[ ...Right. That. Nico hasn't asked about it, and so Aventurine surely saw no reason to volunteer information about it. Idly, his fingers lift to the mark on his neck, over the symbols that will remain burned into his skin forever.

...Okay. ]

...It doesn't come with a happy story, I'm afraid. [ But then again, few things in his life do. ] It's a number. A brand I earned after my people were gone, and I was...sold, by the men who found me.