Eva's smile faltered a little, softening to sympathetic and she instinctively reached out with her whiskey-free hand to wrap her fingers around his. Though losing her mother as an adult was a hard blow to be dealt, she had at least had twenty years of of her mother's love and companionship. To not have that at all would have drastically altered who she was as a person.

It was a stark contrast to her own story, at least in the beginning, but there were far more similarities as he went on. Moving here and there, lacking a "home" per se, finding family in unexpected places. "And here you are, same as me. You survived everything thrown your way up until now." She raised the bottle in salute, took a sip and passed it back.

Unsure if it was the whiskey or the cold desert night, Eva shivered and pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders with her free hand. "We must have just missed one another at Ilvermorny. Could you imagine? I was such a pest, this little redhead running around the school yelling about magical creatures all of the time. I already knew more than half of the older students by then." She'd grown up with it after all!