silver is the grip on the helping hand

But she does not intend to refuse him, even now. "I can ask him, yes. It may wait until after the Thing. Until after you are freed. That is when he will be most amicable, I think. But--" And here, she pauses, her paw drawing across the snow. "I had not... intended to ask you. But how did he come to claim you, if he took you himself?" She had a bit of an idea, because Strai was surly now, and she could only imagine how the whelp had been when he was even younger, and even more afraid.

"I know it may be shameful. But if I know, I can present it to him differently-- the you of then, versus the you of now-- the you that leapt atop a reindeer and dug his claws in." It is said carefully, as she doesn't want to upset him. She hopes-- hopes that he understands.