The cold of winter had greeted Jewell this morning. Her leg, while healed was aching. She stood at the border, pathetically looking out. Her ears were back and she watched the east where others might be. It's what stopped her. Inside lirim she was safe, yet outside she had learned that others were mean and cruel. Yet here in lirim they had also brought in the man that had hurt her. Was she really safe from him? She needed to get her courage back but here she stood, an adult on the precipice of the pack lands and she couldn't bring herself to move out and find the one person that could bring it back she felt. Faite would know what to do and say. Yet she couldn't even bring herself to call out to her. Did she dare? What if another answered? What if Zell came and yelled more? She gave a defeated sigh and sat. She was a coward and now she didn't know who she could even go to. Going to rory would burden him, Leisha seemed nice but she was probably bound to find her an unwanted prescience. Torin was likely no help. Kairi was good for fun but she wasn't interested in fun right now.

She wanted to go out and explore but then again she didn't want to risk it either. It was a dilemma.

Torin hadn’t spent much time with any of his siblings since the challenge, just that one day past the borders with Kairi and he knew he probably should reconnect with them. If even he was feeling the ache of his mother’s loss then surely they were all feeling it moreso. And there was one sibling he had been neglecting more so than the others, they hadn’t really spent much time together since she had been brought into the fold but Torin still thought of her as his sister so when he spotted Jewell staring out past the pack lines he adjusted his course to finally take that first step in getting to know his adopted sister better. He drew up slowly behind her, huffing softly so as to alert her to his presence. He didn’t know the full extent of her ordeal but she knew that the bastard that had hurt her had been brought back with her and he assumed she might be more jumpy than usual so it was better to announce his approach than to silently sneak up on her as he was more apt to do. "Something on your mind?" He asked; his tone blunt but there was a softness to his dual toned gaze. He knew that things had been hard for her and he only wished there was something he could do to help, well actually he had an idea but he wanted to help her right here right now with whatever was troubling her right now. There’d be time to propose his idea later. "Silent Treatment" & Deep thoughts

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The huff was unexpected but she was slowly working past the point of jumping at each sound behind her. It still caused her to look back to make sure it wasn't him. When she saw Torin she gave him an apologetic smile. She knew no one wanted her near the borders now but here she sat at one. She knew him as one of Faite's children but had never spent time with him. Recently though Zell had made it clear, She was not Faite's daughter or his. So she was just the child Faite kept around because she felt bad for her.

She missed being with her real mother in that moment. That was where she had belonged and always been loved. What was she supposed to feel now? When had things become so dark for her? It was all Ariet's fault. She wanted to hurt him so bad, yet she was a week little thing. Torins question came and Jewell returned her eyes to the east. "Jewell not want be burden, Jewell just not know what do now. Lost courage, want Back. Want hurt Ariet, Jewell not like fight though. Need Faite back, Faite teach Jewell what do." Her french accent was thick but her English while choppy was better than when she had started. It didn't confuse her as much any way.She gave another defeated sigh. She knew faite had all the answers but finding her would be one thing. Actually telling her everything would be another.

She didn’t jump and he gave her a reassuring nod as she turned to look at him. Still as heavily accented words dropped from her lips he frowned and settled himself beside his adoptive sister. He sighed and shook his head. "You’re not a burden Jewell." He wondered if something had happened to convince her she was. He paused for a moment then and thought. The male Rory had brought home was certainly an issue and one he didn’t have a solution to. "That man will get what he deserves, trust me. None of us are going to let him get away with hurting you, you don’t need to do anything if you don’t want to." He softened his expression which he realized had pulled into a snarl. He sighed again and when he looked at her for a moment his expression was tinged with sadness though he was doing his very best to otherwise look impassive. "You miss her too, huh?" It was a rhetorical question, he could only imagine what it felt like for her to lose her mother figure and knowing she wasn’t related to any of Faite’s other children… she must have felt like an outsider… so maybe he could relate a bit. "Jewell I can’t pretend I know what to do… But if you’d like I can help you at least with what I can." He paused and looked away again. "I was actually hoping we could teach each other. I want to learn your tongue, I want to be able to speak to you in your language and in return I can help you keep improving your English." "Silent Treatment" & Deep thoughts

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He sat next to her and she relaxed as much as she could. He told her she wasn't a burden and she gave him a small smile. It was nice that he didn't think her a burden though she was convinced that she was. She couldn't fight, didn't want to fight. she just wanted to do like she always had with Faite. She just wanted to patrol borders and be carefree still. She couldn't though. Ariet had taken that from her, now she was always on edge and no one wanted her near a border.

When he snarled and spoke harshly her ears pinned back and she eyed him. She was trying to determine if it was something she did or said. But then he relaxed. That was confusing. Then he asked if she missed Faite too. The fact that it was rhetorical was lost on her. Her head stiffly nodded to answer him. She missed Faite everyday, though Rory was a good leader too. In fact she was still sure it was love she felt for Rory.

When he spoke again she listened and waited. He wanted to learn her tongue and she couldn't help but smile at that. She had always been an outsider because no one took the time to learn her language so it might give her something more to do. Maybe she could teach everyone eventually. But how did you teach someone? She looked up and smiled before giving him his first word in french. "That ciel." She looked back at him and smiled. "Torin call sky, Jewell call ciel." then she looked back down to the gras around them. "Herbe." She used her paw to touch the grass and indicate that this was its name. Torin call family, jewell call famille." She moved on with ease. Hopefully he got the jist.

The boy noted her smile and he returned a small reassuring smile of his own, that was the pup his mother had brought back. Though neither of them were pups anymore, in fact they were both fully fledged adults now. That was not a comforting thought for the Adravendi; he’d always figured he’d know what he was doing and where he was going once he was grown instead he was never sure he was doing the right and he wasn’t sure there was anyone he could really go to. For a moment he wished not for the first time that Faite was around to help. But that wasn’t helpful right now so he drove his melancholy into a back corner of his mind. Jewell pointed her nose upwards and Torin turned his gaze skyward as she spoke a word. Her word for sky, then she was moving onto the grass at their feet and finally she spoke the word for family. He nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, muttering under his breath. "See-el?" He attempted to repeat the sounds his sister had uttered, the first wasn’t so hard even if it was noticeably awkward. The second word would be harder. "Eh-re-buh." He tripped slightly over the R sound, finding he wasn’t sure how to replicate that strange rolling sound she’d made. He tried a few more times with no more success than the first. Finally he moved on to the last word. "Fah-me." He looked at her and gave her another small smile. "Famille." The word still didn’t sound the way it did when she spoke it, something about his own accent getting in the way of the sounds but it certainly felt closer than any of his other attempts. He’d need to practice. He thought for a moment. "The," he started. "You put the in front of single nouns. So: The Sky, The Grass and The Family." He gave a single chuckle. "You’ll almost never hear that last one because…" He frowned as he thought. "It’s actually pretty complicated, maybe we should just stick to you teaching me some words for now." "Silent Treatment" & Deep thoughts

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