"There was only one person who never laughed at me." Salazar's voice softened, the hardness bleeding away. "My nanny… She raised me and my siblings since our parents were always buried in family duties."
He turned the gun over again, movements almost absent now.
"The thing about children is they learn from watching the adults around them. My siblings saw how the family treated her. Just another commoner servant to be ordered around and ignored. So that's how they treated her too."
His thumb traced the engravings on the barrel.
"But despite how everyone treated her, despite being dismissed and overlooked and never thanked for anything she did…" He paused. "She never stopped being kind. Never stopped encouraging me when I showed her my latest firearm design. Never made me feel like I was wrong for being different."
'Kindness…'
Damian looked away, memories of Nerra flashing in his mind.
