He can hardly believe it when she doesn't just turn around and walk out on him, give up right there and leave. She ain't only not doing that, she's painting him. She who swore never to go near the paint, who would curse on his faith if only she had liked him less.

But here she is, touching it, putting it on him, even when she'd probably like him better without. She doesn't know so clear the heresy it is to be barefaced like Kurloz does. Yet even still, she tends, and more than that, she knows his face as it should be.

The same surge of emotion comes as with how it did last time. That overwhelming knowledge one got chosing to help or giving him a quick cull, that he's being given this gift, being made a person. He's got all to having his soul again properlike. And all the while that same old war wages that he shouldn't be touching and this is wrong and he's not supposed to be a person what's holding no soul, and he doesn't deserve this.

It's a lot. It's a lot more than what he can deal with like this. The intensity of the war in him is enough to hurt.

He can't help the catching of his breath, though he closes his eyes to hide the turmoil under. He can't help but push against her fingertips just that little bit.