog that surrounds them, he closes his eyes. He does not need to see it. The scene alone- one so common in the later moments of the war and yet so tentatively unique all the same- is enough to stir a recollection. He remembers that moment. Careful honesty and tentative concern. Their relationship has ever been conflicted, but in the end had they not both been true to what mattered?
Which, naturally, brings them to this...
When he opens his eyes again, his expression twists in a way that Claude might not quite expect. Annoyance, irritation- anger.] I hope you at least are prepared to explain yourself. [His voice is laced with scorn as he folds his arms, but the look in his eyes belies the truth- amiability.]
[ooc: aaaaand book. :B]