Lythe really hadn’t meant to startle him that badly, wincing a little embarrassedly at his retreating scramble. That and the humiliated stare on his tear-stained and discolored features ordinarily would have been enough to send her away to let him reclaim his privacy, yet her tough old heartstrings were tugging pointedly. Rhocanth had been alone out here for a long time already. Perhaps his grief simply was so great that he needed such time to work it out, but sometimes grief needed to be shared, too. In case it was the latter, she simply couldn’t turn away just yet.
His collapse back against the tree and his accompanying mutter were far from a request or permission to stay, but it wasn’t a demand that she leave, either. But it was acknowledgment, at least, and an opening enough.
“I’m not looking to judge anything,” she answered gently, stepping out the rest of the way and moving over to the young exile. She crouched beside him with her back to the tree as well, an inch away from sitting but with her feet still under her so she could easily rise again if Rhocanth plainly asked her to leave. “You’ve just been out here a while, so I wanted to see if you maybe needed a shoulder to lean on…or at least one of these.”
She had tucked a clean rag inside her waistband before leaving her tent, which she now plucked free. It was no handkerchief, but by the look of things, it could stand in for one better than Rhocanth’s sleeves. Since the boy’s head was buried in his hands, Lythe gently nudged the cloth against his forearm to draw his attention to it.