In another time and place, Pavel would have closed the distance between them already, placed a warm, gentle hand atop the stranger's own to soothe the panic, and offered a few encouraging, no less warm words that, if nothing else, might have served to put his mind at ease.
He would have pulled at his own divine light, used it to guide him back as he had done time and time again throughout the years.
Now, it is almost—almost, for he can never truly be counted out, not until he no longer draws breath—all he can do to watch and summon his own voice from where it has retreated deep within him to lay bare the harsh reality that he has found himself thrust into.
Pavel, too, is lost despite all he tries to convince himself otherwise.
If he closes his eyes, he may be able to trick his own mind into thinking this is nothing more than a conversation with a friend—something he is rapidly starting to realise he has sorely missed.
Maybe this he can get used to once again. The sound of his own voice in conversation.
Maybe he has longed for it all this time.
Pavel stands, raising his palms up and out toward the stranger to show he means him no harm, and chances a few slow steps forward, close enough to let what meagre light there is just outside those bars spill across his face.
Then, he sits, maintaining a respectable enough distance between them.
He reminds me of me when I was first brought here.
He opens his mouth to speak, only to pause before he can force the first sound out of his throat. His mind latches onto those words—I was helping those with powers escape—replaying them over and over again on a constant loop as his eyes widen.
For the first time in what feels like an eternity, something burns in his chest.
"You were?" The words are almost indecipherable, clawing at his throat as they slip out, but they're charged with raw emotion and Pavel can't help himself as more come. "Why would you do this? How did you know? Did any of them manage to escape?"
If only they did not catch you!
Selfishly, he laments a fate denied to him.
He shakes his head and the thoughts with it. Thinking about that will do nothing for him now. He had said something else, something important—
—he denies he has powers, but he is here—
and Pavel presses his lips together in a tight line as realisation sinks in. "You did not know, did you? Y—" He clears his throat, unused to such prolonged conversation.
"They had the"—when the word doesn't come, Pavel mentally curses himself, drawing a vague crystal-like shape in the air with his fingers—"this. They held it over you and it glowed, yes? It measures magical ability. It does not make mistakes."
This is not the way he should have found out.
He really should stop talking, but the floodgates have been opened and Pavel is neither certain that he can nor that he wants to.
"Where, ah—where is a good question." And one he does not have the full answer to. "Why is easier. The why is because we were unlucky enough to have been chosen"—he nearly coughs trying to pour as much anger and venom into that single word as he can—"to entertain."
