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"It's nice," he said, "now that the stars are back. The night, I mean." He'd hated it when they were gone--he thought of all of the nights Embla would have felt, with the utter absence of the stars overhead--but now that they were back, he felt like he'd barely noticed them except when he was already in a mood. "I like having a sturdy roof over my head, though." And he smiled at her, bobbing his head a bit. "Do you camp often?"

His eyebrows arched high, and his steps stuttered; he quite by accident stepped on her foot. "Apologies," he said, stepping quickly to get his feet back in the right place. The military? Well, Protectors went there no matter their gender, but she didn't look... masculine enough... to be a protector type of Psion. "I would not have picked you as one for the military," he said, his tone lilting up in a question. "Did you serve long?"

"Training as a Healer," he blurted. So she was a Psion? Good thing you're already sworn to me, Althai said suddenly, with no small amount of glee. It's like you're a little kid! People can use my power if they've earned it. Don't be stupid.

Of course he'd heard of doctors, but... where had he been that seeing all these strange people, saying that they had trained to be something you had to be born as, was so odd? "But who taught you," he asked, clearly flabbergasted, his expression pulled tight at the mouth and furrowed at the brow. "Isn't that something you're born with?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not like that where I come from. It's like a gift you have in your head, one that you're born with..." He tried a little smile, and then sighed. "Although I suppose even if it can be trained, there's not much use to me trying to learn." Aska sighed, thinking a bit wistfully--it was sheer force of will that it was only wistfulness that afflicted him, and not the out-and-out despair he sometimes confronted. It was hard to confront one's own death, after all.

You don't need to learn. I can handle all of it! or... I will, once I'm in charge. Which wasn't really very comforting, and Aska decided the best idea was to distract himself. "So... what is like, training to be a healer?"

“You shouldn’t worry about how look dancing. There’s no wrong way. I’d love to meet up again with you later for a dance glyph.” Ser was leaving before almost before the other two did; spinning off to join to dance floor. The music was intoxicating. It had been to long since she had heard live music. She regretted not having her toe shoes on it limited what she could do. She settled on just dancing like most humans would at a club but the noticeable edge of her training in ballet flavored in. Even in such a crowed place it was easy to forget everything else while dancing.

The dark-haired man looked up with a small smile. "No, I'm fine," he said, leading the pair of them off the dance floor--not that it was suddenly crowded, but he wanted to be able to concentrate on what he was saying. This sort of thing would benefit Althai to know, right? It's interesting to hear how things have changed, the god opined, uncommonly subdued. He nodded, more to himself than anything, and found somewhere to lean. "So it's something you're born with after all," he asked, tucking both his hands in his pockets. "If it needs a connection to the land, that sort of thing can't be taught, can it?"

His answer was very prompt: "Yes, I would like to see. I've got... something of a vested interest," he explained, feeling more than a little bit embarrassed.

"Whisteria--" Seeing the change in her hand and the movement towards the other, he almost reached out to grab her wrist and stop her. But he'd wanted to see and it wasn't too much blood, so he waited, one hand extended before him. When the wounds knitted themselves back together, he took her injured hand in his, examining the back and then the other side. Over his shock--that was nothing like a psionic's healing--Althai's "voice" intruded: It looks good!

He made a face, and then said, "Althai says it's a good job, but... it was very different from what I'm used to. It's a lot... flashier... where I come from."