[The reference alone would be enough to stun him, but that he would (again) call him out so plainly and accurately leaves him gawping when he really should not. Of course Hythlodaeus would figure it out, he would see the truth, he always saw the truth. Didn't make it any less frustrating when he did!

Gathering himself, his scowl deepens. An incriminating expression, this he knows, but he cannot help the mounting frustration.]

Scarcely is he the Phoenix I dispatched for you eons ago, and you discredit him his existence and his plight by minimizing him as such. This is no self projection at work, though I deny not I empathize with his lot, but little is it blinding me, nor robbing me of my senses. I see him, in his entirety, which you do not.

[He squares his shoulders a bit defiantly.]

Whether or not he wishes to share such a burden of emotional understanding is not my concern. I am more than acquainted with those lacking in emotional depth, or the ability to truly empathize as I do. Besides, I look not to him for such ease, for such comfort—!

[But that last part, for a moment he considers saying something about it. To pry more, to see if he can make Hythlodaeus buckle. Instead, he leaves it alone. Verbally, at least, the conflict behind his eyes more than tells on the dread in his heart concerning it. His failure to see that which Hythlodaeus can and knows.

His perpetual and damnable shortcoming, he supposes.]