He's polite, if nothing else. And there's something about the way he holds himself. Something heavy. Well-meaning, but heavy. She can note that, even as she gives him a polite curve of a smile and takes the offered seat next to him and folds her hands into the lap of her skirts.

"I wasn't," Marian said, with an easy frankness. Her home world wasn't stolen from her this time. She closed that door in blood, and it remained edged in ash, like it had burned that way to the wall of Milliways, to remind her some choices -- like living, and dying -- could not be unmade. Nor could they be kept without a heavy price.

But at the very least, and sometimes it did seem the very least, that had been her choice and no others.

"But I do understand what you mean. It can be very hard on people the first time that happens."