He closes his eyes and rests against the wall and sings more. Maitimo eventually relaxes too.

And a little while after that, there's dinner. She floats a flat stone to serve as a table for Maitimo and teleports his soup and a spoon to it, all without coming close enough that she could touch him, and then brings a plate to Findekáno before settling by the fire with her own meal.

I meant to offer to help, sorry.

If that's what I think it was, it was going to happen anyway, I should've thought to warn you. What are you going to do next?

Hmmm? I think I was adequately warned. 

All right.

You have been helping already, anyway.

I wasn't really trying to be kind to him. 

Yeah. They knew, though, I think, that that was going to happen. You don't have to be perfect; they're not that fragile.

If I thought he were fragile I would have tried to be kind to him.

Good.

Are you okay?

Yes, of course.

All right.

There's a brief sense that she's about to say something else, and then it fades.

You okay? Confused about anything?

I'm fine. I was thinking about telling you something but it wouldn't've actually been a useful thing.

Okay.

She pings Maitimo. You doing okay?

Yes.

All right.

She gets up to go sit with Findekáno.

He puts an arm around her. Sure you're okay?

Yup. They're not doing great but I've definitely seen them worse, we'll be okay.

What does worse look like?

More defensive, more obviously scared. Less able to keep it together. Less present, sometimes, but if they were doing that I'd take you home. They've been doing better in general, though, recently.

I am very glad to hear it.

She leans on him, just a little, and watches Maitimo. Yeah. I don't really like how much they're pushing themselves, but I think that's just that I'm not a healer, I'm not really used to this - they don't seem to be hurting themselves, and I do think I'd notice.

I bet within a week he'll be pretending he's normal, and I think it's better to let him.