Common

It is evident that more than fatigue plagues Elara. Her eyes are unfocused, body alert and listening for someone —someones?— who aren’t Kendry, and her responses to him are a beat off from what could be considered flowing conversation. Her words, too, seem dragged from her, distracted. He observes these things, and would continue to obey the social niceties that require him to keep up a pretense of ignorance as she leads their dialogue around the topic of the islands themselves had she not both misspoke and asked him a question for which he has no satisfactory answer. Obviously it is not mere weariness which weighs so heavily upon her mind. He regrets that he can do little to ease it.

“You keep me from nothing. Unfortunately I have not yet acquired myself a territory, and thus lack also a herd,” he reassures her, letting none of his frustration at his lack of forward progress discolor his voice. Fate has turned him down an unexpected path. He would be wisest to follow rather than fight it. No doubt there is a brighter light at the end than he can currently foresee. “It is difficult traveling alone, isn’t it,” he observes, and though his voice is mild one vivid blue eye is trained on her. It would be easy to look away and dismiss all the little cues in her body language and her choice of words, but now that he’s seen them Kendry can’t —won’t— ignore it.

“There’s a lot of land to all these islands. The Crossing is by far the largest, but there are four others, each hosting several herds across multiple territories. You said ‘we,’ earlier. Were you separated during the swim? Easy enough to get disoriented in the waves. It’s possible whoever you were traveling with has come ashore elsewhere— Atlantis, perhaps, or Salem.” He falls silent then to see if he has touched upon what appears to be bothering her, curious as to why she seems to be fighting so hard to hide it.