Slade watched his niece with a critical eye as she withdrew. He allowed it to happen, wondering if perhaps it was a delayed onset reaction to her first kill or perhaps it was coming to face to face with her lack of empathy that was the shock. He had seen both happen before.

“To camp then” He would agree, but rather then shadow her as he had before he would walk along side her, a step behind at most. The training portion of the day was over after all, no need to stand back and observe. He would answer her questions, the berries were fine and he would point out how to tell which was which. Would tell a few of the simpler jobs he had in forest locations, though he focused more on tactical applications or work arounds more than the jobs themselves.

But for the most part he left her to her silence, willfully filling the silence with simple dialogues and anecdotes.  Some people just needed time to process. He got that, he couldn’t say he understood what it was like, but he did understand that some people did.

It wouldn’t be until after they got back to camp that he would bring it up. He had seen her nail-biting habit enough to know that she wasn’t dealing with this very well.

“Want to talk about what it is you have on your mind?” He would ask sitting in off to the side in one of the chairs set up. Not the comforting opening, but it was very likely that the up coming conversation wasn’t one he would be able to fully understand and help with. Assuming, of course, that it was connected to death dealing and the emotional ramifications of such.