Julius Visconti, who is gentle, uncertain, and kind... [ —with all the ease of breathing, Sion bestows these heartfelt epithets upon his friend, golden eyes crinkling at their corners with a natural warmth, alight with something which burns only for the person he lays beside. ] ...who holds himself at a distance, for fear that if he should ever be too close to another, he might lose himself to all the compassion that he feels...

[ Against the branch wrapped, yet, about his hand, Sion's own fingers curl and flex, as though attracted to the pull of something magnetic, though what it is he cannot say. But if he were to reach out and to focus, perhaps he'd find his answer; but not now, not today, for the words he is about to say mean more than anything else: ]

...Julius the noble, good, and brave, who sought to comfort me mere moments after waking from a procedure which might have cost him his life...

[ And here, there is a fond twitch of his lips, a barely there whisper of his fingertips which sees the fringe of Julius' hair affectionately brushed aside— ]

...Julius, who by his own will, has fought to be only himself, and has succeeded...

[ Funny, how Sion can say such florid, lovely things, and yet they've no guile to them, his cadence dulcet, sweet, and resonant only with the truth he perceives; that which he'd known since the day they'd met, and Julius had been hesitant, once bitten, but had reached out to him with an offer of comfort all the same.

(That one thing which must have seemed so terribly small in the eyes of its beholder, how it changed the Director's life.) ]

You are no result of anyone's handiwork, you are beautiful, and I hope you might be able to believe in yourself one day.