He's babbling now, and she supposes that what she gets for expecting sense out of someone who reeks as much as he does. She's been to the scaffold once herself and not for an execution of anything but pride and vanity -- pieces of herself they continue to try to chip at, as though they matter.

But it fades for the unsteady words that follow it.

Still even her voice isn't as correcting as her words should make it. "You have much to learn about friendship then."