Nicki realized with a start that her hands hurt. She blinked and realized with a start that her eyes were dry, as if she’d been staring, unblinking for a great long while. She blinked and looked at her hands and realized that they were gripped so tightly around the small glass of Brandywine, untouched but for a first sip, that her knuckles were white. She forced them open and they moved only because the force of her will was such that they could not help but move. It hurt, considerably and the pain flashed in her eyes before she dropped them.

She was shaking and stirred and more than a little bothered that it was the words of a little boy who had brought her to this state. A story, a fairy one at that. What was it that bothered her so? She lifted the neglected glass to her lips to wet them and to buy herself some time. What had bothered her so? For she was well and truly bothered. Forgiveness. That was it. The end, that neat, pat ending in which all was forgiven and the king learned the error of his ways. Bullshit. It was all bullshit and she wanted to spit on that ending. She felt fury build to take the place of the hurt. How dare anyone presume to know her pain? To coax her to forgive?

But it was just a story.

A stupid story and for all that his eyes had looked wise he just was a boy and he didn’t know, he couldn’t know what he was talking about. How could he? His life, though not sheltered as hers had been before she’d gotten lost, was too short to have felt the sting that Nicki had. Why was it always those who had not suffered who thought they could advise anyone on the dispensation of their grief and anger? It had been one of the things that had caused the rift between her and Yan. 
 
He was just a boy. 

She knew that the silence was getting too long, too thick in the cabin and she had to say something but she was uncertain that she could manage it without a thickened voice or hot tears. Her control was hard won and not sturdy at all, not with Jax sapping at her foundations. She tossed back the rest of the Brandywine, a sin to not have sipped it but she could not linger, no matter that it was her own cabin. 

“Thank you.” She managed, her honeyed voice tight but not trembling. She put the glass down and stood, her knuckles still white and aching, her hands held before her like claws.

“You have a gift for storytelling Young Master Luc. A fine voice.” 

She nodded to the lookout and then looked to the air somewhere over the boy’s shoulder so that the unfocused maelstrom of emotions swirling in her eyes did not alarm him. After all, he was a boy and he did not know what he was talking about and could not be held responsible for what he stirred up. 
 
“If you will excuse me, I must see to something.” And she left. She did not leave time for replies and if any came they would have fallen on her deaf back.