Fox's Glade Cause we both need it to forget this fear

The chuckle, the grin - they are all hints. 

Some story waits behind his sorrowful eyes, this she knows, as certain as the story painted across her flesh for him to read. 

Liri's head turned of its own accord, her dark eyes searching him for some answer. 

Who hurt you so badly?

It wasn't her place to ask. No matter what emotions might be stirring on account of Sorin, no matter how familiar he seemed. 

The question distracts her, and she shifts slightly as if coming back to awareness. Her eyes dart away as if caught doing something she hadn't any right to be up to in the first place. 

"They were the oldest members of the tribe that took me in as a child. My mother passed birthing us and the Chieftain's litter hadn't survived the winter."

There's no harm in telling him. Lonely as her childhood was, as much as an outcast as she was, Liri was happy. There were no secrets in this tale. 

"The packs here are different. Elders were almost like Alphas there, their word was law. They commune with the spirits; they guide the people. They were very esteemed no matter what tribe you visited." 

"Nagka was...well, she was a bit eccentric, " Liri laughed softly, careful not to wake Siqsa. The sound seemed alien, the play of her muscles across her face foreign after her features had been held in solemnity for so long. 

"She took care of me, " her voice was soft now, the older woman had been the closest thing Liri had ever known as a mother. "Taught me the healing arts, taught me how to hunt."

"She stood up for me. Vouched for me. She fought for my right to be a member of the tribe, to be trained as a healer. She staked her status on it - defied people that had been her kin for life." 

"She was brave." 

There was something like longing in Liri's tones as the words spilled free, unable as she was to hinder their flow. How she wished she could be half as strong, half as brave as Nagka. If the wizened old healer could see her now. 

"What of Viggo? How did you meet him?" Her tones are more hesitant now, remembering his reaction to the last time she had asked about his past. The last thing she wanted was to make him shut down again, not when it seemed like she might get to glimpse what lay beneath the mask he had so carefully constructed.