"Fiery is right" Atar muttered, loud enough to be heard if just faintly. Dred tilted his slightly, his friend would ask him about that one later but for now he held his questions. Oh, they had no idea what she could do if she wanted to. He doubted even she did, he had TOUCHED the fount through her though, and gods was it powerful- not too powerful for him to wield, of course. He wasn't a child, or a fool.
Atar decided he liked Raflroi. He was easy to talk to, not afraid of this woman, friendly, and open. And he had a child. A sick child. The more he thought about it, the more he respected the man. Sick children were a sad sight, this one, in a different place, with different parents, would have been abandoned long ago. He would commend the ones who cared the boy, silently, and in his own way. He had always liked children, it was a knife's edge he always thought, the way children annoyed you and endeared you to them. Any grown man as obnoxious as a child and you would probably punch them in the face, but a child, well, they tended to be "cute" and it was every difficult to punch cute things even when they were an irritation. A child's laughter came easy, it meant the world was right, and to them, it was, wasn't it?
Children were also typically defenseless, genuine, and too trusting of strangers. These things, lessons he had seen in war and the world in general, were truths too often seen. War took the lives of children, people abused them, people would rather see them suffer, because people were cruel. The pain in his eyes was apparent for a brief moment, the memories of days past, of Adela soldiers fighting for the lives of children, not lives of their own, something that would be forgotten when the last of them was gone. The anguish was gone, had been bled out long ago when he and Dred had talked about it. Soldiers was always told to take the lives of children, in his experience, it was the one thing that their company had agreed never to do from that day forth. One after another they had vowed.
The woman's quip brought Atar back to attention, drawing him from his memories. "From the looks of it" He couldn't help the grin that creased his lips when he arched a brow and glanced her up and down "Flat on my back before you would not be an unfavorable position." Oh, that was probably a mistake. He really didn't know when to quit, wasn't in his blood, nor in his cousins, he knew. Atar could see Dred stifling a laugh as he pulled his weight from his friend and took a step away, now standing on his own, he was trying not to laugh himself. If he had the child to thank right now, odds were she would not let an improper jest set her upon him. Best to get his licks in while he could.
Dred stepped away and couldn't help but snicker, he had taken note of the child and despite himself, he smiled. "I want no part in this, I would, however, kindly ask for some water."