log: hannah and ren
It said nothing pretty about those who were here in this arena staring to think that they would do this to a boy, a live human, as easily as they might do it to a machine made to look like one, if the legality of it were something that did not hold them back. There was a low level rage that gathered in Ren's abdomen, the sort of rage he felt at the easy dismissal of anyone who someone believed of no consequence. In his view, no one and nothing was of no consequence. The boy might be a machine, rather than a human, but he'd been created by someone, and if he understood the rage and perhaps even worse than hatred, the enthusiastic ambivalence towards his fate, there was a cruelty in that, Ren couldn't comprehend.
"People are monsters," he muttered under his breath, turning to take in Hannah, to be certain she was okay, and maybe to give himself a moment to breathe in the sudden emotional surge he hadn't entirely anticipated.
It had been a long time since he'd felt this rage. What felt like a lifetime ago, perhaps, in England, and then the continent, times of helplessness at school until he'd grown enough muscle with the height to be left alone by the boys that seemed to understand there was something different about him that had nothing to do with his accent. The times on the continent when he'd been drilled and drilled and drilled in magic that he hadn't asked for, but seemed to be accompanied by fear that he'd mess it up. Peacing out to Repose had been intended to keep him out of that sort of thing - and there was a split second of wondering why he'd agreed, but he knew why. There was no way Hannah should have attended this event alone.
That didn't mean that his shoulders didn't tense as he realized what was about to happen, nor startle when a shot rang out. Was that supposed to be part of the show? He reached out to Hannah, keeping his hand in hers.