Blackbeak Bluff didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back

"What happened while we were gone?"

How was it possible that both so much and so little had happened all at once?  The days in which he'd spent waiting on nomi to come home had stretched on and on and on.  He had spent time with almost nobody, because there was always some small-to-significant fire to put out. Like,

when Bat left for a second time and didn't come back
when Mallaidh returned to Drageda
when Silkie had gone missing, and came back hurt

Like when his mother — natrona — had left, and taken his sister along, too.

His brow furrow, his lip thins, and when he opens his mouth he finds that he doesn't really have the words, especially if he wants to speak in the common tongue to make it easier for his friend.  How does he explain that their time away had been so boring and so hectic all in the same breath? Nothing happened until just before you came home.  Mama — he cuts himself off, wincing at this terrible slip of his tongue.  Wildfire left with Kiwi and Sequoia, too.  They are natrona now.  Everything else pales in comparison to this one incident.  But aside from this admission, he does not want to give them any more of his time.

There were casualties on both sides, he says a little slower than usual in Trigedasleng, not to mock his friend but to help him learn. I saw a guy bleeding from his throat.  Then, in the common tongue, That's how you would say that.

He shifts his weight uncomfortably.  It is shameful to know that Ephraim is Skayona, and Tux is still some dumb kru.  To know that he is nomi's second, and not one of her own blood.  He wants to be happy for his friend, but he still feels the anger and shame rise up like bile in his throat.  Skayona, he repeats, that's good.  He remembers what Vercingetorix said about the weather, then his hasty cover-up.  But if Ephraim is a skayona, he must not think it's stupid.  What do you think of those clouds, over there?  He motions at the dark thunderheads that line the horizon, approaching like some dangerous and irrevocable force.