Sythius
changed faces at some point nearing the evening. It wasn’t something tangible
that did it; it wasn’t some gradual shift, either. It just … happened. And even though Loki had been
spending the entire day taking very special care to pay close attention to the
big man’s mood ever since his first outburst, he hadn’t been able to predict
this.
He’d
looked one moment, and seen a look of grim neutrality — as though Sythius
understood that there was a mission on, that he was supposed to take this
seriously, but wasn’t sure why — and
then he’d looked another moment and seen a look of savage fury.
Sythius’s
anger wasn’t orchestrated. It wasn’t something that he built. It was simply there. For most people Loki had met, and
for Loki himself, anger was a mechanism, something that slowly built and built
until it had to be vented. The young officer had heard anger described as a
good person’s natural response to the injustices of the world. Anything, in
other words, that went against the teachings of the Four Saints, would bring
anger out of the righteous.
For
Sythius, though, there was no such process.
He
seemed to not only elicit emotions; he became
them.
Such
that Loki suddenly found himself fearing not just for the object of the giant’s
rage, not just for himself, but for the whole of civilization. The thought
crossed his mind at least six times in as many seconds that — if he didn’t quell this monstrosity nestled in
Sythius’s amber eyes — the White Wall of Phila would be torn down before dawn
rose on its next day.
* * *
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