There's a stray string of red in her face. His hand moves, reflexively, to brush it out of her face.
"Dani may be pretty," he says, "But she isn't you."
And maybe it took meeting Dani for him to realize how much Sereda meant to him. Maybe he really was just looking for a surrogate after all.
His knees are starting to hurt now, and suddenly he's wishing she had a chair so he wouldn't be kneeling in the mud like this.
But for her, soggy knees are worth it.
"I hope we don't forget about this," he says. "When we go back, I mean." Unlike those who have been here for longer than he has, Alistair is still holding out hope for a way to return to his world.