He tensed under her touch, unaccustomed to this sort of soft intimacy. Once that small, warm nose would have received blisters and burns just by getting close to the fire-child. The flames that burned endlessly from neck and dock and trampling hooves had not always been so gentle, so harmless. It had nearly destroyed a country once, and laid waste to anyone foolish enough to step close to the son of the Fire God's priestess, the cursed one, the red demon reborn. Before he stepped inside the boundaries of Heloia, where other forces reigned...

It didn't mean that he could so easily get used to being touched, and it took all he had not to jump back and holler at her to be careful. It might hurt her kind heart to be rejected (not that he truly believed that. Cathun could have sworn that the girl was really made of silk and steel only, something pretty and flexible and indestructible) and truth be told, it did feel rather nice. Even as she pulled away he felt the touch linger where her nose had traced along his neck and cheek, and while he blushed it kinda made him want to grin too, confusion and delight and harsher, less mushy things that objected to all this touchy-feely crap.

And suddenly they were not alone, and Cathun nearly jumped backwards and felt himself grow even hotter in the face when he found that it was Ampere that came sneaking about, intruding like it was the most natural thing in the world. Whatever thorns that had begun to settle pricked outwards again at once. The mottled colt glared in defiant confusion between the women, unable rather than unwilling to understand what they really were saying.

"What the hell kinda good would riling me up do?" he said, frowning at his (former?) boss. "Since when did getting angry and shouting make any difference? I doubt getting angry would have made me do anything different - it never changed the facts of my situation before, so why would it now?"

Flickering embers lingered on the blue-tinted mare for a moment, hesitant as to whether she had heard the full story of his situation from Meg. If she hadn't his words wouldn't make much sense, but he wasn't really in the mood to explain it all again. If she wanted to know, Ampere would have to ask - he wasn't about to go blabbering about his past to get sympathy, he left that to Aithniel. She'd seemed to enjoy playing the misunderstood heroine.

"Really, none of you make any sense" he went on, melancholy transforming into increased frustration. "You keep talking about family even though I don't have any relatives here at all, and you say we're worth the same... and then you say that any warrior should be happy to die for these strangers, like everyone else is worth more after all. I don't get it, Ampere. Should I live or should I die, which is it? And if I live... you say I'm important, Ranjiri, but how? If I am, why have I been marked to die like this, why don't I get to be like everyone else?"

He stepped back, shaking his head in honest confusion. All he had was questions, no one ever gave him a satisfying answer, and wherever he went people kept stacking expectations on him like he'd know what to do without ever being taught how.