Pavel nodded slowly, his lips forming a thin, serious, line. “I am glad to hear it, that Vasily is unharmed as well as you and Antonina.”

He was just about to ask after Sergei, his father’s long time—albeit long ago—best friend. But Nadejda answered before the words left his lips, and Pavel’s shoulders drooped visibly. Sergei had been almost like a second father to him, back before the rift that formed between Vasily and himself forced such association away. Pavel had spent many a day as a boy trying to keep up with, and learn from the two elders. He, Vasily, and Anna had often found themselves playing with the men’s woodworking tools, or marveling at the swiftness at which they bundled wheat and barley, or any other of the innumerable tasks that the two old friends could accomplish with speed and precision. It was an association that had brought the three children all the closer to one another, and it pained Pavel to know that a man he had held in such high esteem was gone from the world. 

Pavel shook his head in grim disbelief. “What could we have done to earn such attentions as these?” He whispered as much to himself as to Nadejda. 

When Nadejda came to her own conclusion about his father, Pavel looked into the woman’s eyes. His jaw set, and his fists curled and uncurled with an emotion that wasn’t anger, though not altogether dissimilar. After a short time, with Nadejda’s covered hand upon his cheek, Pavel nodded slightly.

“Thank you for your kindness, [i]Mamochka[/i],” Pavel said quietly, addressing Nadejda with the most tender word for ‘mother.’ “We have all lost today, and my loss is certainly no greater than any other.”

Finding more words failed Pavel as he lapsed into a distracted silence. Shifting with the cold, Pavel offered both Nadejda and Antonina another wilted smile before bowing his head in farewell.

“I shall see if I can lend assistance to anyone else inside the tavern. Goodnight, and thank you. Thank you both.”

With that, Pavel turned his cherry eyes towards the tavern, and moved to make his way inside. Pulling open the heavy door, and closing it behind him, Pavel was greeted with all the chaos he had predicted to exist from the terrible sounds that he had heard while outside. He let out a low whistle, perceptible only to his own ears, as he took in the sight of Adishi’s lifeblood reeling to deal with the tragedy that had befallen it. 

Such was the scene inside the tavern, that Pavel found himself almost unable to focus upon any one person. For several moments his vision swam with a blurred collage of human tragedy and emotion, until at last his mind alit upon the sight of Chiudka lending aid to an injured Oskar, with the shredded Oksana fuming upon weak knees close by. There were others nearby as well, though at first Pavel’s attention failed to truly grasp who they were. 

Without further thought, Pavel crossed over to where Chiudka was clucking over the injured twins. Bending over her shoulder, he spoke softly. “How can I help? I am no healer, but give me a task and I shall see it through.”

In truth, Pavel did not add, the distraction of a job would be as much of a gift to his own mind as it would be to anyone he ended up assisting.