[Blinking at him, she studies him with a slowly growing hint of disbelief. It's not derisive, not in the slightest - rather, she is doubting her own understanding of his meaning. Somewhere between perplexed and attempting to laugh it off without actually laughing, she asks,]
Isn't that something friends do?
[And it's clear in her tone that, to her, that means that it isn't something that would be - should be? - offered to her. Maybe that troubled look, the shadow of which still lingers, tells half the story of why; she does not yet think of those around her, compatriots or not, as her friends.]
[(Or rather, she is not used to it being mutual, that willingness to aid those who are bothered by something. She would set to it in a heartbeat, herself, for a stranger or a friend or even an enemy, but for so long she has also viewed it as her own responsibility to refrain from asking for help, from burdening others with the feelings she doesn't have. So what she truly meant was this: Does that really apply to me, too?)]
no subject
Isn't that something friends do?
[And it's clear in her tone that, to her, that means that it isn't something that would be - should be? - offered to her. Maybe that troubled look, the shadow of which still lingers, tells half the story of why; she does not yet think of those around her, compatriots or not, as her friends.]
[(Or rather, she is not used to it being mutual, that willingness to aid those who are bothered by something. She would set to it in a heartbeat, herself, for a stranger or a friend or even an enemy, but for so long she has also viewed it as her own responsibility to refrain from asking for help, from burdening others with the feelings she doesn't have. So what she truly meant was this: Does that really apply to me, too?)]