Octavius gaped at Katerina. Suddenly he saw her differently. She was strong, yes, but she was a victim. He pitied her. That is, he pitied her situation. He felt anger towards Fabian. Even a little towards Regan. She was his friend, but why had she done this to Katerina? He would be asking, no question about that.

"That's bullshit." Octavius said, and when he spoke the words he didn't say them with anger but with sorrow. His eyes searched hers, looking for her hurt. She didn't seem hurt. She seemed rather nonchalant. Octavius probably would have been crying while retelling this tale. That, or drunk and bitter. She was neither.

"I like to think you can tell if a person's a cheater by their track record, but I know that's not always the case." He said, slightly dejectedly. "If only Fabian had shown you what he was capable of prior to you marrying him. I guess that would be too convenient?" He chuckled mirthlessly.

He did. Wait...he did? Before she married him she was fully aware of his capacity to be a scoundrel and yet she married him anyway. She tied that into the importance of family, leaving Octavius confused. He might have asked clarifying questions, but she was clearly moving on, and he understood enough about her so far to know that he should, too.

"Of course." He said quickly, earnestly, because this was a truth to him, too. "Family is everything." He meant that with his whole heart. If only he knew the irony of his own words: this his very own family was not actually his own. That is, they were not biologically the one to which he belonged. But that secret had never been revealed to him, thus he pressed on, clueless to the circumstance of his birth. The heartbreak of what followed.

Octavius shrugged one shoulder and tipped his head towards it.

"Yeah, I guess. There isn't much to get used to. It's just the next thing until I'm sent on to the next thing, you know?" His eyes did a survey of the room before ending on her. "Or, I guess, until we are sent to the next thing." He smiled sheepishly, having forgotten what this new pairing meant for them both. A forced companion. He wasn't mad about it.

Octavius watched Kat for a quiet moment, wondering what she was thinking about. She seemed a tortured soul type who put on a tough face to keep sadness at bay. No, she was sincerely tough, but it still served to hide more. He'd seen glimpses of the more here and there. He could admire that. They were all hiding something, anyway, weren't they? Even if they didn't know it. Some were aware of themselves, and others were blissfully ignorant to what their subconscious didn't want them to remember. Octavius was surely the latter.

"I've got friends." He grinned, shrugging. "But I haven't seen any of them in years now, so I'm sure if I'm still what they want." He shrugged again, expressing a lack of concern, but of course he cared. He was a man who cared deeply about things.

Octavius smiled, appreciating the sentiment, but only shrugged his shoulder and let a lull settle into the conversation. He'd drank some but not as much as her. His eyes bounced between the glass that was delivered to her and her cheeks. She didn't seem to be a light weight, which was surprising considering her size. He wouldn't draw attention to it, of course.

After a quiet minute he gently invited,

"Tell me about your sister. The one you lost."

Octavius smiled with Kat as she spoke of her sister. When she ended, however, he swallowed hard to keep from gagging. Her insides...? It was gross and unusual.

"How..." his throat was dry, so he swallowed and tried again, "how do you know it wasn't an animal?" Didn't only animals do that sort of thing? His question implied he thought that much.

Octavius didn't say anything more, not wanting to offend Kat, even if she did smile as she said it. Her reasoning was...illogical. Her sister couldn't have been killed by an animal simply because she was a good fighter? What if the animal had descended upon her from the trees? She would not have had the time to speak an incantation. Even he, trained soldier as he was, would have a very difficult time fighting off a mountain lion. To think that someone had killed her and strewn her entrails across the ground just didn't make sense to him. That was inhuman.

About time for a subject change. He rapped his knuckled on the table, giving them a beat so the turn of the conversation wouldn't be insulting.

"Can I ask why you didn't just pair up with your husband?" Not exactly a lighter topic, but definitely something he'd been thinking about.