"Mmm. It's true—for us. We have no training in using fire, and we're all half-starved, and the only ones who join this harebrained trek are the ones too poor and desperate to have literally any other options, and then if anything goes wrong we're bait, left behind while the guard can flee. And then if we're lucky, we manage to come back half tree, but if we're not, we die then and there or become a spirit's plaything."

"...and so you'll keep stealing from them until you get unlucky and get sent away with no chance of coming back."

"And so I'll keep stealing until I have enough food to eat every day for a whole week and hopefully that will be enough nutrition that I can join the Hunt and have a better chance of surviving."

"—wait, what?"

"The bread will keep. Most of it. The cheese will keep. The fruit—less so, but it is what it is. I'm not bringing all of it here, to the two of you. I'm saving up."

"So we could have been eating more all along?!"

"Not all along. I've only been doing this recently. But yes. If I can get enough from the Hunt then I can help—help all of you. Pull myself from my bootstraps, I guess."

"You really are kind of crazy, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Guess I am."