Cathal noted the way her voice caught and tilted his head before asking, "are you worried about it? That it will be too much, or about the stress of real people added into the equation?"
It was, perhaps, a bit of a presumptuous question for a first date (a first date??) but he'd felt something like sympathy at the way her voice had hitched. Cathal was never very good at ignoring people when they seemed they maybe they were in need. That was his mother's influence, he'd always assumed. Goddess of sacrifice and love that she was, she had modeled simple kindness for him just as she had modeled taking self-sacrifice way too far. Cathal had long ago decided which parts of his mother to embrace and which were monstrous, the things he would never subject anyone else to.
No one should have to see their mother immolate herself alive to prove a point. Cathal could attest that that sort of thing left its marks.