She nodded agreement, her mouth a hard line. There were few people left at home who needed her, when she thought of it, and that stung in the hollow, aching way of a wound only just realised. But she knew what it was to be needed, and to be kept from those who needed you. She had known that long before she came here.

"I don't know that our homes exist to them," she said at length, sipping her wine thoughtfully. "Stories at most, and for many not even that. They take that, too, from us in their minds."