[ Angelo wants to disbelieve this. To think that he could be loved by anybody here is too much to bear, and Hwylryn so clearly has so many people he cares more about. To have been used as a scapegoat because he was easy to blame, that would have hurt... but it would have been understandable. That is how humans are. It's been his constant refrain going through this ordeal. It would have proven a point.
But Hwylryn isn't human.
Watching him transform and eat a person hadn't been enough to drive that home before. Angelo still felt a kinship between them, still felt like he had the same rights to grief as the immortal. The weight of his feelings, the weight of Hwylryn's feelings... To Angelo they had been the same and that had been enough.
It took until today to realize that while the weight might bear down on them identically, the shape of their love is completely different.
Hwylryn isn't human.
All of Angelo's disdain for humanity, all the coldness he feels towards its cruelty... None of it applies.
In the Captain, Angelo had chased a love that transcends humanity. The Captain had been a concept in human form, an empty vessel, a void, an absence, a black abyss... and he'd been calming and comforting in it. Angelo doesn't know if he'd been loved - hadn't dared to hope for it. To devote himself fully had been enough.
So it's only now that the love of the inhuman comes crashing down on him.
Blaming him, violating him, ripping him apart with teeth and claws. Just a fragment of the love of a dragon, merely a tiny piece of all the love Hwylryn has to give.
Is this the kind of transcendental affection he'd always been craving? The kind of destruction he'd been chasing for so long? Is this relief? Then why is he trembling? Why does he feel like he wants to scream even though there is no air left in his lungs? Why does he want to run and hide?
Don't look at me like that. Don't offer me that kind understanding gaze. ]
1/2
But Hwylryn isn't human.
Watching him transform and eat a person hadn't been enough to drive that home before. Angelo still felt a kinship between them, still felt like he had the same rights to grief as the immortal. The weight of his feelings, the weight of Hwylryn's feelings... To Angelo they had been the same and that had been enough.
It took until today to realize that while the weight might bear down on them identically, the shape of their love is completely different.
Hwylryn isn't human.
All of Angelo's disdain for humanity, all the coldness he feels towards its cruelty... None of it applies.
In the Captain, Angelo had chased a love that transcends humanity. The Captain had been a concept in human form, an empty vessel, a void, an absence, a black abyss... and he'd been calming and comforting in it. Angelo doesn't know if he'd been loved - hadn't dared to hope for it. To devote himself fully had been enough.
So it's only now that the love of the inhuman comes crashing down on him.
Blaming him, violating him, ripping him apart with teeth and claws. Just a fragment of the love of a dragon, merely a tiny piece of all the love Hwylryn has to give.
Is this the kind of transcendental affection he'd always been craving? The kind of destruction he'd been chasing for so long? Is this relief? Then why is he trembling? Why does he feel like he wants to scream even though there is no air left in his lungs? Why does he want to run and hide?
Don't look at me like that. Don't offer me that kind understanding gaze. ]