Ouroboros Spine let me hear you sing

The story disturbed him. He couldn't think of many reasons a group of thugs would want a young girl around, and all the ones he could think of seemed to have not yet come to pass. And she was home now — that thought settled the stiff rise of his hackles, though he still felt a strong urge to run back to guarding the borders at once. He was, he thought, doing more good right where he was.

"I don't think you should be embarrassed," he said after a long moment. "You're judging yourself with some hard-won wisdom. Wisdom you didn't have when you were younger."

He offered her a wan smile.

"And I hate to tell you this, but you've got at least a few more months of dumb decisions ahead of you," he told her, "if we're goin' by my calendar. I think I didn't grow any real sense 'til I was halfway through my second year."

But, jokes aside, he could not bring his mind away from the bulk of her story.

"I think we're all real lucky to have you back," he said, serious once more. "But Lana, your family — " How should he put this? "What they're imagining is worse. And it gets worse every night they go to bed wondering. This is your story, and you can keep it to yourself if you want. But I think the wondering might be stoppin' up their throats even more than yours."