"It does," Alain agrees quietly. He could be answering any part of what the troll said, or all of them. He isn't sure himself, and doesn't particularly think it matters. After a beat, though, he allows a slow little smile onto his face, a certain glitter of humour in his eyes. "Understands fate, at least. If you've known Ro' any time, you must know there's plenty else where you could get more understanding from a wall."
He says it in love, and without any kind of rancour. It's not an insult; it's the teasing assessment of someone who knows him well. Roland has always been the best of them; the bravest, the fastest on the draw, the sharpest at adapting on the fly. But there've been times when Alain could have pulled his hair out over all that Roland doesn't seem to grasp about people, about consequence, about temper...
"If he's still like that at all," he says aloud, his smile fading. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that this Roland is not the Roland he left; forgotten the gulf of years and experience now between them, and the deep lines of grief and travel etched in Roland's face. The thought of it sobers him drastically. Does he know this Roland at at all?
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He says it in love, and without any kind of rancour. It's not an insult; it's the teasing assessment of someone who knows him well. Roland has always been the best of them; the bravest, the fastest on the draw, the sharpest at adapting on the fly. But there've been times when Alain could have pulled his hair out over all that Roland doesn't seem to grasp about people, about consequence, about temper...
"If he's still like that at all," he says aloud, his smile fading. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that this Roland is not the Roland he left; forgotten the gulf of years and experience now between them, and the deep lines of grief and travel etched in Roland's face. The thought of it sobers him drastically. Does he know this Roland at at all?