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[wythersake]

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[wythersake]

I moved up a few floors.

[ that part where she went double agent tabled for the moment. ]

[tender]

Did someone tell you to do it? To go?

[wythersake]

No. It seemed — prudent.

[tender]

[ maybe, but— ]

Just for a few weeks, or for longer? [ a beat, then. ] You're a good healer. Better than me.

[wythersake]

[ that he is older, and that it isn't precisely the same thing — ]

What do you think makes a good healer?

[tender]

Knowledge. Experience.

[ things she lacks, in places. things that she was cut off from attaining. ]

[wythersake]

How much have you experienced since you began here?

[tender]

I don't know how to measure it.

[wythersake]

More, then. You've done more with Riftwatch than most Circle healers ever have.

[tender]

That doesn't mean it's enough. Or that it supplants what I should have learned.

[ But what an incomplete education isn't the point of this. ]

You didn't answer my question.

[wythersake]

No, [ he didn't answer her question, it may not be enough. but she's earned some measure of honesty, hasn't she? here, beyond a dark room, ] Longer, I think.

[tender]

Are you giving it up? Healing?

[wythersake]

If Ser Barrow were to slip on his ass tomorrow and split it clean open, would you stir yourself?

[tender]

Am I the only one who sees?

[ stalling on the way to an inevitable, sullen yes ]

[wythersake]

I've seen it, and I'm walking away quite swiftly —

[tender]

Your secret will be safe with me, then.

[wythersake]

I will always be here if you ask it, Derrica.

[ loyalty rewards points non-transferrable and subject to cancellation without notice ]

[tender]

You're a good man, Isaac.

1/2

[wythersake]

2/2

[wythersake]

And Rowntree?

[tender]

[ hm ]

What about him?

[wythersake]

Do you think he's a good man?

[tender]

Yes.

The dream doesn't change that.

[wythersake]

You can trust him.

[ and isn't that the trouble with goodness? that the two are not the same. such an amorphous measure: bent to any shape. vague, too vague —

funny, that he might still feel its absence. ]

You're a good healer, Derrica.

[tender]

[ unseen, on the other end of the crystal: a small smile. however— ]

I trust him. And you. I trust that neither of you want to be those men.