[ It gets about as much reaction as Shadow Milk expects: Truthless rolls his eyes and keeps walking. With a hard tsk. ]

There was merely no point in me leaving.

[ Because he can't say he was a prisoner. He wasn't. He stayed on his own. Why leave?

There is the faintest of maybe a ghost of a hint of a smile. Then his eyes narrow a little. ]

Do not. Several gave up their lives for that.

[ And the question makes him remember before he can stop himself. It's not his memory, it's Pure Vanillas. A hot summer on the beach, half a year ago, and dream tainted. A touch both intimate and cruel, fire in his throat, blood and pain as a girl he adopted as a daughter choked until he cried the demons name.

Truthless sounds bitter, his voice laced with anger. ]

Far less than it wished, but far more than I wanted...