Essek directs Verin to the chair offered earlier and retrieves a comb from the bedside table. It's been...at least a decade, perhaps, since he's done this for his brother, but not so long since he had begun to do it for someone else, recently. He combs gently through clean hair - longer than he last remembers, and begins working in a few braids as Verin talks. The style is perhaps on he hasn't worn for a while, and Essek's skills are limited, but he manages something clean and elegant.

At the mention of their mother, his hands still. His jaw clenches, quiet for a long moment, before he finishes tying off the last braid.

Once his brother's lack of ambition might have grated. He is a skilled warrior, and could be improving on his skills if he so chose. With Essek's prowess in Dunamancy, they could have potentially developed new things together that would make Echo Knights an even greater force to be reckoned with. But Verin had no patience for study or interest in it beyond what he already has.

Now, Essek thinks, that is for the best. Verin may not have great ambitions, but he is not complacent. Not like their father had been. Complacent, hot tempered, and foolish.

"It is easy for us to disappoint our mother," he says finally, clipped. "The war is at a standstill for now anyway, and no prestige to be won." For a while, at least. "Why should you rush to the end of your first life just to appease her?"