"As if she needed any further ammunition to be bull-headed with me." Ravus exhales a long sigh, almost at the edge of exhausted humor. But there's a tired sadness in it too. Hope hurts more, yes, but sentiment even more so. The loss is so fresh, it's impossible not to keep clawing blood from the wound. At least, Ravus thinks, he is used to the ache of cuts so deep they will scar. The pain of loss is familiar, only on a grander scale now.

It's exhausting. Everything is exhausting, really. Strange, it was almost a kinder stress on his body and mind when he couldn't afford to stop. Now that he's slowed to a crawl, dragged to relative safety and been ordered to rest, it's almost worse. The debts he's paying his body, coupled with the warm weight of the other prince in his lap, aren't something he can ignore. Which means that after a moment of quiet, Ravus makes better use of the couch, and slumps down across the cushions. He drags Noctis with him so that he can lay on his front, and Ravus can let his aching body have some semblance of horizontal comfort.