Jone mirrors him like the moon in a still lake. She listens intently, hungrily. These are secrets, this past, these existences before service. Everyone has such things, but it's still indecent and vulnerable to make a point of it. She loves him more for it, and, ah, that is a word she could use for it. She'd prefer not to.

"Then I'll thank her through you," she says, quiet. How does one talk of mothers? She'd prefer not to speak of hers. Of anyone in her mongrel family.

"Needing such manner, it hadn't occurred to me until now. I think I..." While they are sharing vulnerabilities, she will give him something with nothing familial... "I think my promotion was more luck than worth. I would have been happier unnoticed, but cannot resist a challenge. Succeeding... I did not plan for that."

She sips broth in a parody of daintiness, for once not purposeful. It's just how it looks, in her long-fingered hands, her broad shoulders. "This is surely the part where you call me a fool."