He suffers through her anger quietly, irritation a jolt of tension in the thick of his jaw but nothing else. So many of her facts are wrong, and his reactions leap to the back of his throat readily, but he keeps them quiet and contained until she is puffing and furious, but silent once more. His voice rises then, in counterpoint, a deep rumbling that precedes the storm of his own irritation. His pride is moved aside to give room to his own anger, and though it is cathartic to set it free, and he knows they both need it, the guilt must also be set temporarily aside.

"Leave you open for a kill I would not have made? You think trying to kill or maim your opponent is okay?" he is so astounded by her lack of care that he merely stares at her, truly aghast and disgusted by the notion. Shaking his head in disappointment, he continued. "A respite? Yes. But do not lie to me, Resplendence, for you were screaming his name and demanding he stop. A respite I could have accepted, but not the possibility of him blinding me for life just because he stupidly thought I would actually seriously hurt you," he snapped harshly, trying to get it through her thick skull just how badly everything could have turned out. Did she not see how she'd lost control of Valiance? Kaj did not think of companions as subservient, or to be commanded around, but they should be punished for such things just as children should in his opinion. He should not be rewarded for nearly stripping Kaj of his entire life and ability to defend himself.

Did she truly think he thought her useless? His anger only boiled and bubbled, growing beneath the massive cavity his chest supplied. Nostrils flared and he glared at her, trying still to keep his tongue in check. "I don't think you're useless, Resplendence," he snapped in frustration, just as he had on the battlefield. "I think you are a brilliant herbologist, an even better gardener, and an extraordinary medic regardless of the magic the land gives you. Of course I consider you to be breakable, I care for you, of course I'm going to worry! Especially when you're still growing, you're not whole yet and you know it!" A part of him was furiously proud that she was actually yelling, actually standing up and talking back. The other part was disgusted by her excuses, and the archaic part of him demand he put her in her place. He was at war with himself just as he was at war with her.

"You were stripped of your title because you disappeared! You were gone, you left, and nobody knew if you would bother to return!" That was a fierce point of anger with him, and she had crossed a line by bringing it up and throwing it in his face, when he was looking after his herd as he should have. "I would not stand by while my people hurt because of your selfishness! Our ranks change based on who is there, on who deserves them! You abandoned the herd, your title, me! You didn't deserve it then, and I couldn't find you to ask why, or to prepare you!" His mohawk must give him the distinct expression of a bristling cat, which was likely the best description of his emotions and state of mind anyways.

Electricity began to buzz around him in his anger, and he was blind to it, his emotions so out of control it began zapping through the strands of his newly burnt hair while Resplendence idiotically continued to defend nearly sending Kaj to his death by taking away his vision and flight. "You are such an idiot!" he screamed in frustration, eyes seeming to glow with the force of his budding magic. "I don't care if you do it in front of me! What if you had been fighting Nayati, and she accidentally did the same damn thing to your leg? What if Valiance blinded your little girl? What if he burnt her beyond recognition? I don't give a damn if it was me! Because this is so much more than you are thinking it is, Resplendence!" How dare she say it wouldn't have happened in another spar? They were having a spar when it had happened!

"I won't forgive him, nor you. You could have sent me to my death, Resplendence. I wouldn't be able to lead, or fly, or see. I would have been crippled, and you don't even fucking care that it was Valiance who could have done that! What kind of healer would say that?!" His magic snapped and buzzed ominously, but he forcibly kicked it down and away until the blue of it dulled and began to disappear.

Frustrated, he stomped hard on the ground of the Veins, rocks scattering beneath the force of it. "I was going to promote you after our spar, but now you're showing that I shouldn't! How could you have so little care when you could have done that to your daughter, to your friends?!" He was half tempted to retract the offer completely, should she continue to be so blind to what she had almost done, but the future was foggy to him as it should be. They would just have to see.