Duskfire Glacier like the river

Understood. He hummed softly. Aleks had never been one to pry into others affairs -- in fact he preferred to stay out of them -- but he knew the gesture was made with kindness. Something about being family. While he felt tethered to this group, he did not exactly see them as family. At least not yet. When almost everyone else was already bound blood it was hard for him to see himself as anything else other than and outsider.

I suppose the same as most. Left home. He shrugged slightly as he paused to mark a tree. Perhaps they were to be family but Aleks was not ready to divulge his past just yet. It was still a tender wound.