Skan grinds his beak thoughtfully. Private doubts flicker and die, expressed only in the lash of his tail, and the quick, furtive motion of pupil and ear-tuft. He thinks of Amberdrake, fleeing Ma'ar's regime across field and countryside. Thinks of the war's hungry maw, eating up people and land and history, blood on its beak. He thinks... no one gets anywhere alone, not truly. Only, he doesn't know anything of Viktor's circumstances.

Can't, really, know the world from hie view.

So, instead he says nothing for a long minute or two, and grinds his beak, and thinks. Viktor ties on the rope and Skan waits patiently, only eventually opening his mouth to say.

"And what is waiting for you, there that is so urgent? You can stay, you know. I'm sure they would let you."