I think I can manage being collateral damage
Everest straightens so quickly it almost looks like someone tugged a string between his shoulder blades. The bottles he’d been sorting click neatly into place—small to large, corked to uncorked—his hands retreating automatically to the safer territory of his sleeves. He doesn’t step forward, because that would put him between Isla and a stranger, and he doesn’t step back, because that would mean abandoning Isla, so he ends up hovering in the exact same position with the exact same careful posture.
"Ashborn," he supplies quietly, the name offered with the tone of someone submitting a fact for record rather than participating in small talk. "Kaisel Ashborn. Previous resident of Stormbreak. Before the Tower fell." He doesn’t blink as he says it, though there’s a faint tightening around his eyes. Only after the information has been correctly filed into the conversation does he allow himself to look directly at Kaisel. His gaze is direct but not confrontational; more observational, like he’s checking a hypothesis against the person standing in front of him.
"I hear that you’re able to speak now," Everest adds, the words even and matter-of-fact, entirely literal. His fingers flex once against the inside of his sleeve, grounding himself. "I take it that means you completed your quest?"
"Ashborn," he supplies quietly, the name offered with the tone of someone submitting a fact for record rather than participating in small talk. "Kaisel Ashborn. Previous resident of Stormbreak. Before the Tower fell." He doesn’t blink as he says it, though there’s a faint tightening around his eyes. Only after the information has been correctly filed into the conversation does he allow himself to look directly at Kaisel. His gaze is direct but not confrontational; more observational, like he’s checking a hypothesis against the person standing in front of him.
"I hear that you’re able to speak now," Everest adds, the words even and matter-of-fact, entirely literal. His fingers flex once against the inside of his sleeve, grounding himself. "I take it that means you completed your quest?"
Even if I had to lose you to know you I'd still be that temporary phase that you grow through
