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─╠═► Send 🕯️to hear Maldron's inner thoughts about you! | ACCEPTING
There was a deep breath. Amidst the various knights and heroes that sit and while their hours away, there was not one that escaped the knight's gaze.
Of them, only one was bypassed as he schemed and scrutinized. Only one in Firelink Shrine went without consideration if a shield, if knives, or if his lance would be best used to dispatch them.
Only one was present, with whom he felt safe. In ways that the assassin did not consider possible. It was a relationship bereft of the push and pull with which he toyed with others. There was only someone who was willing to give, and give, and give, and here he was... taking and taking.
So much that it was too easy to abuse that trust, too easy to push her -- an innocent by all accounts -- to the wayside in his selfish pursuits.
There was never rage, there was never outspoken fury or curses slung in his name. There was nothing to spite about this woman. All the while being someone who could not be cast from his sight.
No matter how simple the joys were, bringing creatures and monsters around the Shrine to wreak havoc for those who yearned for rest... this Unkindled Ash, whose life's purpose was to spite the world that took everything from him still went unfulfilled. Her somber pleas and distraught noises were... pathetic, compared to the shouts and cries that fueled him.
For once, Maldron realized; he felt guilt for how his actions affected her. Admissions of this, staring it dead in the eyes, would stand to unravel him. So, he would play it off - he would bury it deep and instead treat the Firekeeper as a blind spot in his worldview. Odd as it may be, that was the simplest way to partition it.
...If only that was the truth. Far truer, but so alien to the man that he would never even consider the notion, was that he was guilty because he was fond of her.
