He tilts his head, as though to say a little, yes - but it's a sort of maudlin that she's entitled to. In her place, Percy suspects he'd be a wreck, running himself ragged trying to figure out how to either make this place livable or (ideally) return his dead sibling home alive.

But that's neither here nor there right now. Vex moves on, and Percy's not about to drag her back to the fact of Vax's imminent death. Instead, he listens as she describes a holiday he's never heard of before now, one of togetherness around a dining table. It sounds like a harvest festival, and a pleasant one compared to the typical holidays of Rubilykskoye. He lets himself drift along on her words, until she raises the specter of a man.

"Oh?" He pauses with his glass halfway to his lips. The first thing he thinks, unfairly, is how well do you know him, just what does he know about you? "I don't think I've met him."