[ That uncertainty ... His own father doesn't believe him. His own father is looking him at him, at the dark bruises already purpling up the side of his neck, and finding him wanting. That is a nerve disruptor directly to the heart, worse than the guard clutching his shoulders and the implied threat of the knife in his table. He'd be better off gutted with that knife than he would be facing down even a second more of it.

His gaze falls after a moment as he fishes for something, anything that might possibly convince him. He has no golden sacrifice to lay at his father's clay feet. Nothing that could prove his worth. He still doesn't know if this Aral even has a son at all, if he's even met Cordelia. Hell. What can he even say? ]

My room is in the east wing back home. The one with the smallest windows. You replaced them all with force screens, after Vorhalas.

[ Soltoxin poisoning - and the antidote. He lifts his gaze back up again, begging his father to recognize the reference. ]