The soft grating feel and sound of his knife against the woodblock was entrancing. The sounds around him became distant noise as his world shrunk to the small little square of quiet darkness he'd grown so accustomed to. So content but never truly still; his mind worked to place the small grooves in the shell he was designing. His memory called back images of the coast, the biting cold of the salty wind, the little shack where the adults gathered and passed out the food. It was all just memory now, but that's okay.<br/><br/>He was fine like this.<br/><span style="font-style: italic"><br/>He was fine. </span><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><br/>"Hey, Milo"</span>a voice rumbled close by. Milo was strangely caught off guard. His hand slipped and he sliced a large chunk off the carving and just barely avoided sheering the skin off his thumb. He hadn't noticed how tense his hands had gotten; they must've been shaking.<br/><br/>"Hello" he said as he gently placed the knife down on the table "Did you want to sit here today, Kemena? I'll move if that's what you want. This is your table after all," his tone wasn't unfriendly, but he had a feeling for how things were going to go. Still, something was weirdly different about the way she addressed him; firstly she'd bothered to actually use his name and also something about her tone didn't communicate the same venom he'd come to expect. He didn't feel any of the tension in her body that usually came about when someone talked to him.<br/><br/>He decided he might try something. A ruckus broke out at the Odin table. Instead of joining in on the foolishness Milo actually decided to speak his mind<br/><br/>"Bug illusions? Their father must be proud,".