[ What did someone like him know about holding onto anything? He really shouldn't be special, tempted to echo it in the same sort of tongue-in-cheek cadence that Sampo utilises. Instead— ]

Now that I think about it, it's probably not that big of a deal when a whole world's so small compared to an entire galaxy. Isn't that one of the tactics in your playbook? Not pointing out the details someone might've overlooked? I'm going to have to backtrack and reconsider the scale here, you crook.

[ —he goes with something else entirely, smoothing out his discomfort with a gentle pinch to deflect. If only that was how it really worked, and they weren't, in truth, anchored to so many things beyond their own control. ]

… Say. [ … and this is where the illusion fractures, the word punctuated by an intentionally perceptible shift in tone. Despite the way his body relaxes into Sampo's touch by contrast, the arm around him drops to the mat beneath them. A bird on a wire, but only for as long as the gentle breeze holds steady and the pillars in which supports it endures, talons uncurled and susceptible to free fall. ] What do you plan to do after this?

[ More specifically, and to leave no shadow of doubt: ]

When we head back and when you have to face everyone else. Laying low isn't going to resolve anything by itself.