Nate shrugged off the sympathy compulsively, Eh, I'm prettier as a wolf. It happens to all of us, sooner or later. Lip tilted, Well, maybe not this part. But still.

Then a chuckle, Mithwyth's much better equipped to teach you wolf business than me, I won't be too proud to admit it. But uh... haven't told her I used to be a man. Haven't found a natural way to bring that up, yet. Not sure there is one...

And a twist of his mouth, I might try asserting myself to the rest of 'em like you suggested, if I wasn't pretty sure I'd be the one on my back. Something in me doesn't bend well to the idea.

Hands grabbing, holding him down in the cold, strangling him in the dark, kicking, beating, forcing him to be less than. It spurred a wave of nausea that he swallowed back subtly.

No, Nate didn't really want to talk about himself.

He had mixed feelings on the church. Raised under a Catholic father who thought that a leather belt and a leather Bible were interchangeable, Nate didn't like to speak ill of a man who had no doubt done the best he could. But it was hard not to wonder about the risk of hypocrisy in prayers for mercy, when they folded around that violent strip instead of a rosary.

Nate hadn't confused his father for God since he was seven years old... but what he'd seen of Christians making manifest their destiny had made it harder to pray the last few years.

He wished he knew more about his mother's beliefs, the ones she'd abandoned when she converted. But the legends of the Cherokee were somehow more dangerous than those of the Greeks and Romans, and had been forbidden in the house. The pieces Nate had were scattered and incomplete.

Didn't sound like this fella's were, though. Nate tilted his head, ears pricked, If you don't mind me asking, friend... who are your people?