Thane tried his best to not look offended when the crone presented the girl who attended her to assist him with a warning that she shouldn’t come to harm. Thane was not careless with his tools, especially not the ones provided to him by the great god Kolyat, and if this girl could tame the beasts she deserved to be treated with respect. “Have no fear for her.” he said in reply, “I will keep watch over her myself.”<br/><br/>He glanced at the stones and twigs on the table, but they held no meaning for him. To Thane, the gods did not speak through stones and twigs but through the visions granted by the elixir of snake venom that was taught to the first among Kolyat’s faithful. Still, he could hear the truth in her words and he remembered watching the officer up on the wall. Capturing her alive would likely be difficult, but god was speaking to him even now and he would heed that consul. Her warning about what the god would view as “survivable harm” is the only thing that he ignored. It had occurred to him that he might be being groomed as a divine martyr, but so what if he was? Surely that only meant that the god planned to reward him in the afterlife for his service, and that Thane could proceed without fear. “You have been a kind host.” he said to the woman as she retreated to the back of her home. He then turned to the girl and beckoned her to follow and began to march back towards his camp.<br/><br/>“If you would be so kind as to give me your name I would appreciate it. Forcing me to call you ‘Girl’ all day would disrespect us both.” he said to the young woman that had been sent to aid him. Thane’s tone was friendly but impersonal, he knew how to turn on the charm when he needed to, but he decided that this woman was best treated like anyone of importance outside the church. Not an equal, not exactly, but deserving of respect.