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"I will," Gerald replied to her calmly, his voice its usual penetrating hiss that seemed too easy to hear compared to the volume with which was spoken, and slowly patted the air with his right hand. Once again this was about the reaction he had expected, and one that was similar to though less restrained than his own immediately after their escape. After it had seemed like they were safe once again and the necromancer had time to think about anything other than his own survival, he had been furious as well, outraged even. He was still angry even now, but he knew that it served no purpose to rage over the injustice of what had occurred. 'Time Is Absolute', the Fourth Law of Magic said, and there was a cruel truth to that; what had happened, happened. It was unfair, considering how hard they had tried and how much they had sacrificed, but nevertheless it could never be undone.
"We did well..." he assured her after his promise that he would explain, and he actually meant that. He was fairly sure that his strategic decisions had been sound, the situation taken into consideration, and he had accomplished not one, but several magical feats that had never been attempted before, successfully. Even if they lost in the end he could still take pride in the fact that he had achieved within just a handful of minutes what an entire Plane of magi had been incapable of for millennia. And Jillian... she was wild, fierce, unpredictable, impulsive, reckless, but she undeniably possessed some significant innate magical power. She had been careless and flamboyant about it, but she had followed his instructions and accomplished what the combined forces of the Anaxim Forest could not.
"We did well," he repeated, more softly this time, and sighed. "The plan worked just as it was supposed to; after you annihilated the wyverns and cleared the sky, the dragon sisters came and decimated the crusader forces. Their army was practically defeated, but..." He shook his head regretfully. "Even in the chaos, no one managed to reach Kevalorn. Too many of the others had died, and no one was strong or quick enough to get to him. And then..." He made a single quick wave with his hand, a simple turn of the wrist. "Even limited by a mortal vessel and still being partially sealed, Hazzergash's power was unreal. He picked both of the sisters out of the sky in an instant, and then eradicated the defenders that remained... it looked so easy, as if he wasn't even trying." He remembered that Jillian had arrived with one of the dragons, and decided that he had better explain their fates a little better. "By the looks of it there is little doubt that the Red was killed by Kevalorn's attack... the Green managed to protect herself with a barrier, first, but it was shattered; I don't know if it was enough to save her life."
Gerald nodded in the direction of the sleeping Elder Green on the opposite side of their lake. "When it became clear that the tide could not be turned back in our favor Renold over there came to save me, and I had him save you too. He carried us here and has agreed to help me find a way to end the Withering."

Hesitantly the warlock decided to stop his explanation there; he had left some things out of his recounting of events - quite significant things, even - but he had already answered several questions that Jillian had not yet asked, and opted to let her arrive at those questions herself, rather than just pelting her with all the answers immediately. She had just been comatose from magical exhaustion and had just a minute ago mistaken him for someone else; she would need time to process what he had just said, or none of it would really sink in. Luckily now, unlike any other time since Gerald had met the girl on the battle-ready Gariel Downs, time was something they had, not that they sorely lacked. They would need to move on, but for now the night was theirs, peaceful and undisturbed, void of urgency and danger.
It was now that questions would have their due answers and important decisions would be made. It was just a matter of what information he should volunteer, and which he should wait for her to request... He should probably tell her that her magic was greatly weakened right now, even if her magical reserves were fully restored. But not just yet. In time.