It is weird. [ Verim's voice is not unsympathetic and it is kind. A stabilizing sensation wraps around her. It's not enough to be called a 'touch', but it is stabilizing as he blunts the edges of raw emotion down to where it doesn't rock Piper off center. A little at a time, he let's that feeling return as she's able to digest it because the sudden severity of anger is the important part. ]

In this context, yes. [ His mental voice chuckles dimly.] You would not want the memory after Lady Fayura wove her web to bring all of you here.

[ He does give Piper a tiny taste of that moment. Fear. Terror. His Lady weak and vulnerable and the need that went to core of him and encompassed all that he was to keep her safe. That feeling too, Verim blunts down the harsh edges, but it leaves the impression that he would have done anything save Fayura. ]

This memory is many years before we had a Queen worth the caste in Draega. I was - [ He paused for a moment, considering what he'd learned of the Strangers thus far and the shorter lived races. ] - in my mid to late teens. I wouldn't meet Lady Fayura for close to another thirteen hundred years. The incident required little more than reminding both men that we all wanted a pear and if they wanted to keep them for themselves, they would have to go through me.