She felt him there with her. She was no longer inside of his mind but he was inside of hers - and then they were simply bridged together, echoes of one another, two heartbeats thrumming in time.

Neria felt his pain. His guilt, his anger. The sense of feeling trapped in duty and love and the utter helplessness and despair he had felt that they might have all died. That Hakkyuu and Rhy were left and--

At what cost?

She felt Kell's deep-rooted sense of responsibility to his brother above all else, and how it traced out like branches into all of the reasons why he struggled to survive, to justify the things he did. And she understood them before but now-- Here, and there, she saw the pain. The guilt. The loss. The fury.

In the dark of his mind and in his heart, Neria breathed with him and shared it. She did not try to take the burden from Kell, as she had attempted before. She simply held him and let it weigh her down too, sharing it.

Absently, she lifted a hand to touch his face. To cradle him there against the side of her head, against her hair. Her thumb brushed his cheek.