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The garbled sounds that came from him as he closed his entrance amused her, and she chuckled, though not mockingly. She would have reserved the expression had it not been Claudius that she was in the presence of, but she felt that she knew where his heart was, and that he would not take it wrongly. Perhaps that was part of why she had sought his advice, in particular. For sure, there were others she could ask that appeared trustworthy: Anatole appeared as capable (the two Aston males were, in a sense, almost equally dysfunctional), but Claudius seemed like a gentler soul, or one that might more easily welcome her. She smiled gently, listening to his protests. She had not been able to settle on how she thought he might react, and so she presented it with a wholly open mind.
He was hesitant to give her an answer. His stutter had been hard to overcome when she first met him, but she was more trained in finding the words behind the cut-up utterances now. She understood his worries, and they were legitimate. It was always hard to argue against the importance of legitimate concerns, and she did not know whether he was more fragile than she thought, besides. "I am not asking you to be a warrior or a protector. But you know this place, and I fear they do not accept me." The councilwoman spoke quietly now, opening the window further, for anyone to gaze in and see the size of her uncertainty. Maska was in the past, but how could she lead the tribe into the future when she could see as little of the way as them? Perhaps Dawali had been equipped for this lonely task, but Ulilohi was not. "I, too, fear that I will let them down," she said, but ended the sentence there. The rest of it stayed in her thoughts. I will just be the next failure in a line of failed leaders.
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