Her words brought on a new wave of bitterness, Rhocanth forcing away a grimace before it became too prominent. He had remembered Lythe saying that, about not wanting to know of her old houses, and he also remembered thinking it was bitterly cold. Perhaps it spared her a great deal of grief, but the more he considered being like her, the more impossible it seemed. He shook his head slowly in answer.
"I can't," he said simply. "I can't stop thinking, or wondering."
The lad wilted tiredly, balling up the rag between his hands and dropping his head. He hadn't meant to insult her. He still longed for her comfort and protection, as it had been in the Deep Roads when he took his first bit of sleep under her watchful eye. He went over the leaves again and sat back down beside her, tired of pacing.
"I thought I had done everything right," he sighed mournfully. Then, he grew a touch hysterical as his eyes focused far away on some memory. His voice picked up harshly in frustration. "I was a good child! I was obedient and respectful, I did anything an elder asked of me, studied my lessons hard, even took combat training seriously, though I direly hated it. I served my deshyr till the end..." Here he paused to grin grimly. "I wanted to be one of the good ones. One of the few of my station who gave a nug's ass about his responsibilities."
Now he furrowed his brow, knitting them both together in a tight knot and looking vaguely nauseous. "How did I end up out here? After all that. It was more than a part of me. It was my life. And others, the honorless and uncaring, will take my place? Pah." Rhocanth nearly spit, thinking of how Hanorath was surely wriggling into his spot beside Azrunath. That bastard. He didn't spit after all, but the thought did make his lip curl. "I could have been my deshyr's -- my brother's -- second. I know he loved me. I know he would have done the same for me. No, there must be some way..." He finally cast his eyes up to Lythe's face, begging for an answer even where he knew there was likely none. The Ancestors had spoken. He would serve Orzammar from far away, carrying with him his regrets like so many stones in his pack.