Yeah. I -

She doesn't intend to send the memory, but she's filtering so little, he can't really help but see: She's younger, weaker, still clumsy with her new saber, when one of the other apprentices challenges her. She loses, of course, and he takes what he wants - the memory is a jumble of pain and violation and confusion - and leaves her curled up, shocked and sobbing, in her bed.

And then there's a flash, in the here and now, of near-overwhelming frustration, and the filter slams into place. There's nothing meek or embarrassed in the wave of apology she sends to him; she's furious, at both herself and the situation.

He doesn't know how to wrap his mind around hers the way she does for him. He tries anyway, clumsy and weak but still an attempt.

The moment of memory that comes through (head slamming into the wall and falling disoriented to his knees) is mostly unintentional.

I'm fine, she sends; it's not a lie, or at least she believes it.

I didn't kill him; by the time I could I didn't need to, I'd made him stop. He's dead anyway; challenged the wrong person.

glad he's dead.

Yeah.

(The filter starts slipping again. Most of what's behind it is just more anger.)

It’s okay. He’s angry too.

He curses this whole place with as much conviction as he’s ever had.

We'll get out. They're stronger but I'm smarter. And burn it to the ground when they go.

we will. we will.

He repeats it, as if to make it true.

we will.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake -

[source]

His door opens.

no

He scrambles back away from the open door.

She swirls around him again, stormily.

I'll stay? she nudges, while she still can.

please.

Yeah.

She settles in, arranging herself so that nothing short of being attacked will shake her loose of him, and then watches through his eyes, growling involuntarily when she sees where he's being taken.

He recognizes the hall they take him down.

same as the first day.

He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to know what’s changed.

She gathers herself in close, apprehensively. Do you still want me to stay? She hadn't quite realized that this might be the plan.

well...i saw yours, didn’t i? by accident.

He starts to laugh out loud, through tears he hadn’t felt before.

might as well show you mine.

And he doesn’t want to be alone.

She doesn't leave him. She does her best to distract him; it's not great background for poetry, and half the time she loses her place partway through, but she remembers enough, at least with fragments, that she barely has to repeat herself at all.

He still aches in the same ways, and he’s thankful, but he can’t think about what’s happening to him. Not now.

He tries to follow the poetry, stop the sensation from his body.

He fails, halfway, and between the fear and shame and pain it feels good and he thinks sorry, sorry, i’m sorry over and over for a reason he can’t name.

It’s a very long time until it’s over.

He has nothing to be sorry for. It's not an assertion, not a thought; it's an awareness of a fact about the world, like skies being blue or fire being hot: he's not the one in power, here; he bears no responsibility for it.

She redoubles her sense of presence, regardless, and waits with him, and then it's through, and she swirls around him one more time - you survived; you are surviving - and lapses into wordlessness.

They take him back to the cell.

He curls up on the bed and feels her until he can’t remain awake any longer.

She's there, again or still, when he wakes; she spends a few minutes trying to remember how to communicate with him in words before giving up and shoving concepts at him - her master, coming to pick her up from her room as usual; her uncertainty about whether it will happen today - more likely than not, but less likely than usual; her awareness that she can't yet hold the connection while not meditating; the fact that she can still hear him, regardless.

He gives her the same weak, flickering attempt at an embrace as he did the other day.

He sends her his understanding, the anticipation of the connection returning at night, and what hope he can hold onto.

(His fear is there, but he tries to brighten everything else, make it overshadow the anticipation of what might come next for him.)

Strength. Strength. Strength. And then a wave of displeasure as she notices her master's approach, and she lets the connection go.

She's back earlier that evening; she's in no better shape mentally and distracted by pain, but sends a wave of frustration-tinged relief when she makes the connection.

A moment of happiness when he feels her presence.