Not that it wasn’t nice to hear that it was good to see him again as well, but her addition to that caused his smile to falter. Who I will see and who I won’t again echoed around his mind and he thought of Aviya, thought of the cries at the other fights that suggested that there were further losses. Had the Throat lost anyone? Or were they simply wandering, the changing faces of the herds of Helovia? His eyes drifted to the fires in the silence that followed her statement and it rested heavily on him. It was all too easy to slip into that uncomfortable silence and let the darker thoughts take over.

Fortunately - perhaps for the both of them - it did not last long at all. Mesec was happy when she accepted his offer of company, relaxing where he stood and feeling a smile return to his features. Lucius, curious about the flames, circled overhead but didn’t land just yet - always feeling the need to investigate anyone new that Mesec came across. Or, well, new to him. It was becoming increasingly hard to imagine what life had been like before they had been bonded though there were still many faces that were familiar to the demigod and not his companion.

“I actually joined the crafters, with Cera and Ranjiri.” The corner of his mouth pulled up into a brighter smile at her teasing, returning it in kind. “Are they? You’re always up on the gossip about me, aren’t you Maren?” She had been the one that had alerted him to the fact that his lineage was common knowledge in the Throat. He thought that he remembered someone calling him Nightwind at one of the god battles, maybe his mother? She would be one of the first - and it didn’t surprise him that Maren would also have heard it. “Nightwind though, is it? That’s not too bad.” The ‘mysterious vibe’ jest made him blush, ducking his head a little bit in what he hoped was a subtle enough motion for her not to notice. He wasn’t sure whether being mysterious was a good or bad thing but it sounded like it was supposed to be good.  

“How about you? Have the fires been… talkative?” Was that the right word? It felt uncertain on his tongue when he spoke it and the rise in pitch at the end of the phrase was as much a question about her work as a diviner and a question of whether that was the right word to be using.