"I mean, and that makes complete sense. I'm only out here doing this sort of stuff for a few days at a time, and I never really know how it's supposed to go, whenever the itinerary isn't planned for me in advance. I just know how to do the one thing."

They had been raised as weapons, not as people.

It's a bit of honesty that he had never offered to the rest of the Academy, and that he'll only give to Allison. And yet Luther stops just short of saying how thin and paltry and unsatisfying the one thing has become. He's never gotten far enough to admitting it outright, even when the others were rebelling and chewing through their bridles, bucking their father's authority.

Although he's had some time now to start gaining a slow-growing sense of it. To look around at what he'd been left with after everyone else was gone, and to find it lacking.

Her hand is still on his elbow; after a moment Luther glances down, as if verifying it's real, he's not imagining things, and that slight weight and pressure really is Allison. Touching him. More contact than they've had in over two years. He clears his throat.

"You look like you've been figuring it out well, though. Doing well for yourself out here."