Thorn watches as Rhone dives into treating Doirind for her injuries.
Rhone rifles through the few bags that made it out and scavenges enough material to make bandages. She also asks the Tochoans for some herbal supplies. They seem to have something.
Thorn offers his help and tries to meet the little girl where she is, see if he can get a breakthrough with her on her own terms. He patiently assists on the task of combat trauma management. It is impressive how quickly and proficiently the little girl works, how capable she is at improvising and performing under stress.
Thorn has a soft approach and gets a conversation going after Doirind is patched up. He leads with some questions of what she might want to make this bad situation just a little better. What is on her mind?
OOC:
Going to list this out more "off-narrative" conversation. Writing it out word for word would be exhausting. Ha! Even casual talk is bad enough. See what I mean below...
OOC:
Overall, Thorn learns that Rhone faces a lot of struggle and quite a bit of indecisiveness about what is reasonably a stressful topic: the nature and even the identity of her father who she has never known.
She just lost her mother. She has never known her father. Always been told that he is a monster, an evil man. Yet at the same time, and I think a kid would wonder this, is there a chance that maybe the other parent has a different side of the story?
She wants to know what Zaituc said about her. If she hears that he wants to help her and bring her into his family, could that possibly be true?
Now she has heard that her father might be killed!? If he is killed, she can never ask him anything. Can never know why he did not ever want to see her until now. Will never be able to ask him if it is true, if he really wants to sacrifice her and kill her or if he does want to restore a relationship with her.
Thorn comes to find out that though Rhone loves Rutcranna very much, she also wonders if her mother told her the whole truth about everything. Rhone knows that Rutcranna did not always speak truthfully, and sometimes kept information from Rhone, maybe to protect her. To Rhone, Rutcranna had many manners. Sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, sometimes shrewd, sometimes unpredictable. Rhone just cannot figure out which part of Rutcranna spoke on the rare times that she told Rhone about her father.
Come to find out, Rhone even asks if Nemes Zaituc is her father or her grandfather? She asks if there is a chance that she is in truth the daughter of Nemes' son Dinu. Although her mother always tried to hide her past in many ways, Rhone believes that her mother loved Dinu very much. Maybe Dinu is her dad in fact, and maybe he does love her and was somehow unable to be together with Rhone and her mom. Maybe he was lied to and maybe he does not even know that she was ever born.
And maybe if he did know, he would want to see her and hear what happened to her mom.
For one thing, Rhone is pretty clear that claims that Nemes is a deamon are not accurate. That to her doesn't make sense. If he was, and he is in her lineage, then she would be a part deamon and she knows definitively that that is not true.
She does know that the man called Ru Lanskkeld is a half-deamon. She calls him a "cambion". That is an Uisde word. She says the Yuoric word is "tiefling". Thorn remembers that Rori, one of Nemes's troops, was called Ru Lanskkeld. Is this the guy she is talking about? She knows that that man-creature is dangerous, but she is more prepared for him now. He caught them unaware before, but that will not happen again. She can assure that. She has hexes over which he cannot prevail.
But she does not believe Nemes is anything but a man.
Thorn realizes that he is probably out of his capability to sort all of this out and give any advice. The interchange becomes very heavy quickly, and it is moving to see the little girl so sincere yet in such a stress about what must be done and how to know the truth.
In the end, Thorn tries to zero in on trying to figure out what Rhone wants, if she could choose.
It is clear that she does not know exactly what she wants. She doesn't understand. But even though it is true that she has a lot of fear and trepidation about meeting Nemes, she is equally stressed by the idea that he might be killed without knowing what is true.
With more careful questioning, Thorn gets her to admit that she wishes maybe she could talk to Zaituc or see him or hear his voice, and maybe see if what he said might be true. It also becomes obvious that she longs to know more about Dinu Zaituc, whom she believes her mom loved at one point or maybe loves now.
With a little more questioning, Thorn gets her to say that she could get herself together enough to face Nemes now, if that is what they decide, or she would also do it later if that is the decision.
At the end of this roller-coaster conversation, Rhone has been tearing up here and there, nervous, and seems pretty spent out and spun around. Thorn recognizes that he needs to give it a rest, and avoid sending the girl into an overwhelming stress that might lock her up entirely. He reassures her again and seems to stabilize with some rapport.
After these precious minutes are spent, Hinka begins to press for a departure one way or another. Time is running out. Everyone must get moving and devote all efforts to an escape.
Thorn knows he has to make a quick download about all the info, and decide whether or not to use it in the decision-making.
