He pets her hair and smiles slightly.

She sniffles again, and then - yyyyyep, back to the really violent sobbing. No more snarky comments for a while.

More cuddles.

More sobs! So many sobs.

Eventually, she does exhaust herself to smaller sobs that resemble hiccups more than the awful bawling she'd been doing earlier.

"Why is everything so terrible," she mumbles into his very damp shoulder, without heat.

"The world is kind of a fucked-up place," he says, hugging her some more. "Want to hear some good news for a change?"

"Sure, I could use some variety. Abject misery just gets so dull after a while."

"I can resurrect the dead."

She pulls back to stare at him, again. This is a different kind of look.

"You. You can?" This seems to be rhetorical, because she doesn't wait for a reply. "Will you?" she whimpers, looking pleadingly at him with red rimmed, puffy eyes. "Please," she adds, as an afterthought.

"Yes, of course. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I wasn't already planning to. It's not trivial and I don't want to make a habit of it but I can bring back one brother."

Nod. ... Sniffle.

"Thank you," she murmurs, snuggling him. Some of the tension leaves her. Not all, but some.

He cuddles her and pets her hair.

She hums appreciatively and relaxes a little more.

"I think I'm allowed to make the executive decision to, to - to hold off on resurrecting my brother until I'm less of a mess. Unless being dead is unpleasant in some way?"

"No, being dead is pretty much... not being."

"Okay. So the last thing he will remember is being executed for a thing he didn't do. That means he should come back to a sister that is not a mess so he doesn't have to - he was already handling a complicated problem with little information and it was really unpleasant. I don't want to do that to him a second time."

"You're being strikingly reasonable again," he says, cuddling her.

"I am too damn tired to waste any energy on being unreasonable," she says, wryly.

Hug. Deeply affectionate smile.

Hug. Little smile. She stills and snuggles him. For a little while it seems like she might fall asleep on him, but then she stirs.

"... Mm. I should be responsible. Do you think the talk about, uh - " She holds up a forearm to display his mark, in lieu of words. "- the this related stuff should come sooner or later? Benefits of sooner being that there won't be any unpleasant surprises later and you'll get an emotionally exhausted buffer zone of me having about three fucks left to give, benefits of later being that I will have had at least one nap first and would be more reasonable and less cranky. Either way, I should get food and water and then like. A place to sleep. At some point that resembles soon."

He gestures vaguely at the floor, and a small tree grows from the bare stone, swirling up into the shape of a round wooden table before going still. Tiny buds form on its surface and open up into lovely flowers which bloom to reveal plates of delicious food. A particularly enormous blossom yields a pitcher of water with fruit slices floating in it.

She considers the table of food and drink, then leans up to peck Sekar on the cheek.

"Thank you," she says, then she disentangles herself in order to raid the table. Water first.

"Was that a no to the conversation happening now, then?" she clarifies, after she's downed a full glass of water.

"It... seemed like a problem I could solve, so I solved it. I - have no idea where to even start talking about - things."

"Well, is the plan to free me and send me on my way when you're sure I won't just get dragged to another auction house? Keep me but let me do whatever I feel like? Keep me but... do something in particular?" She says that last one like she's confused about what he'd even be doing with her.

"...You say that like you have no idea what 'something in particular' would be..."

"To be honest, I don't. I mean, I've heard the everything and don't think that's false, but." She indulges in more water. "If you want to torture me you're really not acting like it? And while I'm not going to claim a full understanding of who you are as a person, I am reasonably confident that you are up front about things that you want and not going to play mindfucky games with me. As far as I can tell, you either want me to be okay, or you find my distress upsetting enough to want to make it stop. So. No, really, what would you even want to do with me."

"I did mention you're very attractive when you cry."