Feo looked out to the eerily silent woods, coated in a thick blanket of white. "The kids weren't real, were they?"

"Okay, okay, tier list, let's go down the line," Vic proposed.
"Well, is it a battle royale or is it brackets?" Feo asked. "It makes a difference. You know people would form alliances."

"What are they, then?" He wondered. "Echoes?"

"Sparrow last place self-report," Vic pointed. "She couldn't handle the emotional toll."
"I would deck a royal," Feo put in innocently, poking the straw from his drink into his mouth. "Done it before."
"No," Kyros cut in, "No. There's no debate here. I could take all of you together or separately, case closed. We know this."

"They definitely didn't. They were afraid of dying." He chose not to dwell too long on the heaviness of that statement.

"Listen," he said, tone slow and quiet. "I don't think we open the door for anyone after this."

"I, for one, am not looking for a round two." He said, then added, "... though we made a half-decent team in there. Sorry my stupid thing didn't work better."

"It was impressive," he corrected. "...Thanks. For basically saving my ass."

He wanted to ask her if she'd be okay. He'd posed the question instinctively while they were still in the throes of mortal danger, and she'd answered just as hurriedly, a quick assurance that she was surviving. But now, in the silence of the gently falling snow with their adrenaline all but faded, he could feel the emotional toll of the day sneaking up on them like a wild animal. He, for one, had already vowed not to sleep that night.

Something gave him pause. Maybe it was the likelihood of getting a non-response that came from a place of false, aloof self-assurance-- a defense mechanism, he knew, but one that stung in the face of an emotional bid for connection. Maybe it was already partially knowing the answer: she'd be okay, she had to be. As she had already pointed out, she'd suffered and survived comparable horrors. Would she wield his concern against him? Would she let him in?

He gently laid his hand atop hers on the edge of the porch instead. Words were complicated-- the eternal push and pull of the way they danced around each other nowadays was a headache and a half, a complex puzzle rife with mind games and guessing. But them sitting in the snow here, a pair of survivors, and his hand on hers-- it was simple.

He flinched back from her touch, swatting her hand away, "Hey."