Rhocanth sat silently for a few moments, his countenance softening as he let her words wash over him. His breath was slow and steady from between his lips, shoulders pushed forward as if deflecting a chill. Finally, he picked up his gaze and settled it on her face. The corners of his mouth lifted in a small smile.
"I... thank you. I think that's what I wanted to hear. "Don't forget". I won't, ever." Indeed, so many forces had been telling him to cast his heart aside. His new status as a Grey Warden recruit, his status as an exile, discarded... no one came looking for him. No one was bothered that he had more than likely died in the Deep Roads, at least as far as anyone in Orzammar would know. Amazingly, it hadn't meant that his patriotism had simply ended. He knew what he was, and he knew that he had fulfilled his duty: to honor his deshyr at all costs. For a brief moment, the heaviness of depression subsided and gave way to a blanket of memory.
"You have never seen a Proving?" Rhocanth asked with a laugh. "I would have loved to show you. I have been in a few. I am no name of great note... I barely considered myself trained in combat, but I did win a handful of times. Take for example a Proving in my eighteenth year--"
He slid from the windowsill and paced a few steps across the floor, delving into the depths of storytelling. No activity pleased him more. He lifted one arm as if it held up a shield, and the other waved through the air with an invisible sword. "It was me against Biven Gareshi, son of this minor lord who thought he held the world on a platter. Ladder-climber, and what have you. His father had said something unseemly about my father, and it was left to us unimportant sons to settle. Neither could afford to take the head of their houses out of commission, you see, and my brothers were all too important or too busy. So I faced this lad myself... brawny fellow, absolutely graceless. Liked to aim for the head, as if he thought he might knock me about that way. I dodged like this--" Bare feet slipped against the stone floor, enthusiastically illustrating. "And his axe skimmed right over my shoulder!"