He did not know, not truly, how to stop those tears that spilled down her cheeks or those soft sobs that shook her frame. The woman trying, even now, to shield those tears from her children though whether because she feared the children seeing her or because she feared waking them he hardly knew. Frost content to simply let her cry. After all, perhaps he knew little of these....deeper emotions, yet he had learned young enough that the cure for tears was often to simply let them fall until there were none left to cry. The stallion assured he had lost his own long ago. Frost unable to remember the last time he had even felt his eyes threaten to mist over. He'd have been a child. His head shaking softly in some effort to discard those thoughts that had no need or place within his mind. The man hardly caring to consider them as his attention shifted to Nadya alone. Frost making some effort to offer her a different outlook on that situation, the stallion hardly defending Tetradore's dismissal of his very blood- rather, he simply made some effort to offer Nadya an explanation in turn. Something that might give her purpose or reason to understand what Frost had long since suspected of the role of her children in that family pack. Did Tobias even truly see them as his children? Did the fool of a man have any idea what they were? Frost fully suspected he did not. Nadya doomed to fight a losing battle from the beginning even if she had not seen it. How blind that blessing of blood could make one. How unwilling most were to cast family aside under some belief they needed it.

It was unfortunate that her own ties to that family had been severed in the fashion they had, even if Frost had long suspected it. This a discovery Nadya had needed to make alone and one he held little intention of involving himself in beyond offering her that shirt to cry into when those truths of the world feel upon her. Perhaps he was more cynical then he believed and yet he had long since suspected those frayed edged between Nadya and her brother would eventually break- even without his own assistance or that of the children. Perhaps they had been siblings- once- but the world had a truly unique way of changing people. Nadya seeking from her brother what he would or could not give any longer. The stallion aware off his own perhaps bitter view of such a thing and yet- the world had taught him that lesson too. He had simply not anticipated how Nadya's distress would....effect him in turn. No part of the man willing to see her cry. That note of care seeming to afflict his voice, chasing away that usual chill it held.

"I am sorry your family cannot be as you desired it, Naja. Family is given, but it can be chosen too."

He offered simply. Those words as true as he knew them to be. After all, he had grown up in a place that saw children removed from their mothers within those early teens, many of them forming families of their own and amongst themselves in response. Those bonds, sometimes, as strong as any between true siblings had ever been. Frost entirely determined to at least attempt to provide his girlfriend and her children the very thing he other pack had lacked. She hardly need subject herself, or them, to that distress any longer. That sudden mention of Tetradore's desiring to meet with him seeing his gaze turned toward her once more, those previous thoughts all but cast aside. A meeting with him? What on earth Tetradore wanted he hardly knew. Those past arguments forgotten and passed to his own mind. It was as Nadya had said. Meetings were rarely desired between two beings whom held no true intention of spending further time with one another. His own interest decidedly piqued even despite the oddness of it. Frost entirely suspecting it would hardly have mattered if he chose not to speak to Tetradore- that boy would find him all the same. Frost further considering just those words before offering them. Nadya's concern not at all invalid. She was a clever woman and always had been and yet he hardly...anticipated some sort of war from the panther a second time. Frost making an effort to reassure her now.

That comment that he had never broken his word before saw that faint simper find his lips, one hand reaching out to gently tilt her chin upward and steal that singular kiss from her in some effort to only further that reassurance. Nadya leaning against his shoulder in that almost affectionate moment before she spoke of those things she could protect. His gaze following her own then to rest on those sleeping children. It was almost bizarre, truly, how quickly a woman's priorities changed once she had children off her own. The very world shifting to revolve around them and yet he supposed he hardly blamed her in any sense, even if a part of him had long since become aware even he would always come second to them. That request to help her carry them upstairs seeing the man shift at last. Frost waiting for Nadya to finish lifting her son before he made an effort to gather up Isabella. The equine, at least, no longer fearing he would break them with every touch even if he still felt...awkward around them. Frost never quite sure exactly how to approach them.

It was easy enough to follow Nadya up those stairs, Frost gently laying the little girl down in her bed before reaching for those covers, the man almost awkwardly making some effort to achieve this....tucking-in business Nadya seemed far more masterful at. Frost content to give up the moment she came to his side and let her fix it. That sudden question seeing both eyes lift slightly somewhere beneath that wild hair. Frost silent for a moment before the equine shifted slightly, the man coming to stand behind her then in an unusually affectionate gesture, his arms wrapping about her waist as his head rest on her shoulder. His eyes remaining on that child as she slept.

"No. I don't think so. They are too young to remember any of it and too young to have formed any real bond with their Uncle or Father. They cannot miss what they do not remember. Believe me, I know. Their thoughts do not linger on your Brother or Tobias the way they linger on you. Put your attention instead into giving them good memories to remember of you. If they ask about their Father later, then you can explain, when their old enough."

How anyone 'explained' Tobias he hardly knew. Frost assured that explanation might need to be adjusted for the children's age and yet, he supposed it would be something to be worked out. Frost assured the children would hardly remember that birth family, not by the time they started school in the very least. If they had a mind to ask, later, then so be it. The equine far more determined to worry about it then- rather then now.

f r o s t
we built this city on broken glass