[Though there is little expression that can be read on a face that is made of what seems to be bone, there is plenty to read for the keen eye in the tightness of shoulders, the arch of spine, and the curl of a long, whip-like tail. "His experiences"... something that would lead a child as young as that to offer up their soul in exchange for something?]

Her moods could be... whimsical. I did not understand, sometimes, why she would not...

[He pauses in his task, looking at a dark hand in a dark glove, curling fingers before he returns to finding appropriate weights.]

Why she would not simply understand when things were in her best interest.

[Surely that is what it had been, when he had kept things from her. When he had moved them from the house she had known and enjoyed living in.]

It was difficult for her to understand why she could not touch me.

[But despite the fact that it had been difficult, he cannot say... that he had disliked or regretted any of it. A last rock goes into a pocket, and he wades in deeper up to his knees, testing the bottom of the entrance to make sure it wasn't icy. Looks toward Sebastian, his head cocking a moment.]

- Will continuing our conversation as we walk be a bother for you?

[He'd never had a problem with it, strangely, but.]