The hard line his mouth had formed melts into an easy grin, and the hand that had gripped his servant's chin smoothed over his cheek, blunt fingers sliding through pail hair to cup around the back of Mairon's skull. He tipped his face down to kiss a smooth brow.

The hand dropped, looped his brawny arm about Mairon's shoulders, and he pulled them both further down along the hall at a sedate stroll. "Yes! Tell me what you have learned, even in so short a while, and also what you See. Directionless malice won't win us anything but more pain and the wasteful passage of time."