Each gentle word clawed him like a mountain cat, and Nate held his breath against the urgency of concealed wounds she seemed to have stripped the bandages from and left to bleed in the open. He felt exposed. Weak. Frightened, in a way he didn't want to show, so he smiled. Maybe he could convince her she was mistaken if he held fast to familiar gestures.

But she'd done it effortlessly!

A sign of his own frailty, no doubt. Nate had a lot of practice turning deaf ears to words spoken against him over the years. Some had even been well-meaning, and no less cruel. People who'd never seen him, not really. Just the shape of a man they put all their own expectations over. He preferred giving them the mask. Sometimes they'd even respect it, because it was braver than the real him. Better than the real him.

But Hestia seemed to have taken one look and understood the true source of Nate's cowardice more keenly than his own Father ever had.

As a tyke, he might have been brought to tears. They'd beat that out of him young, and he certainly wouldn't do it for a stranger, a woman besides. She didn't need more confirmation of his failures.

She was wrong on only a single count — he did need to walk it alone. He'd felt the cost of trying, otherwise. Alone, he could wander and weep freely, bringing shame to no one, inviting judgement from nobody who had the power to truly hurt him, seeking solace in things like stars and the calls of owls and the stillness of moonlit snow which would never belong to him and so could never be lost forever.

Nate was too mannerly to argue outright; he only nodded, and took his time considering an answer that would redeem him as a wise man — not some frightened boy.

There didn't seem to be one. So he was glad when they reached the stream, and content to leave the trading of philosophy behind for more practical attentions.

Apparently, though, Hestia hadn't finished dismantling him.

Maybe you just asked the wrong sky.

Quiet for a long moment, long enough to be rude, long enough to be an answer in and of itself, Nate failed utterly to let her words pass through him. He swallowed through another held breath, glancing away. If he spoke honestly, and told her the truth of his estimation on the subject, he would fall prey to the very thing she'd accused him of — an avoidance of reality, a knowing how things were and a refusal to accept it.

But she teased him with hope, too! He didn't know what to make of that. As if the answer to all his faults and failures could be hidden behind the acceptance of them. The world wasn't so kind to half-breeds. Star-crossed for him had always meant having no true Polaris to follow.

Nate made himself smile, still, and cleared his throat to affirm politely, Maybe you're right, Ma'am. Then looked over her hearth, Lovely spot you've found, here. I appreciate the hospitality. I'll ah, clean myself off at the stream and make myself more presentable, if you don't mind?

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