He shook his head miserably upon hearing his master's assertion that he should have tried harder to find Hermes. “You have already done more for him than any master I know,” Alcuin countered softly as he took a seat on the couch, his hands folded primly in his lap to prevent himself from worrying at the scar upon his torso. “We are not so different, you know. Hermes and I have ever been at the mercy of powerful men with lonely hearts; he knew the risk he took, weighed and measured it in the palms of his hands, and forged ahead knowing that one day something like this might happen.”
“It's not the cruelty that cuts...” He mused quietly with distant and unseeing eyes, his knuckles white with long forgotten tension. “It's the apathy. Like a child tearing the wings from an insect – they care naught for our suffering, only the pleasure they derive from our squirming. However transient it might be. You don't look at people the same way after something like that...”