What has been the price of his survival, Ned wonders. There are all kinds of costs. Costs for others - the lives of the people and the animals and even the plants that he'd killed over the years - and costs for himself. All those measures, for all those years, keeping himself anonymous, keeping himself going, even at the bleakest times. Erik makes all that sound noble, instead of pathetic. As if there were something real and tangible he was struggling against, something valid and comprehensible and recognized.

He can't meet Erik's eyes for more than a few seconds, but Ned acknowledges his words with an almost imperceptible shrug. It's easier than nodding, easier than an explicit indication of his agreement.

Then Erik is making his offer - obliquely, but unmistakably. At another point in his life, Ned would have refused outright, without even considering. He has already hurt too many people; he doesn't need to learn how to do it in a new way. Sure, he'd spent most of his early years at boarding school getting his ass kicked, but that had stopped once he was suddenly a foot taller than all the other boys.

Since he's arrived here, though, he's been in more than one situation when, as Erik puts it, 'a trick or two' might have been useful. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea, to learn. Not that he ever intended to use the skills he might pick up. He trusts Erik when he says that just knowing he knows them would be helpful. It also occurs to him that it would be good to know how to fight, now that he has people he'd be willing to fight for, if they couldn't fight for themselves. Friends. Loved ones.

"Thanks. Um, I'll... let me think about it?"