It was a long time before there was an answer. The words made so little sense that he couldn't figure them out at first. He had to keep replying them in his head. Again. Again. Again.

The part that kept getting stuck was the apology. It... didn't fit with everything else, with the way his world had shifted under him. He didn't know what to do with that, how to handle that.

And so it was a good long while before her finally opened the door the smallest crack, and peered out, his dark eyes so close to the ground that he looks much younger than he was. The small voice added to the illusion. It would clearly show what he had been like as a kid, even with the mask like face.

"Did... are you going to hit me now?" he asked in a small weak whisper. He didn't know what to think, he didn't know what he wanted, he didn't quite dare to really want anything. He had started to want... to want what he had read in books, what he had been told was not for him... but now... Now he wasn't sure what the world was... he just knew that Alric was angry now... maybe hated him the way his father did...

And he wasn't sure what to do with that....