#unfortunately a Valtor in distress is a Valtor very prone to making things worse

[rist-ix]

Hi Rist! Long time no ask! So I’m curious, how would Valtor react in Tbhtbh if he found out that, by draining Bloom of her magic, he was also draining away her life force. I know we’ve already gotten passed that (except for the one time after her near escape) but I wonder how he’d react to finding out he was slowly killing her while trying to keep her with him.

Anyway, I hope you’re doing well and making sure you’re taking care of yourself. See you this Friday! 💙

(For the sake of this argument let’s leave out the general problem that comes with local immortal Valtor, which is that Bloom is very much gonna die before him haha oh god)

I mean, the big theme in tbhtbh is definitely that Valtor is the architect of his own misery, even though he won’t admit it to himself. I think he would first be in some sort of denial, where the correlation between his methods of subduing Bloom and her worsening health is entirely coincidental. Maybe she's even just pretending, so he'll stop and give her an opening to strike back! He's very paranoid.

Once he does get the hint tho, I think he would backpedal immediately. I also think he wouldn’t explain jack shit, and just pretend that was never his long term solution anyway, and really, Bloom, he knows exactly what he's doing. And then he would leave the room and panic.