This confrontation was long overdue and both of them were well aware. Despite the words she was tossing back at him Freed found that his suspicions had been confirmed, to basic extent at the least. Everything about Lucy's posture and facial expression screamed anger and frustration and… disappointment? He would soon learn that truth.
Not a single attempt was made to interrupt as she was speaking freely from her heart, at last, but his body still tensed on instict. Any sort of confrontation would do that to most human beings even if one's conscious was far more relaxed and the situation could be handled gracefully. Lucy's eyes were practically looking daggers at him, though that was fine. He was able to grasp her anger, it was righteous.
For her to bring up that subject all of a sudden, however? It was catching him unawares and Freed was unable to keep his gaze from hardening, never letting it swerve away from Lucy. Fingers tensed similar to hers before he'd take a slow breath and relax them again. This was fine. It needed to be addressed even though he despised having to dig up memories of a place he had once falsey called home, he attempted to tell himself in order to soothe his mind and body.
"All of us are shaped by our environment and our interactions with the world and its people." Not entirely but at times one had to fling oneself into a battle with one's own mind to free oneself of surrounding's influences to be one's own master again. "You accuse me of knowing nothing yet you seem to know so little yourself. None of it is going to excuse any of the harm that I have brought upon other people," brought upon my guild, ",and your anger is nothing if not justified. However, I can assure you that our beloved families were wrong in keeping us caged within their ambitions."
Now Freed briefly averted his gaze, taking a slow breath before leading his focus back to Lucy. "People and circumstances change and there's always something buried beneath the surface." He had been called a monster before, an abomination. Sometimes rightly so and sometimes out of blind hatred. Hearing that Lucy thought of him as not kind anymore was bearable even if it did sting a little. "I may have been kind and the memories we made together up until our families decided to part ways may even be the only rays of light when reminiscing about this period of the past but I never truly felt as though I belonged. So one event led to another." I was never happy. "You can relate as much, can you not?"
