Wren takes a breath. The pauldron continues its slow rebellion. "Did you know him?" she asks. "The man who wore this before me?" The brook_woman goes still in the particular way of someone who has decided to be still on purpose. Her gaze drops to the breastplate — not the sigil this time, but the scratches around it, the dent above the collar, things that carry stories she might recognize. "I knew him," she says at last. "Since he was not much older than you. Since before he ever carried that sigil." Something moves across her face that is not quite grief and not quite pride, but lives in that neighbourhood. "He told me: if anything happens, wait by the stream. He did not say how long." Her pale eyes return to Wren's face. "He also said nothing about sending a girl in his place. So." A pause, light as a held breath. "How did it come to be you?"