Vera straightened in her chair when his eyes opened. There was very little movement from him at all, but it was startling none the less. He'd been too still. She wanted to smile at Eragos, or even laugh, but found she'd frozen in simple surprise. She knew it wasn't appropriate anyway. Her fingers twitched against the arm of her chair before she folded them on her lap. Eragos was asking her something, she recognized that look. It would be wrong to keep him waiting.
"I was digging graves when they found you and brought you here," Vera started. She reached out and adjusted the blanket again, as it had moved when he shifted. She smoothed the edges, which were frayed with age. "You've been unconscious for hours. You helped in a large part of the healer's exhaustion, or so she complains. They tell me you fell not long before the People of Aumazahd were driven from the village. You've created a good legend or two for yourself. They truly are spectacular."
There was a long silence from her as if she'd forgotten her place in a recitation and couldn't find the line she'd left off with. She bit at her lip, keeping her thoughts to herself. Distant hammering could be heard, the movement of carts, birds twittering in a nest built too close to the chimney of the cottage. Vera looked away from him.
"Gali's residents are boarding up their homes and packing lightly. They're more high spirited than I'd have guessed. I want to get out of this place, to the City as quickly as we can manage it. We'll have to wait at least another day. At most another three. My elf friend is tired, though she won't admit it, and I refuse to take you through the woods as you are."
Vera frowned when she looked upon his face again. She hoped he wouldn't argue with her... because he'd lose. He'd lost enough in the span of a day without her having to speak harshly to him. She was still partly stuck in the tangle she'd knotted when she attempted to anger him. Vera didn't want to leave Gali with Eragos, only to look forward to having another night like the last.
"I distrust the roads as much as the unwalked paths of the woods. This battle was too different from the last I fought and not for how we planned it..." Vera remembered the cloaked horseman. "Taking the villagers to the City of Tyrus is dangerous, but you were right. We can't stay here."