There were. So many questions that every word Roland spoke inspired.

The question was which ones, and how many, Kubo would ask before the hand on the pommel of Roland's guns shifted towards more aggression.

Kubo shifted gently as he held his silence, only the corner of his eye on Roland's own movements. He lifted his shamisen strap over his head as lazily as he could, trying so hard to embody only the child pulling a beloved instrument into his hands for entertainment and comfort, and not to embody the young man drawing his own weapon. His pulse thudded in his ear.

"Um -" he kept his eye on the blackness beyond the gunslinger. "What's out there? In the darkness, beyond you? You keep looking."