He snorted, before nodding in the direction the children had gone. "And do you honestly think I had ANY defenses up just now?"<br/><br/>He sighed, before leaning back against her. "I function, Ama. That is all I have ever been able to truthfully claim since I was sixteen. She is trying to skin a four hundred year old dragon, who is very much set in his ways and can easily and permanently erase her if she pushes him wrong. That is why I am so... against the way she is trying. A quarter of a thought, a millisecond of losing control, and someone around me is gone."