She had no idea what came over her, but suddenly Sabev was feeling a little less charitable about Ilyien's ideas about her friends and what they were all going through.
"Stop that right now, Ranulf Ilyien." She demanded, though her voice was quiet. The sternness was there. "What she believes and what she has done are two wholly different things. She has not outed me or you as anything, has kept our secret despite what she feels we should do. Your distrust of her is fine, but I won't have you accusing her of things that she hasn't even done. Niklas is a good woman. She was there for me. She was there when I had nothing. I didn't have you, I didn't have other phoenix, I had only disassociation in my future, and she helped me. She helped me."
Sabev shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest in perhaps the first stern gesture she'd ever accomplished in her life.
"She is a woman of knowledge, of course she wants to know about us. She thought we were stories. I want to know about her, too, does that make me a bad person? I want to know about the strange catboy that runs around, does that make me a bad person? It does not. And it does not mean that I will go blabbing whatever secrets that they might have."
He was irritated, and so was she. Her mouth moved and spat out words that she may not have said to him otherwise. "I had a very wonderful dream recently. You and I, alone in a forest, flying free. There was nothing there but the joy of the moment. Peace. Happiness. I want to see that in you in reality. I want to see that look in your eye. It was only a dream, and yet I was happy. It was only you and I, we were the only phoenix in all the world, much like we are now, but I didn't feel so lost, and you didn't seem so ... withdrawn. That's how it should be. Not this, always fighting, butting heads. We have only one another, Ilyien. We are the only two."