"I don't understand why you tolerate her."
"Shyvana is a great and capable warrior who has more than proved her worth."
Jarvan's tone is quiet, measured. There is no annoyance, no hint of anger one might expect if one were openly criticizing someone else's trust ally. It angered Lux. She felt like a child or an angry dog that needed to be soothed.
"Anger," she punctuated with a heel grind, "is dangerous. It is unpredictable and unreliable. It places everyone around it in danger."
"Shyvana finds strength in her anger. Her strength is the strength of Demacia."
"She's a wretched fool who would no sooner burn all of us alive! What's stopping her from going dragon on us and tearing us all apart? How could you stand that? She could betray-"
"Luxanna." He says, and that makes her stop. Briefly, she wonders where he had learned to use that tone of voice. It was so cold, it froze her in her steps. She could feel the cold seething anger under it and it scared her. Jarvan never got angry at her. She'd always been coddled in some way or another.
"I trust her."
She realized why his tolerating manner had always grated on her nerves. She wasn't his comrade. She wasn't his fellow man-at-arms. Even though they both graduated from the same esteemed academy, even though they'd both proven their worth on the same battlefields in the same wars, she wasn't his equal. He didn't see her. He didn't understand her. The modicum of kindness she had so confused for compassion were not directed at her, but at Luxanna Crownguard, Garen's sister.
She clenched her fists. Reminded herself, as had their instructors, that anger was dangerous. It was unpredictable. It was unreliable. Anger could eat a soul up. Better to rely on cold hard logic. Logic, like light, never betrayed anyone. It stayed true to its nature. Anger, like fire, changed and morphed with the wind. She unclenched her fists. She wiped any emotion from her face and voice, reminded herself that emotion was also fickle.
"But you don't trust me."
Thank you for the comments, it always brightens my day. o/
