Silver Creek here we stand

Just realised I've been referring to Lio with he/him pronouns. Sorry about that, I'm just illiterate lol

He waves her off with one, two, three flaps of the hand. No, I just— I just had a headache. Happens sometimes. In response his temples constrict with the promise of future pain. He hasn’t unclenched his jaws ever since he was born and his master muscles are killing him for it. 

I’m okay now. Thank you. A small smile, dimpled.

You are not crazy. The smile turns wry. He can feel it on his face in the twelve muscles it takes to smile. They torque along the pitch, yaw, roll. Every axis has an incredible capacity for nuance, so what a tragicomedy it is that Lio cannot read them, and that Wymond cannot use them.

She mentions a father. He cannot extricate that word from a bitter taste in his mouth. Blame the synapse-neuron trees for that. You could go down the list of sons made disillusioned by their questionable fathers ad nauseam. You would die from hypoxia. He considers standing up and going I got nothing from Dad except these shitty headaches and two bastard siblings. Again, he tries to bring up their faces. Rohesia and Eadwulf. But they are eroded and featureless by wind, abraded down by the Coriolis grindstone. 

Wymond Déorwine, he replies. My family leads a pack called Kingslend. We lost our home in a fire. He wondered if it was still burning or if it had consumed all that it could before dying of suicide by gluttony. He could still feel the soot in his lungs. But they're here, now.