Ferrer gives her a Look of such dubiousness he has to be doing it deliberately. 

There doesn't seem to be much reason to do that...?

Ah, the look on Ferrer's face clarifies something of what's going on.

"Learned, are you implying you'd like to keep going?"

He's evidently got the right of it, from how defensive she looks.  "I could press on!  ...I don't want to," she admits after a beat, "but I could."

"I don't want you to either!  We could, if we had to, but it sounds like a bad idea and I don't think we have a good reason to risk it."

Khalida glances at Cambra, who's also giving her a Look, and, outnumbered, sinks back in her chair with a wave of surrender.  "Yes yes, you're right.  And the horses ought rest anyway."

Oh good.

"Yes, they should.  And I can't say I'm not glad of an evening indoors."

"I hate night patrols anyway,"  Cambra offers after a moment, "never quite know what you're stepping on.  One time Taberner twisted his ankle, just on a regular ordinary rock, 'cept he insisted something'd jumped out an' startled him an' kept the whole squad a quarter hour looking for it.  Would've prob'ly been a rabbit if it was real anyways."

"Probably.  And, rabbit or not, how was he expecting you to find it?"  He shakes his head. "But yes, the dark can get to you like that.  Nobody's best time."

He eats a few bites of his stew, still thinking through the earlier question, and looks at Khalida.  "I would go, to be clear, if you wanted to.  I know it's important to you to get back soon.  But more important to get back at all, and tired people in unfamiliar places make bad decisions."  She'd probably rather not think about it more, but it is important to him to be clear that he wouldn't refuse, if she insisted.

"I know."  Unhappy nod.  "I don't, truly, I just-"  Hate being the weakest in the party even though it's the natural state of wizards.  Wasn't even thinking about the hypothetical wounded back on the northern front that're the actual reason we're hurrying in the first place.  Would've gotten people hurt from stupid pride if I was really in charge instead of being a Politeness Barrier between the paladin and the Chelish soldiers that we didn't actually turn out to need.

He leans closer, forgetting his stew.  "I... what's wrong?"

"Nothing-  I-  you've been-"  acting like she's a Sarenrite, or another paladin, or anyone else unreasonably holy and she suddenly can't stand it- 

"I'm not Good."  She's managing to keep her voice down but it's trembling a tiny bit, and her hands are tight around her mug as she leans closer in return.  "Three months ago I doubt I was Neutral."

Their trestle table is next to the wall and the neighboring one happens to be unoccupied, but the mess is far from empty- the dinner rush seems to be just starting to trail off.  Ferrer glances around, gives Khalida a quiet assessing look, then jerks his chin at Cambra and brings his bowl over to the next table, directing an ambient glower outward at any Mendevians who might get the bright idea to sit in eavesdropping range of their cleric and whatever weird alignment fight she's decided to pick.

The younger man looks quite a bit more concerned about the argument, but nods after a moment and joins Ferrer in the human privacy screen.  (Not before giving Marcus a glare, over Khalida's head, that could not have been more communicative if he'd been brandishing a shovel and explaining that his baby sister had better have a nice time at the harvest festival.)

Marcus has clearly already failed to give his baby sister a nice time at the harvest festival, and he doesn't know what he did wrong!

'I'm sorry for whatever happened', he wants to say, but doesn't, because you shouldn't act like people's lives were that much of a mistake unless you're really very sure they think so.

"... Which one do you want to be?"

Whatever she was expecting him to say, it apparently wasn't that.  "What- I- does it matter?  I can't-"

"Of course it matters!  Other things matter too, and-- everything's complicated, and I don't know what's wrong, but-- for myself, I care much more about what you want and what you're trying to do than about what you've done before."

"Nothing's wrong- or Pharasma is wrong-"  she screws up her face and rubs a fist across her forehead, groping for words, "I'm put here, I wasn't choosing it?"

He looks at her searchingly, reaching for understanding and still not quite getting there.  "What is it you weren't choosing?"  Certainly Pharasma is wrong in some things, but he doesn't think that's the main trouble right now.

"The healing.  Anyone should have stayed, I'm not an asshole.  It doesn't matter as same as choosing to come here and start."

"I... don't think anyone would've stayed, no.  Of course it matters that it was an accident, but... sometimes an accident helps you become the person who would choose it next time."

"If that's who you want to be. You still haven't said."

"It's- I-"  He's so careful and so patient and so good and she wants to bite him-

"I earlier meant to come here at third?  I wanted to store a whole life of good deeds at once.  So I might go then to, to Absalom or such and build a tower and never think of it again."

That makes him laugh, suddenly.  "All right, I can see how that's not the ideal Good life."

And a gentler smile.  "But it's a fine life, still.  I don't think much would be wrong in the world, if everyone was that way."

"Don't laugh at me," she mutters, covering her face with both hands.  "Anyway I can't do that life now.  Not and, and- keep Nethys."