Greatwater Lake i was just an only child of the universe, and then i found you

He truly does not wish to worry her; he almost wishes to lie, say it hasn’t happened before when they haunt him more often than not. Aldric cannot, however, for even if he tried he knows Nirali would unravel the truth. He’s never been good at it, and she can read him like an open book. Slowly, he nods his head. »After… they banished you from Minrathous,« he says, swallowing down thickly as if the words itself pain him—the memory fresh, a wound bleeding from his heart. »They told me… that you guys left, out of your own free will.« Of course, Aldric never believed in such a thing, but doubts had clogged him regardless; creeping up and grasping hold of his hidden insecurities. His mind a weapon against himself; echoing over and over again in an eerie tone that he’d been abandoned once more. Eventually he’d learned the truth, but not before the doubt had already been rooted.