Homeless but not hopeless, Swallowbane had the things he would always cling to. The voice of his grandmother, the curve of his mother’s shadow in the early morning sun, the way his grandfather seemed to stand out against the stars when he’d watch the man and learn from him. The things that were comforting, the things he could always run to. Grandma… she was a special lady, and mom had gone home to her. Bane, if only briefly, caught himself thinking that maybe he could go home like that too. The second the thought came through, he was cursing himself inwardly. No. No. It wouldn’t be right. Swallowbane would never be able to forgive himself if that was the case.

He would watch over Daeny now. He would protect the child, though she probably didn’t need the protecting. Swallowbane and Sleekwing, they were the oldest, and if they wouldn’t be in charge they would be in charge of who was in charge—within reason. There were no boundaries in his mind for certain things, and blurred lines were coloring his vision as he tried to pull his head from the fog that was rolling over everything. How strange it was to make an attempt to feel like this. An attempt to feel something that wasn’t the heat of absolute disgust and rage.

He didn’t intend to allow Purge to continue her life at all, but that seemed a little barbaric a thing to say before the child. She’s not a child anymore, idiot. To him, she always would be, but not in a bad way. A chill snuck up under his fur, running down Bane’s spine like a cold finger. He shook with it, not that he meant to. Head spinning. Head always spinning, because hell, it had been that way since he left. Things were always like that, in a way. Spinning. Never settling, never slowing, and he hated that. He hated himself for that. He’d never taken enough time to just stop. Not since Cal.

The offer catches him off guard. Bane doesn’t know why it should have, but… it does. Swallowbane hadn’t thought much about it, about staying here. He knows he shouldn’t. It’s a bad idea. The young man quakes within himself, and he’s not liking how this all… feels. Maybe it’s a dislike for feeling after all. There are so many things he dislikes, and there’s no reason for that. Maybe he dislikes himself most of all, and maybe why that’s why he catches himself off guard as he speaks to the child. “I appreciate it… at least for tonight. It’s been a long time.” A long time since what? He leaves the question there, but the feeling that hangs before his face is clear enough. At just nine years old, Bane was tired.