Sequoia Coast born into cruelty and crooked form

It took a moment, but his features contorted to something akin to confusion at latter of her statements. He may not have been the most perceptive of individuals in existence, but there was something in her language that opened him up to that alienation. She did not embrace their culture—that much evident and true—but he felt the denial burn at him hotly. Normally such a thing would have invoked a stab of antagonism, but he could not grasp or fathom what gap there was between them.

“Why?” It was a genuine question, earnest at its core. He wondered at this difference now, believing there to be more to it than she revealed. “Mother not teach?” He went with the obvious choice there, though it very likely could have opened Pandora’s box right in front of him. Yet the inclination to probe was unavoidable on his part, as there were so few that he had encountered who even shared a drop of northern blood in them.