"Because I chose not to cling to my rage," he replies cryptically, easily at that. Truthfully the rest...he doesn't know. He expected his fellows to tear him apart, if anything.

Maybe they have...

The herd doesn't move- he knows he won't be struck, and he watches the pair with narrowed eyes, studying the cobra in particular. It doesn't Act like he would expect of the thing he's associating to it. Not quite at least.

"...After we met, I took you for a year. One year of travel, from end to end of the nile," he ultimately announces, his head bowed. "...And to keep you from the fate that would be yours, convinced you to play a game."

Hide and seek, he told them.

The village was offlimits.

(But he forgot the passage he'd known as a child...)

"...It had been my hope...that despite the misery, you would know there was still something to live for... The tragedy of our village would only compound on itself. Darkness begetting more darkness, a cursed priest forcing his kin to suffer for his crimes..." That much he remembers. A voice in the desert, presenting staff, presenting cloak...

Presenting a name...

"There was already enough pain, even before it happened. Pain that wouldn't be helped by things like this."