He was surprised that she wanted to know: why was it a shame? He couldn't help but smirk to himself. Everybody was at least a little curious about their value, weren't they? "You have potential," he said with a small shrug, a stark comparison to her annoyance. Potential, he figured, was better than an assigned value. It meant a wolf could be anybody or anything, not just what others saw in them. Besides, it was true too. She did have potential, though Elohim wasn't sure he was the right wolf to know exactly what it was. From his perspective, at least, she had a gift for secrecy.

Elohim might have noticed her relaxing, but he did not make it obvious. After all, even a part of him is still suspicious of her, or at least suspicious of the circumstances surrounding her. When she asks why he helps, he takes a moment to consider it, careful to choose the right reaso and right words. After all, it would not do well to let her know that he hoped to conceal her well enough to keep Blackthorne from finding her, or that he hoped Underidge wouldn't either by extension of that.

"I don't think it would be fair for you to be punished simply for hiding on the island," he started, "and I'm not like to be punished simply for escorting a wolf born here through her birthplace." Though, he recognized, it did little to really answer the why. Then again, how could he explain the concept of fairness to a wolf like Natiya, or explain things in a way that did not sound as if he were looking to gain from her discovery? Nobody he knew, after all, had any good reason to know that Natiya was around. Blackthorne, yes, but her? Not so much. He barely knew what to do with the information, really.

Her relief at Blackthorne not being around, at least, was obvious enough that he could allow himself to grin in front of her, clearly amused by her relief. So, had they been wrong about her? Maybe she wasn't such a loyal follower, after all. In a way, Elohim had started to feel guilty for feeling a sense of comradery towards her. She was an active engager in Blackthorne's reign. She had sat alongside him, perhaps even helped him, take the territory, take Aster's children and hold them under tyranny. Was he really anything like that? Even if she held some part of her separate to Blackthorne, did that make her any less accountable? But how did a wolf punish somebody like her, anyway? Take her children, keep them away from her? Take her home? She had none of those things as far as Elohim was aware. He sighed and shook his head, clearly disatisfied with what he had been thinking.

"I'm glad I was wrong about you waiting for him, then," was all he could manage to say, sharing the very same headache as Natiya in that moment. It wasn't that she asked the questions so much as she simply breathed them into existence by simply being there.

So, perhaps he was a little agitated when he asked about her opinions on loyalty and his own, by extension. She poised herself defensively, but he did not respond in kind. Instead, he left himself somewhat open to her - if she was truly desperate to attack, then so be it.

"Your brother did not seem so loyal to his blood," he could not help but say, thinking not only of her but of Underidge and their mother too, who had undoubtedly not been the ones to set him up to what he had done in Iromar. "Nor his pack." His voice had fallen flatter then, his lips taut for a moment but not in anger, for his brows furrowed in thought, as if confused by the very idea that any of it had something to do with blood or loyalty. He thought of his cousin Eve, and those that had lived in Iromar before Blackthorne's assault, and those that had remained after. He hadn't been loyal to them, had he?

"You owe nothing to a wolf who left you to hide away on island, a wolf who would have let you fight off your own assailants," he said with a voice much more alive, perhaps even more tender. It was then that he shifted his weight to be more defensive, knowing well enough that it was the kind of opinion others didn't often like to hear. When he said it, he could practically feel the scar from Aster's teeth burn on his neck as a reminder not to play too close to fire. "If my blood, or my pack, were to betray or abandon me today, I would still have myself. That is who I owe loyalty to, non? And what I am supposed to do is live by whatever creed I choose for myself." Elohim felt like it wouldn't make any sense to her, but he hoped it at least struck something inside of her. It was frustrating to see somebody who was supposed to be such a threat simply recoil away from him in both her words and body. If she wasn't such a big threat, then what was she? Hadn't she decided that yet? He made a tch of unknowing and subdued annoyance, then sighed, breathing out his frustrations. It wasn't fair to feel frustrated, he had decided, because it was really his own questions and preconceived idea of her that had lead to it. Natiya was whoever Natiya was, even if he had expected her to be a crafty, snake-like wolf like her brother.