There's no indication that Angelique thinks she's slow at all. "Would it be easier if we gave you a way to write your questions down?"

Headshake.

Angelique nods thoughtfully. "I suspect you're wondering why we're doing this? And what the price is going to be?"

Nod.

"Forgive me for the slight history lesson, but. My great-great-grandfather set up this place to give people a place to go when they had nowhere else to go. A safe place to heal and grow." She pauses. "I don't expect you to believe that there isn't a cost, but there isn't."

The face she makes is much less skeptical than some Angelique has seen, but still wary.

Understandable.

"We will not keep you here against your will. You are free to leave at any time."

She doesn't expect this to be believed either.

She's skeptical about that one, yes. Maybe it's true in the literal sense, but she's fairly sure that if she walks away now, she just dies; it's not a real option.

"You seemed to have been sitting here for a while. I assume you saw me in the garden?"

She nods.

"Most of us here, in one way or another, are supernatural. And no-one will use that against you." (She seems to mean that in more ways than one.)

She's a little skeptical of that, too, but hums an acknowledgement.

Angelique elbows Drex in the side, giving him a pointed look.

Drex sighs a little. "M'a healer. S'part of the reason we're not sending you back."

...oh. She nods, sighs, looks down.

"Y're doing better," Drex says, and seems to be trying to say 'I don't mind, I'm glad I could help'. "Just sorted what was dangerous." And there's an offer there, that he could help with other less health-critical things.

She thinks about that for a few seconds, then gives a questioning hum.

"Your joints overextend. And that can cause problems. I can make it so they don't."

Huh.

She nods.

"I don't have to." (This isn't his decision, it isn't his body.) "You can think about it."

...

"We can do it now if you want."

He sits down opposite her, rests his hands palm up on the table. "It is easier with physical contact, even just fingertips. But I can without."

She's obviously not entirely comfortable with that, but gives Esca a brief pet, takes a deep breath, and puts her hands in his.

He doesn't close his hands, just lets Denice's rest on top of his as soft green light starts to suffuse them. He keeps his eyes open to begin with, to make sure Denice is okay as the light starts to flow up over her hands.

The light leaves a strange, simultaneously warm/cool, soothing sensation in its wake.

She doesn't relax, and only barely avoids flinching, but she doesn't pull away.