Liam blinked once as his mind's eye kept catching glimpses of the deceased – of Robin screaming and pleading for his help. He pushed the nasty images aside once more and concentrated fully on what Anann was doing – her posture, the way her chest went up and down when she breathed, and the way the sun's light made the shadows of her face dance around animatedly. He focused on the smell of horses and horse dung from the stables or the prickling he could still feel on his back, even if the hay was no longer tickling his skin. Finally she gave him a light pat on the shoulder and the physical contact seemed to fully bring Liam back to reality. He was grateful for it and didn't hesitate to give Anann a tiny, lopsided smile of gratitude. He was still a little bit too proud to say anything, especially after opening himself up and telling her about his dream, but at least that smile of his could speak for him.
When she spoke, Liam couldn't help but hope for a moment that she was wrong. Or that he was one of the wolves that could be at peace a lot faster. By the looks of it, by the terrible dreams and constant paranoia, he knew he was wishing for something near impossible. Sometimes he wondered if maybe he wouldn't have been better off not caring about people. A cold, stone shell. All skin, bones and muscles. A fighting machine that didn't have to think about the aftermath. But then he thought of his parents and siblings. He thought of his friend Robin and of all the people he had met these last couple months and all of the people he would meet throughout his life. Sure times were hard now, and there would undoubtedly be more hardships to come, but was it really that bad? What about all of the good times? Those countless hours of playing pretend with Robin? Or teaching his siblings all sorts of new things? Was he willing to lose all of that just so that he didn't have to feel pain? He decided that he wasn't willing to do that. Not by a long shot. “I just wish time wasn't an issue. That I could forget and move on right away.” he sighed.
When she brought up the idea of training, Liam mused over the subject for a short amount of time. His bi-colored eyes drifted from her face to an oddly-shaped cloud in the sky that resembled two wolves fighting. Or they could be hugging, but Liam wasn't really in the mood for optimistic. “Maybe.” he said. He had told himself following the war that he would never hurt anybody again – no matter what. Hurting the enemy had been a hard thing to do and an even harder thing to accept afterward. But what if the real problem here was his fear of losing those he cared about? Of not being able to protect them, like Anann had so wisely said. “When did you learn how to fight?” he asked, recalling that Anann herself was a very skillful warrior.
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