[Claude was beginning to loosen up. Excellent. Byleth paused his kneading to slide his hands down lower, pressing his thumbs on either side of Claude's spine again and running them up and down slowly.]

I suppose that makes some sort of sense.

[And thinking on it, Byleth's Crest Stone likely worked constantly too, as his pulse was consistently regular, albeit far slower than a normal human's. Though how exactly it functioned, Byleth had no idea. He knew what a heart looked like, and understood the mechanism behind it: it squeezed and forced the blood out so fast it could rush around the entire body within a second and a bit. A Crest Stone was... well, stone-like. It didn't squeeze. So how did it do it...?

It was a question Byleth likely will never get an answer too - not unless he consented to someone vivisecting him which, well, he wasn't that curious. As always when it came to the inhuman parts of his biology, he simply set the curiosity aside, resigned to ignorance.]

In any case, are you feeling better? There's less tension in your back and shoulders now.