Eragos shifted the wide belt he carried over his shoulder. It still held his sword, but instead of hanging from his waist, the hilt jutted up over one shoulder. Eithne should have been asleep. He could hear the congestion in her voice - the only sign of tears, and one that he couldn't acknowledge, for the temper it would put her in. Spending hours upon hours sitting in the wall, playing short tunes on his flute, actually having someone throw a coin his way - as though he were a beggar - had given him nothing to say to her. Perhaps there was nothing that could be said. All too well he knew the pain of being responsible for someone else's death. Eragos did not want that sensation in his blood, or in his chest, but it was there. He knew it. And he knew the last thing that you wanted in that sort of situation was to be told that it didn't matter. His eyes searched the room for a place to sit. No furniture. A grimace, and he sat on the floor. Back against the door.
His belt rattled as the knives collided with one another, as the sword scraped against heavy wood, but he made no comment.
"I didn't look for them," Eragos confessed. "I was outside."
She did not want company. He knew that. But there were two beds, he was tired, and soon or late he would need rest. Eragos was fairly certain that he'd planned on saying nothing to her. There was nothing that needed to be said at that moment. Not unless she had something else that she wanted to say. Difficult as it was, his time in the hall had somehow given him the restraint he needed to respect her wishes. I do not want to talk about this. A clear message, direct and to the point. He couldn't ignore it without also ignoring her, or pretending that he knew best. But when he was in her situation he'd asked for his privacy and gotten nothing. Which in turn had enraged him. To do that now would make him a hypocrite, and it would invalidate anything she learned on that day. She hadn't learned anything. He would have laughed, but it was an angry sort of humor that he was in, and he didn't want to share that poison with her, either.
Eithne. Eithne, who had no respect for the privacy or the feelings of others. Eithne, who could not care less about the troubles of others. He did not know why he cared so deeply for her. Did not know why he couldn't bear the thought of causing her pain. These were all relevant and irrelevant in the same breath. Whispers and memories of another time, another place, when a cool hand rested on his cheek and told him that he would have another flute. When a smiling face taught him how to play. She did not remind him of his family, or his home. She reminded him of himself. Yet he ... knew how it felt, to have every door of emotion slammed shut in your face. He knew how it felt to walk a world alone. Isolated. And he knew that this thing they had in common - the guilt of a survivor, of a betrayer and a friend damned for every breath they drew - could destroy you if you did not share it with someone.