I WAS TOLD SO I BELIEVED / val

[WANDERER]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]As soon as she speaks again, Val himself is trying not to apologize. Some of his tension leaves with an unsteady exhale, golden eyes drifting closed for just a second. It wasn't even that her words gave away any sort of motivation. Whether she was here to kill him or hug him, she'd softly asked where he was. Everything got to him more than he wanted to, through all the speeches about professionalism his dad gave him and he gave himself. His tongue clicks against the back of his teeth as he calms down again. Though her words alone do little to soothe the bitterness he feels and will continue to feel, his expression softens. Like he'd said, he's not unsympathetic. But he's not — something, he doesn't know yet. "There's a difference between taking care of each other and hurting everyone else." It's easy to stop trusting the world, to hate all of them. Val's at the edge of that now and unsure if he can reel himself back in, but he's trying. It could be hypocritical of him to ask anyone else to do what he so clearly struggles with, but his failures are his own.

There's been a lot of that lately. Hypocritical mistakes and inexcusable selfishness. He's pretty sure it would just be best for him to stop talking about what's right or wrong in this world. They're all gonna die anyway, right? The dog swallows down the rest of what's on his mind and smiles, for all that something so unsure could be worth. "But I get it. No hard feelings. Just make sure the kid's alright, yeah?" Pip hasn't fully left his mind, and he doubts that the young canine ever will, but... not many people did. Hell, he still worries about Amata. "And for whatever it matters — sorry for what happened to you." It wasn't his doing and he won't feel guilty for it, but at the end of the day their issues at the border came down to a miscommunication, she just didn't deserve to be dragged back through those memories, whatever they were.

After a few more seconds of quiet fiddling to collect his thoughts, his satchel is better arranged again. His face has softened with thought. Though he's still covered in dirt and now his cheek is a little bit scorched (he tries not to think about who took the brunt of that), slowly relaxing shoulders gives the shepherd a more open appearance. "Thanks for the offer, but 'm not gonna ask you to put yourself in danger like that. We'll figure it out." That's a lie, it's already been almost a month with him there trying to think that through. Butch's been there longer. Val chews on his tongue and stares at his paws, torn between rescinding his denial and just heading off before he said something he'd regret. "'Sides, 'all it takes are two roaming ears for your plans to go out the window'," he quotes Feliks bitterly, not quite meaning to say that he doesn't trust her, but with the way everyone had talked about him, well... trust refused goes both ways, at least for the moment.

"I'm Val, though. You don't have to call me sir." She didn't seem too much younger than him, anyway. Or, rather, he didn't feel old enough to be "sir".