pure sweet violent hearts

"I'm sorry," she said, almost reflexively as he said he could never go back. He seemed okay with it, but there was a bit of tenseness to his expression that told her perhaps his thoughts on the matter ran a bit deeper. She wasn't sure if it was appropriate to pry on first meeting, though, and so she just stepped forward, just close enough that when she stretched her neck out she could touch her nose briefly to his shoulder, meant in comfort. "Even if you don't want it anymore, knowing something's over is... difficult."

She could sympathize, to an extent. She'd give anything to go back to her family, to live at the bottom of that canyon where everything was safe and familiar again, and part of her wanted to tell Riordan that, to tell him he should try and make amends anyway, because if his family were ever truly gone, it would ache in ways he couldn't imagine. But she didn't.

She sat down as he asked after her own family, shifting her weight slightly as she tried to think of the most succinct way to answer. "Just Eshe, now." It wasn't that she didn't want to tell him what had happened — she could talk about it — but she didn't want to bring their conversation down any further with talk of the somewhat recent tragedy. In regards to what happened before now, she added, "there was a very bad day." She shrugged, smiling thinly.