Solas recognises the blankness, the diplomacy - how many times has he entertained and engineered it himself, to protect himself, to learn from others? Lifting a hand, he brushes hair from her face, fingers touching her cheek gently, thumb along her cheekbone.
"Not given willingly." His voice is soft, low. He does not reach to touch the hair twined along the jawbone, does not look at it or do anything that might draw more attention to it. There's a reason he chose to take hair rather than blood: he knows well enough the damage it might do, the hurt, to have one curl of hair taken without consent, without allowance from the Elvenking himself. Solas knows better.
"Thranduil offered his blood in return for my forgiveness. I did not feel as though it was an appropriate trade." He has nothing to hide from her, after all, the woman who has truly seen into the depth of his heart and not turned away. She knows all he has to offer, the memories that burden him even now. "His hair was taken instead, by his own knife."
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branchandroot
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Date: 2018-12-20 09:33 pm (UTC)"Not given willingly." His voice is soft, low. He does not reach to touch the hair twined along the jawbone, does not look at it or do anything that might draw more attention to it. There's a reason he chose to take hair rather than blood: he knows well enough the damage it might do, the hurt, to have one curl of hair taken without consent, without allowance from the Elvenking himself. Solas knows better.
"Thranduil offered his blood in return for my forgiveness. I did not feel as though it was an appropriate trade." He has nothing to hide from her, after all, the woman who has truly seen into the depth of his heart and not turned away. She knows all he has to offer, the memories that burden him even now. "His hair was taken instead, by his own knife."