Back into the shoals it is. Can he navigate this without letting anything else slip?

(Should he? The reflexive caution brushes up against the immediacy of reassurances and gratitude, the plain earnest gift of a friend he can confide in, and the cognitive dissonance is - well. Noticeable. He notices it.)


"You were very gracious about it," Jedao replies, not too slowly, even though he chooses his words carefully. "And it was rather all my fault this time anyway." No impartiality required.