Hushed Willows A crackpipe full of dreams

He nodded mutely when Reek told him to take his time. He would wait until Silas got here and they could talk about their options. When the stranger gave a name, it didn't ring any bells for Tambourine. Truthfully, his childhood was like a rolling blackout; the older he got, the less he remembered his earliest days. For this reason, he just barely recalled Tavi at all. She was a feeling these days, faded and frayed at the edges like an old but beloved photograph.

Before Tambourine could react to anything Reek said, Silas appeared. Although they weren't actually particularly close, the (former?) Xi instantly moved to bump against the yearling. The fact that they were apparently the last two men standing brought them closer together. "Silas, where did they go?" the youth asked in a strained, quiet voice. He mostly meant Stark and Banner, yet he also wondered about the rest of the Keep's members. Everyone else had vanished like ghosts. "And what should we do now?"

He glanced sideways at Reek, then faced Silas again to tell him, "This is Reek. He was a friend of my mom's a long time ago. He says we should go with him." That was one option. Of course, the other... "I want to stay here. What if they come back? We don't know what happened to them." Maybe they were waylaid or even hurt. What if they stumbled back here, just to find the Keep abandoned? Tambourine's heart clenched. "But..." he finished, feeling choked up for the first time in his life, "we could—" His voice failed him but he mouthed the word: die.