a special kind of crazy

The first thing that snagged his attention when Aryn started to explain herself was her nerves. The crack in her voice here, the shaky breath there. Oh god was she going to cry already? His hatred of tears couldn't be understated. They made him uncomfortable and were a chink in an otherwise strong armor. He'd rather wade through bullshit and/or venom than deal with a puddle of tears. At least he knew how to fight those. How did one fight tears and win? With lies it was a matter of cleverness half the time and with malice it was usually a fighting fire with fire sort of thing, but tears? Beyond feeling like the biggest asshole ever, he had no idea how to respond. Any response felt like kicking a puppy and calling that victory.

Clearly uncomfortable, Tyrian studied Aryn in silence. He had no idea what to make of her. None, zero. He'd been quite sure that after their last encounter she would head for the hills and never return, maybe even pass down the story of the vicious sheep herder king to future generations of tender-hearted hippy babies, but certainly never be seen by him again. And yet here she was looking for...help? Maybe he'd underestimated her. She'd said she wanted his help so perhaps Aryn had learned something from her brief time in Fireside.

Finally his gaze broke from her to briefly wander over the horizon. Tyrian had half a mind to tell her to kick rocks. The lamb incident and the insane amount of figurative - and literal - kicking and screaming he'd put up with that day had ruined naive damsels for him. Or at least meddling. He was now very aware of the fact that he couldn't "save" someone who didn't want to be saved. He'd learned his lesson and would not be making that mistake or any like it ever again.

Oh, fuck it who was he kidding; Tyrian was a glutton for punishment and he couldn't resist the challenge. There was just one problem that stood between him and saying yes, and it was the gap in steps between 'hate this man and his sheep murder that makes me vomit' and 'imma show up on his doorstep with a bloody rabbit' because clearly something had to have happened to change her mind. Even if it was as simple as she thought about it and changed her opinion, he needed to hear it from her own mouth. "I guess I'm more of a masochist than I thought because I'm tempted to say yes. But..." he said slowly before waving a paw at the rabbit. "Last time I pegged you for more the type to throw up on a rabbit than kill it. What changed?"