<div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/4/42/Gaidin.jpg)</div><strong>Character name:</strong>Galvren Valynar (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=234819.msg11585469#msg11585469)<br/><strong>Position:</strong>Gaidin.<br/><strong>Bondmate:</strong>Suana Bemesta.<br/><strong>Tag:</strong>Suana Bemesta.<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Evening, Saven 7th, 990NE.<br/><strong>Place:</strong>The Grounds, Secluded Corner Of The Garden.<br/><strong>Warning:</strong>N/A<br/><hr/><br/>Galvren actually winced at her tone; it wasn't...angry, per say, or even offended. It was more...disappointment, mixed with concern and just a dash of irritation, and it was the kind of voice you heard from a close friend or confidante when they realised that you weren't being completely honest with them and they got upset that you apparently didn't trust them enough to confide in them. That was far from the truth, of course - if he was going to confide in anybody, Suana Sedai was right at the top of the list - but it was just the kind of thing that was easy to ignore...until you started talking about it. The sort of thing that seemed worse when you spoke it out loud precisely because it wasn't all that bad. When he said it out loud - "I was asked to do something that I didn't enjoy and now it's bothering me" - it sounded so Light-burned<em>pathetic,</em>in all honesty. Oh no. Boo hoo. He had been asked to do something that he didn't like, and it hurt his fee-fee's. There were people dying of terminal illnesses and people whose life partners were just complete assholes and made their other halves live in abject fear and misery, and he was all bent out of shape over something as pitiful as not sharing a kink with somebody? It was, quite frankly, disgraceful for a Gaidin to be so hung up about such a pitiful, pathetic, trite piece of nonsense.<br/><br/>And yet...he was. And he supposed that was why he didn't want to say it out loud; because then he'd have to face just how pathetically irrelevant it actually was, and he'd have to admit to Suana Sedai that he was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. And then, maybe she'd think that he wasn't the man she had thought him to be, and would pass his Bond onto somebody else because she couldn't have somebody as fragile and sensitive as Galvren as a Warder. Warders were supposed to be hard as nails, unbending, unyielding...and he was distraught over a bit of choking-play. It was, quite honestly, utterly stupid. He felt a small pool of self-loathing gathering in the back of his head, gaining ground in his mental state, and he forced it down<em>hard.</em>He could despise his own cowardice and pathetic hypersensitivity later. Right that moment, he had a disappointed, hurt Aes Sedai to deal with, a difficult situation to be sure...but also one of his own creation. He could feel from the Bond that her previous excitement had tempered significantly with her irritation and even a bit of self doubt - which was a rare thing to see in any Aes Sedai, he knew that much - and his guilt only compounded. He was making her doubt herself and him over<em>nothing.</em>Brilliant. Five minutes on the job, and he'd already upset the woman he was supposed to be protecting. He was a<em>brilliant</em>Gaidin, wasn't he?<br/><br/>He sighed softly, shoulders slumping a little in dejection and remorse. "My apologies, Suana Sedai...I shame myself." he said quietly, his eyes dropping away from her face. At that point, he wasn't really sure he deserved to use her name. He'd upset her, he'd soured the mood of celebration that they had been enjoying and all for a stupid, pathetic, light-burned moronically pitiful reason. He was an over-sensitive, selfish idiot and he had to at least try to fix it<em>somehow.</em>He grit his teeth a little, his mouth momentarily rebelling against what he felt he needed to say, but he forced the words out anyway, though a spike of fear and self-revulsion punctuated almost every second syllable. He really was being a melodramatic asshole, wasn't he? "I didn't mean to...no. It doesn't matter if I meant to or not." He grimaced. "One of my....<em>previous partners</em>....recently requested a specific service of me. I found it uncomfortable and distressing. That really is it, Suana Sedai; the flinch was simply because I was, for some reason, reminded of it and my mind decided to be dramatic. It isn't that serious, and it has nothing to do with how I feel about you or this Bond." He pursed his lips again. The time for little affectionate names had passed; he had offended her, and was now begging forgiveness. He should act like it. He bowed his head a little further.<br/><br/>"I apologise....I should have just said so in the first place, but it isn't something that I find particularly pleasant to speak of. Once again...I'm sorry, Suana Sedai. I didn't mean to offend." See? When said out loud, it just sounded like melodramatic nonsense. Maybe he wasn't ready to be a Warder, if something as insignificant as that was enough to give him nightmares. A Warder needed to be made of sterner stuff, and maybe Galvren just wasn't ready for it. Would he end up letting down Suana Sedai again, like he had just done, but in a more serious, fatal way? He frowned as a fresh wave of self-doubt, guilt and self-loathing arrived from his subconscious. It wasn't enough to wash him away and he easily shoved it down, but the doubts were still there. Not only had he ruined their celebrations, not only had he upset and offended Suana Sedai, but he had done it all over the most trivially pathetic of reasons; she briefly reminded him of something that he didn't really like. That was it. He needed to remember not to be so dramatic next time. It really would help a lot, especially if it helped him avoid hurting his new Bondmate...if he stayed her Bondmate for particularly long, that was. He might not remain so for long after that disaster of a night.