Follen never once pressured her to speak in these sessions. Sometimes Quinn came in ready to go, and would talk almost the entire time, in her own halting way. Others, they would for minutes, quiet, while she thought and he smiled, encouraging but not insistent. Now and then he would scratch something down on his folder, even when she didn’t speak, as though he’d heard something anyway. 

This time he didn’t, though when she finally did break her silence, and mentioned the dream journal, the pen did move. [color=lightblue]“Oh, well that’s alright,[/color]” he said. “[color=lightblue]‘Busy’ is certainly an understatement. I don’t think you could be faulted for forgetting your own name in all this, ah, [i]excitement[/i]—to make an understatement of my own.[/color]”

The light in the faux-window was still early-dawn, violets and bloody oranges. No birdsongs today—he sometimes forewent those when he had something that required his focus early in the morning. 

“[color=lightblue]Dreams are important of course, and I’m very interested to hear about them, but I believe the waking world has taken precedence these past few days, wouldn’t you say?[/color]” He smiled again, knowingly, comfortingly. He so rarely asked her to speak on a topic directly, but now and then it seemed necessary to offer a gentle nudge. “[color=lightblue]Perhaps you would like to talk about what happened at the duel. Or perhaps you’ve had quite enough talk about that. Tell me, Quinn, darling: what has been on your mind, really?[/color]”