Tal flinched from the verbal blows, but despite how much it hurt to have Deimos angry with him there was a dawning light of hope as pieces of the Warden's words fit together. If it had all been an awkward, horrible mistake he was going to feel like proper shit and would have to eat an entire pie of crow, but it was worth it if the implications of what the Sword was saying were what the courier thought.
If they had just been joking... if Evie was just a backup Warden... if they were just had a history of working together platonically...
"So... then... you an' she... you're not a couple? Romantically?" Fingers wrapped around the metal haft of the glaive as if he could squeeze it into wire as he met that unforgiving glare with a desperate, wild hope, even as the Warden's decision - not phrased as a question, too flat to sound like a suggestion - wilted the courier's shoulders, regardless of the other answer.
If they had just been joking... if Evie was just a backup Warden... if they were just had a history of working together platonically...
"So... then... you an' she... you're not a couple? Romantically?" Fingers wrapped around the metal haft of the glaive as if he could squeeze it into wire as he met that unforgiving glare with a desperate, wild hope, even as the Warden's decision - not phrased as a question, too flat to sound like a suggestion - wilted the courier's shoulders, regardless of the other answer.