Rhocanth remained completely silent while he listened to Lythe's story, eyes hazing with weariness. He chose to let his mind wander over the words she spoke, an exercise in imagery. The part of his mind made keen by poetry brought up what she told of her youth as well as any painter, and for a moment he could finally forget himself. He breathed out again, air hot from his exertions raising his temperature, and did his best to see without seeing. The life of the warrior caste was a world apart from any other, perhaps, full of harder training than even he had gone through, and he had liked to claim as a child that his training was unbearable. How spoiled that must have seemed, while Lythe spent her childhood on it. She had died so young! At nineteen, nearly twenty, at least Rho had gained a little experience, allowed to complete a full phase as a rebellious teenager before settling down into Azrunath's loyal second.
Who would she have been, he wondered, if she had grown up all the way in Orzammar? It is 9:45, he wanted to tell her. He wanted to know how old she was, how long she had been lost to the city, battling through the dark, but another part all together wanted her to remain to him this illusion of agelessness. She was powerful to him because her strength had, in a way, no beginning and no end. She had come to him like an arrow shot through the shadows by the Ancestors' hands themselves, fully formed. That was the way he would write about her, he decided, should he ever do such a thing. He was glad for what she told him about her life, but he wanted someone else to know that feeling of having been descended upon by a divine force. It had taken his breath away to think about it later on.
She spoke of a pair of twin brothers, a rare and marvelous thing for dwarves. One child was a blessing... two was a miracle. They must have been exceedingly impressive, whether or not they had grown to be the best warriors of their house. In truth, Rhocanth could not say if he had heard of them. Perhaps he had, though he imagined twins would have been very notable had they rose to notoriety. Surely they had become amazing, if Lythe raised them. Perhaps they...
The thought drifted away slowly, like smoke rising, replaced by the realization that with their help Rhocanth had stopped stumbling amongst the mental wreckage of his own sadness. His was replaced by a painful little hint in Lythe's voice. It concerned him, now that he had calmed some, and he gave her a little squeeze around the middle before gradually lifting his head. He still looked weary, as if he had not slept in a week, but he managed to tug up one corner of his mouth.
"Thank you," he whispered, finally breaking the silence that he had been engulfed in for the past several minutes. He acknowledged what she risked to speak to him this way. Somehow the conversation had grown an element of sacredness, as if they were taking out and gently turning over their hearts' greatest treasures. He knew her position, and that she was violating it for his sake. He met her eyes for some time, just watching her with fond admiration. What else could he say, without disrespecting the content of her confession and her position? He did not want to offer unwanted information, or an opinion. These words were too special.
So he played upon the one curiosity in particular that stuck with him throughout her story. "You had hair?" Now he bit his lip, shying away a little as if to deflect her attention from himself, clearly teasing her like any young scamp delighted in doing.