Why would you want to help your jailor? She asked and he winced, uncomfortable with the obvious power imbalance being dragged into the light. He had understood that he was beneath her by virtue of allowing himself to be claimed, but it was now obvious she saw the gap between them as even wider than that. He wasn't a companion or herd member, but a prisoner. Less than scum.

It took him a moment to find his response, his gaze skirting away from hers lest it burn him from the inside out. "I don't want to be useless, even if I am a-" he paused, the word sticking in his teeth. "-prisoner."

A thousand questions ran through his mind, but he felt uncomfortable voicing any of them. Who was he to question her when it was clear that she very much wanted to preserve the ranks that separated them? Instead, he opted for a softer approach, hoping that by sharing something of himself she might feel inclined to lower her guard even a fraction.

"I can no more separate healing from who I am than I can the blue from the sky." His voice was quiet. Were it not for the ring of sincerity in it that came from the core of who he was, it might even have been mistaken for meekness next to the confidence she exuded. "I can offer the same to your herdmates if you like." His voice wavered in the middle, uncertain what the Peak women called themselves. On the Crossing, they seemed to use sisters and valkyries and women interchangeably, but he had had few interactions with their kind.