[His hands are otherwise occupied with working on the splinters of rib bone, picking out the cleanest breaks he can manage and laying them out, so he's unable to be coy the way one would expect him to be. He, for some reason, can multitask and talk out this emotional business, but why wouldn't he not be able to? He's been cautious and careful with who he deals with in an emotionally intimate way, and Sieglinde has more than earned her place among his confidantes. That it would become more is reasonable.

He adopts strays. He mentors people. He pretends to be aloof, but his heart is a lot bigger than it seems, burdened with all the things and people he can't fix. He is an unfit Avalokiteśvara and Sieglinde is another wanderer that has crossed his path, but she's so much like him, and yet so different.]

I think everyone you meet is just a little bit partial to you. It's just a part of you- you inspire people. [But that is not an answer, and she has always earned more than deflection.] But we're quite the same, you and I, and that's not something we can share with anyone else. And, more importantly, we both know how lonely it can be.