Mordred's language is biting wit. Debonair and self-sure, flashing secretive lop-sided smiles which are maybe mocking, maybe not – you know the type. Mercurial moods, most notably an acid temper, shrewd, grey cynical eyes. They'll often glint in anger or spark with annoyance, yet are capable of such aching warmth, magnetism you can't help but crave. But when Mordred is silent, cooly impassive, it's a terrifying tableau. His face clears of all expression and those eyes still with secrets.
And there's a streak of pure malice in Mordred, and a deftness with words like Gawain's with the sword, brilliant and deadly.
He possesses a strange, striking elegance that is terrible, too, and people are drawn to him like moths to a flame. An exotic brand of charisma and careless, reflexive flair for panache. Chuckles tumble nonchalantly from his lips in appreciation of life's cruel ironies. When he talks his voices dances, and when he laughs it is cheerfully scathing, fiendish and unapologetic, an easiness in his shoulders. Sometimes his voice dips, low and sarcastic, and his laugh is soft. Dangerously soft, the laughter you laugh when you're stifling screams; Mordred's would never be the choked, too-loud-laugh that sounds like pain. Instead, his lips twist harshly into a smirk and his eyes shine too bright – but his gaze never falters. Worst-case scenario, he carries his head high with a touch of arrogance, just in case.
Naively, he'd once wished there had never been any betrayal. No need for revenge.
When he'd only been Gwydion, he had longed to be seen as a person rather than a means to an end. Morgaine's secret, abandoned baggage; Avalon's last, failing hopes of a savior; Arthur's scandal, enemy and rightful heir; Lot's foster-son, his liability and hate; Morgause's protégé, crux of her dysfunctional schemes for retribution;
he was no clear person, no clear identity.
Sometimes he wishes there were another way, wishes he didn't care – but he can't escape the fact of his fate, so it's hardly important. His wishes were never important; the Goddess's will must be done. And all for what? he wants to shout, and why?
He cannot escape, but he can deny. Mordred quashes the panicked fear that he himself is no one, and only ever was a tool. Manipulated from the moment of birth, for a lost cause – and then he swears, voice low like smoke from a guttering candle. They've all been used, pawns, wasted. But that isn't what matters (and then he laughs at himself, with a hard twist in it, because it matters, he just doesn't want to think about it, and he knows that) – what matters is –
And here he falls short, comes up empty handed and grasping at straws: furiously looking for answers that aren't there.