She glows like a broken star, seeping its light upon the shores of her skin. It guides him to her, though she seemed to need a guiding light more than she needs to be one. Her eyes look up at him and he is captured by the shell that he recognizes in her, the loss that plucks a heartstring he'd once tried to cut from the instrument of his soul. Aniela had caused that look in him. His family, his herd, his lifestyle. It is like seeing his face anew, all those years ago. He cannot feel anything aside from sympathy, aware that pity was an emotion not reserved for such losses and experiences. It would only work to either infuriate or upset her, and Kaj knew she could likely not handle either in her state.

Her words are hoarse and quiet, but he is attentive, listening to every nuance that dips and tells in her words. It writes a novel for him far longer than what she'd uttered, telling him everything she would not tell him outright. It was a secret guarded, fresh and raw, and he would not prod at it. His own pain of the past was a good reminder of what it felt to carry such a burden. Her words remind him again of Resplendence, and in her he sees the oddest mix of the frail medic and himself from the past. It only serves to keep him rooted at her side, unwilling to leave her to a misery he knew too well. A fate he'd once wished upon himself as well.

The strength it takes to stand is beyond his capability of imagination, and yet her efforts were honorable. Nevertheless Kaj stood alongside her, sweeping his wing back to offer his shoulder in silence, should she choose to take it. He awaits the end of her words, for he still does not know her name, and yet he feels a deep understanding that he cannot put to tongue.

"I understand," is all he murmurs at first, quiet and soothing, though sad in its own right. Memories are brought to surface what he'd thought long buried. "But the pain does not have to end you," he whispered, trying to meet her eyes. The story it tells is painful to face, in its familiarity. "I lost my baby sister in a world too cruel for the light of her soul. Her parents...our parents...they let her go with hardly a glance behind. She was my everything, the center of my world. The pain you feel...perhaps I have felt it too." Kaj would not be presumptuous, think that it was loss of family rather than herd or lover that she felt.

"But I am here, alive and well. Because I knew that she would only have hurt to see me in ruin. At first, I lived only for that. But as time went on, I found other reasons. I found kin, brothers and sisters who loved me. It began to get easier." A quiet smile budded on his lips, and he shook his head like an old man reminiscing on a past too chaotic for his years. "I never forgot her. I never will. But I have healed." Turning his mighty head he looked at her, quiet but firm. "I cannot in good faith leave you to a fate I once wished upon myself. Perhaps I cannot give you that reason to live. But let me try?" It is a sincere, hopeful question. He would not be able to live with himself if he left her alone, to die beneath the weight of her misery, if she could not find the light that Aniela's memory had given to him.