Whenever Oz or Gilbert or Reim spoke of the Rainsworths, it was always with a respect so deep it was bordering on reverence. Or fear. That was always something Kevin found reassuring. It meant that it wasn't just that Kevin would attach himself to the first people who were kind to him, and it meant that when he stayed with them, no doubt he'd be doing so entirely of his own accord rather than any sort of blackmail. He's at his happiest when he has loved ones he can devote himself to whole-heartedly, and if the Rainsworth household had earned the way they were spoken of, he didn't doubt that they were going to earn him, too.
But for all that it made him wish foolishly that he might be able to meet one in spite of the risks, that didn't prepare him at all to have this woman spin on her own disappointment so quickly, accept this alternate version of him so readily, that he doesn't even have time to feel properly sad about it.
He gapes at her in mild shock as she looks him over, flusters a little when she coos over him like he was a little boy she once knew and now she's found him all grown up. Then he's getting dragged as unrepentantly as he drags his own closest friends, and Shelly will hear him huff out a helpless, disbelieving little laugh. Yeah. Yeah, he sees now. Thinking back on all the people he met in Empatheias when he was half-feral and bleeding, able to understand now just what he needed back then, he can see how this sparkling force of nature would manage to sink her claws into him so deeply. She'd have had a much more difficult time of it in Verens, given that Kevin would have been able to escape her from time to time. But given the way all his other relationships have turned out there is no doubt in his mind that she would have happily and successfully hunted him down.
What a lucky thing, then, that he's going to land almost right in her lap when the time comes.
He turns briefly over his shoulder to make a shooing motion at the counter, a reassurance that everything's fine. The crazed and sparkly ruffle swordsman does not require rescuing from the crazed and sparkly ruffle noblewoman. He manages to extricate himself just enough to pull a chair out for her when they reach a table, as much to take a moment to settle himself as to display his Proper Manners™. But when he sits down himself, his colors have seeped back into him, and he's glowing, ever so faintly. The light wisps up off of him like steam from a hot cup of tea, a watery flicker of silver in contrast to her gold. Nobody he's met from home has truly had an easy time accepting him as not being Xerxes Break. For Shelly Rainsworth, of all people -- the woman who practically made Xerxes Break -- to declare Kevin Regnard of Empatheias to simply be a friend she's only just now getting to meet humbles him in a strange and shaky way.
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But for all that it made him wish foolishly that he might be able to meet one in spite of the risks, that didn't prepare him at all to have this woman spin on her own disappointment so quickly, accept this alternate version of him so readily, that he doesn't even have time to feel properly sad about it.
He gapes at her in mild shock as she looks him over, flusters a little when she coos over him like he was a little boy she once knew and now she's found him all grown up. Then he's getting dragged as unrepentantly as he drags his own closest friends, and Shelly will hear him huff out a helpless, disbelieving little laugh. Yeah. Yeah, he sees now. Thinking back on all the people he met in Empatheias when he was half-feral and bleeding, able to understand now just what he needed back then, he can see how this sparkling force of nature would manage to sink her claws into him so deeply. She'd have had a much more difficult time of it in Verens, given that Kevin would have been able to escape her from time to time. But given the way all his other relationships have turned out there is no doubt in his mind that she would have happily and successfully hunted him down.
What a lucky thing, then, that he's going to land almost right in her lap when the time comes.
He turns briefly over his shoulder to make a shooing motion at the counter, a reassurance that everything's fine. The crazed and sparkly ruffle swordsman does not require rescuing from the crazed and sparkly ruffle noblewoman. He manages to extricate himself just enough to pull a chair out for her when they reach a table, as much to take a moment to settle himself as to display his Proper Manners™. But when he sits down himself, his colors have seeped back into him, and he's glowing, ever so faintly. The light wisps up off of him like steam from a hot cup of tea, a watery flicker of silver in contrast to her gold. Nobody he's met from home has truly had an easy time accepting him as not being Xerxes Break. For Shelly Rainsworth, of all people -- the woman who practically made Xerxes Break -- to declare Kevin Regnard of Empatheias to simply be a friend she's only just now getting to meet humbles him in a strange and shaky way.
"...I'm sure I don't quite know where to begin."