[The miserable truth is, he's startled and astonished when someone fights their way through the doors to his holding cell, because it never once occurred to him that anyone would come. Why would they? He had done his best, and his best had been found wanting. Why should anyone come running for his sake?
(Estinien did once, back in the days of their youth. Back then he was pinned to the ground beneath a savage wyrm, mud beneath his back rather than the cold stone of the Vault. It had nearly torn his ear off before Estinien had managed to kill it, and that very next Starlight those brave hands had delivered to him the earcuff that sits over the scarring, protecting the already-vulnerable place from the risk of any further harm.)
He had not thought —
He had not thought he deserved what he gets: Haurchefant, stalwart and strong in the mail and colors of House Fortemps, nudging him back to awareness with a gentleness that belies the savagery he'd just exercised in eliminating the guards.]
Haurchefant...
[It cannot be. It cannot, for to believe it would mean he should be so lucky, and he knows he isn't.]
no subject
(Estinien did once, back in the days of their youth. Back then he was pinned to the ground beneath a savage wyrm, mud beneath his back rather than the cold stone of the Vault. It had nearly torn his ear off before Estinien had managed to kill it, and that very next Starlight those brave hands had delivered to him the earcuff that sits over the scarring, protecting the already-vulnerable place from the risk of any further harm.)
He had not thought —
He had not thought he deserved what he gets: Haurchefant, stalwart and strong in the mail and colors of House Fortemps, nudging him back to awareness with a gentleness that belies the savagery he'd just exercised in eliminating the guards.]
Haurchefant...
[It cannot be. It cannot, for to believe it would mean he should be so lucky, and he knows he isn't.]
'Tis death to be here, you shouldn't have come...