Maybe it was stupid to sit and watch the sunset in the cold, but the house was cramped and filled with people. Besides, Jochy could now actually gather warmth around himself again, and this time he had not set himself on fire. Progress.

Maybe it was just that this brought him back. Made him think a bit. Maybe miss a few more things. Maybe wonder what would happen in the future.

The past was a funny thing, Jochy mused as he tugged the blanket tighter around himself where he sat. You hated so much of it, and yet it was scary as hell to leave behind. Sometimes the shitty things were safer than the unknown.

Morgana approached him cautiously. "Jochy?" She paused an armslength away, feeling the warmth coming off his body. Considering that part of the reason she had come for him was because of the cold, she somehow still found this less than reassuring. "It's going to freeze tonight. You need to come back."

"In a little. It's quiet out here." He sounded a bit distant, still looking at the sun, now hardly more than colors across the sky. "Just need a bit of space sometimes, didn't wanna snap and bite someone's head off." There was a faint chuckle before he shrugged "Figuratively of course."

The silence was a little heaver next time, before he asked "Can I ask you something personal?"

"You may." She settled with her back against the barely-warm bake-oven. "Personal to you or personal to me?"

"Both actually."

He rubbed his hands a bit, just for the feeling of movement there. To do something. To do something instead of asking what he'd planned to ask.

"My father. You... know him. Knew him rather. Or when he wasn't him. You know." He knew he was babbling, but sometimes baby steps was all he could manage. "Is there... Is he... is he really something more than just a complete and utter evil bastard?"

He was actually asking, with that peculiar Jochy-like honestly he sometimes had when asking for the obvious.

Morgana had a feeling this would come. "Jochy. I did not know your father. I knew a little boy who was what your father once was." She swallowed. "And from what I knew of him, I should hope he's tenacious enough that your father could not shake him off so easily."

"Huh, so stubbornness runs in the family then. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me." Maybe he didn't sound exactly thrilled, but he was talking about it.

Which was pretty much a first. Normally it would either be screaming, bitching or whining about it.

"See... I... I ain't never gonna forgive him for what he did. But... I... I know I've kinda done some pretty unforgivable things too." He had to admit that, hell, he had admitted that to himself, he wouldn't be here otherwise. "And I know I've changed. I ain't... and I never wanna be that person again. I guess... what I'm wondering if is he's changed. If he's even capable of it. Or how much I'm gonna have to watch my back."

Morgana stayed quiet until he was finished. "I can't say if he's changed. One big thing rarely changes anyone but temporarily. Then they try to forget it. It hurts too much, having something pointed out about yourself that's unpleasant; people try to . . . to distance themselves from it, just to stop it hurting. It's like any other sort of hurt--if you put your hand on a hot stove, you only want to take it off again. Except in this case, I fear if he forgets, he might drop back into his old habits again."

"I'd say I'd kill him if that ever happens, but we both knows that kinda laughable." Maybe it was a grim joke, but he wasn't smiling.

"I just wish he'd go away. That's one thing I loved about this place, that it wasn't home. And now he's here, and some godlike creatures wants to recruit him. It's bloody crazy is what it is, but... I'm just tired of running."

He wasn't even sure he could anymore. He had a bit of magic back, but finding places to shift worlds? That was something else. That was mostly luck and Raven's Dale.

"That ain't the worst bit though..."

"If he can remember long enough to learn new habits, then I'd say he can be changed," she replied. "There's four great islands here, Jochy, and they say there's almost a thousand little ones. That's a thousand and three places you can be where he is not. You don't have to see him again and no one can make you."

She tipped her head at him, waiting for him to finish.