"If you really wanted to be stealthy about it I'm sure you could've."

"Oh, yeah, I didn't, particularly, but I wasn't flaunting it either and it's astute of you to notice."

"I really don't think it is," he shrugs.

"I do have a lot of money, yes," he admits with a shrug of his own. "But—well, I guess I want to say that my family has money. I don't use it very much. The daggers were heirlooms."

Aaaand he's from Morroc so the topic of family cannot be that comfortable. "Sorry."

Taharqi squeezes him a little with the arm that's wrapped around his shoulder. "It's fine, I'm not going to be twitchy about everything that reminds me of my family. I didn't even like my father and my mum died when I was very young, I lost my sister and a few cousins and some childhood friends," like all of them, "but that's all."

Vallynn readjusts his position so that he can hug Taharqi. "That sounds like quite a lot, actually."

"It's been a while."

"Have you. Grieved. At all. At any point. Did you stop and cry, did you hug anyone about it, did you talk to anyone about it?"

He opens his mouth then closes it then opens it again then closes it one more time and doesn't... say... anything.

"Did you jump into trying to become an adventurer the next day? Did you figure, hey, you'll have time to have feelings about it once Surt is dead?"

"It may not be possible to kill him."

He pulls away from the hug so that he can stradle Taharqi, one leg to each side of Taharqi's hips, and look him in the eye. But he doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at him and waiting.

"Gods damn it, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing in particular. Just... know that you can talk to me, okay? Now or whenever."

"There's nothing to talk about. A huge demon as powerful as a god showed up right under my fucking house while I was away and then I came back and everything was, was, the air was wrong and you can't even look into it properly because space got fucked and I didn't even know who'd survived for weeks and, and demons kept pouring out of there and do you know how long it took for the Continental Guard to show up? And, and it was adventurers who were out there fighting the demons back, Eden people, I saw a demon fall to pieces in front of me before I even saw who had done it and I think I only saw her because she wanted me to see her, Alph and I don't hold a candle to that, and there's nothing to talk about because it was stupid and senseless and there was nothing I could've done and I only survived because of sheer dumb luck but I want to be someone who'll help other people not need sheer dumb luck to survive and—"

Vallynn leans down and kisses him.

That shuts him up nicely, yeah.

No, the point wasn't to shut him up, the point was to comfort him and prevent him from spiralling. Once he's sure that's been accomplished he pulls away again and says, "You'll do it. I believe in you. You'll become incredibly powerful and you'll kick Surt's ass and when he's gone Morroc will be fine again."

"...I know that. I know I will. But you wanted to know, so, I'm telling you. There's nothing to talk about and there's nowhere for the grief to go because it was just like the weather except the weather is more survivable. And they won't even be in Valhalla or anything, I'm not sure they'll even be in Niflheim, Surt might have eaten their souls or something."

"You believe in Valhalla?"

"Fucked if I know, man, but Annika had a point back there, that it's not insane to imagine. Maybe that's not Surt, that's just some other demon that's done all that shit, but I don't think it's insane."

"Sorry, not the point, I don't want to distract you."

"No, please distract me, I do not—the reason I've not thought about it is that it is not useful. There is nowhere for these thoughts to go."

So he supposes he shouldn't bring up the thing where Taharqi said Surt showed up under his house, then...?