I'll settle for the ghost of you.

It brings some relief to see her smile even if it’s short and sad. He offers something similar on his own pale mouth until she glances back down. There is no denying the flicker of pleasure that rolls within his flames when she names him as a good friend. Good. It feels strange to be called such a thing when the dark voice vehemently denies it. Still, a ghost of a smile returns and stays when she mentions different circumstances. He merely nods in agreement, only thinking that she hadn’t had a full chance to make it feel like home and not because she had been stolen there in the first place.

Of his mother’s involvement in Sickle’s terror, he is still blissfully unaware.

It disappears entirely, that brief respite of approval and goodness, when the colors begin to play across the dark navy canvas of her skin. After he mentions what had happened in the Pampas regarding Gale. As someone so connected with the energy of fire, he can read the flames that linger in her coat, those blood reds and fiery oranges. Residual worry lingers in his own yellow eyes at his foolishness in even mentioning what Gale had done. Would he have wanted to know if Firion had caused such destruction? He is quick to shake that thought from his head, finding an answer there that someone good shouldn’t have.

It all bleeds back into his increasing temper of what Sickle had gone through, alone. He swallows his fire leaving only flames in his bright haunting gaze and some tension unwinds when she bumps her muzzle quickly against his, a little shock of contact that brings him out from under the storm of a darker cloud he had been hellbent on following. He nods slightly in understanding, not needing to source the root of her hesitance to fully understand why it exists. “The offer stands, regardless.” He says quietly and finds his smile again in an effort to keep hers. Lillibet would like her, he thinks. The thought of the sister he had always wanted with his newest friend keeps some of the terrible thoughts of what he would like to do to Sickle’s parents at bay.

“Pangea borders the Meadow and the Mountain, it’s… something. You can’t miss it.” He says with a short laugh. It was hard to miss the wasteland that he now resided in, there was nothing else like it that he had seen thus far. It also borders Hyaline but he leaves that piece of information to himself, not wanting to trigger her again. He is hesitant to leave her after such a weighted reunion but he is observant enough to realize that Sickle is use to her own set of rules and after everything she had revealed, he is reluctant to ever make her feel boxed in. Trapped. “Promise you’ll at least come visit.” It's all he ends up requesting, his flames returning to their usual spot along his spine as he meets her gaze with a teasing grin. “There’s still so many shifting shapes you never got to show me.”