If she had been afraid to touch him, he couldn't say that he could blame her for that. It wasn't so long enough everyone thought he was a demon, and he knows there's still some folk out there who do. Not that she does, necessarily, but her touches are tentative enough that he can guess at some uncertainty on her end. And as often as he's prone to being impatient at times, this time he does his best to not fidget, willing himself to stay still and let her have the time she needs to study the mark.

That still doesn't stop questions from bubbling up in his mind - wondering what the Beyond is, what she's feeling, why it isn't important. But she's asked a question first, and it's only fair that he answers that before jumping in with questions of his own.

"It aches, sometimes. More if...there was a group of us, in the Mire, and we used it to close one of those Rift things. After that I felt it for a few hours, I'd say. Well. That and I'll admit I was a maybe a wee bit tired afterwards."

More like exhausted, but it wasn't to the point where he felt like he was going to collapse, just to the point where he'd spent the day working. And that was something that didn't really bother him, something he showed in the faint shrug.

"Think the others might've felt the same way but we didn't really talk about it all that much. Wonder if it had anything to do with that Beyond stuff, whatever it is."