Private
I did feel most awfully sad and exhausted when I arrived here, yes, and hopeless, but it was late summer then. I have had time to rest, and to consider things, and to begin to gather my strength for when I will eventually go home. But my sadness isn't comparable in the slightest to a soldier suffering with shell-shock, you know.
You're very kind, but I think I am strong enough to manage on my own. Others have suffered far more and not complained about it. Besides, the only magical healer here is from far in my future, and as I understand it my family and his shall be enemies then, so I couldn't possibly speak to him of such personal matters.
Why, it amuses me too! I wonder if the parent who named him was gifted in divination, or if he developed an affinity for serpents because of his name. I heard rather a lot about him when I was a girl at school, because my house - that is, the group of students I spent my free time with and shared a dormitory and living space with - was named after him. Our symbol was a snake.