Re: (After)life: Nel L & Lear L & Fen L
To say that Fen was well contained violence below the skin more fragile than that of a Ming vase would not have been wrong. Had it been any other souls who;d laid hands upon him so, particularly the brash and what could have been construed as hostile? That was a recipe for D-E-A-D, dead. It didn't happen here though, indeed nothing more was provoked from him than a stone-set expression and an equally unbending posture. Mostly it came down to uncertainty, having been so long since he'd seen either and Lear in particular, but in truth there was something much more significant that steadied his hand.
More than, steadied, it even moved to embrace in a gesture far more rare than his pacifism.
These were the only two souls in the world Fen wasn't apathetic about hurting. More than, these were people he sought not to hurt, who he remembered still, and carried always, an affection for. It had been a long time since he'd encountered that feeling. So he just...he shut up. He stiffened up. He didn't talk much, not that he expected either one to think he would, and he followed along with Nel's direction despite his evident discomfort. He didn't spend much time in the social affairs, and it was obvious as he seemed a bit off in trying to find a spot for himself to perch down on his haunches near the table. It probably would have been easier to do if he'd taken his eyes off them, but that then would have required Fen to be absolutely certain this was not a figment of his imagination or something that might vanish should he blink.
He took the drink when it was offered, resting the base on his knee and looking quite comfortable to do so. His eyes flitted between the two of them, words bubbling somewhere in his throat but never quite taking shape. Instead he just passed a grunt through his nostrils, an affectionate one even, before he thought better of the moment and actually took the time to speak.
"Reunion." He lifted his glass, but wouldn't reach forward from his perch. He would at least not conduct himself like a barbarian, which was to say not swallow the whole thing down in an unceremonious way. Fen had never been big on reverence, he'd never had the same weight of foretold destiny as the others and that probably played a big hand, but that didn't mean he was incapable of spotting moments of import.
Moments like this one, being in a room with these two people again, and having so many thing he'd thought to say over the years but instead mustering a simple. "Good drink." Half into the cup itself, his gaze weaving between the two. He was obviously trying to assess their state, to assuage himself the discomfort of questions that he could just answer by looking. As if it were ever that simple.
"How'd you end up here?" It was asked to either, and both, without indication. It seemed the most pertinent question, what with the lingering paranoia that came with all things too good to be true.