Stone Circle can't fight this feeling

since finding the bison, Keoni's belly had been full, and with an all-you-can-eat buffet just a short distance from where she slept, things were good. after gourging herself on one of the three yearlings, she had returned to thed den site, were she sad splayed out, currently gnawing thoughtfully on a bone she had borrowed from the bison. (he hardly needed it anymore, did he?) little did she know that she was groing to take after her mother in more ways then one; her build, slight and petit, was much like the woman's, and her coat was but a few shades lighter then her late mother's had been. 

her memories of the woman were, to put it simply, confusing. Witchhazel was all but forgotten, a memory that sometimes resurfaced. But her mother was a dim figure, one that was comfort and safety and warmth personified, like Valette, but...not. She paused her chewing to ponder her early memories, of the importance of the grey figure. Perhaps, she was simply a figment of the girl's imagination, like the prey she had pretened to hunt when she had been younger. But the woman seemed so much more...real.

she resumed her chewing, stuck in her muddle of her thoughts, though another conversation would likely steer her away from her current state of mind.
@Steady!

Steady headed back towards the den, a little ways behind Keoni, after their feast. He could feel the wounds on his face healing after his altercation with Althaia's murder, and they would be a permanent reminder of the sacrifices he made for his pack, however long a wolf might be with them. Althaia had quickly become one of their own, and to have her taken so brutally was not something Steady could just forget. And when he came face to face with her murderer, he knew she would not leave the territory alive. He had avenged Althaia, and in turn, Keoni and Nikai, as well. 

His thoughts on his son and daughter, he smiled gently when Keoni came into view, gnawing on a bone he figured she had brought back with her. He lowered his head to nuzzle her before settling down beside her, content to simply be with her in silence.

Her thoughts drifted, replaced by the distraction that was Steady settling beside her. She paused her chewing, but when he didn't say anything immidietly, stayed silent, dropping her head to her paws and looking to him out of the corner of her gaze. She noted the wounds that littered his face, remembering having noticed them during the whole cave-disaster, but feeling far to glum to ask of them. She thought to ask of them, but there was something decidedly...odd about his silence.

Thus she decided to simply lay her head across his shoulder in silence, content to simply have his prescence here, a distraction from her thoughts.  

His tail thumped as she laid her head on his shoulder. This was something he would never tire of, and never take for granted. His heart swell with the love he felt for his daughter, and he knew it to be true, no matter that she was not biologically his. While he thought of Althaia, and hoped he was doing right by her, the thought that Keoni wasn't his real daughter simply didn't enter his mind anymore. 

Enjoying the bone? he asked, glad that she had a full belly. Winter was hard on them all, but the storm had provided them a meal to help get them through it.

He spoke after a few moments, and she replied after a moment, "It's okay." It was neither geeat nor dismal, simply something to fiddle with as she was left with her thoughts. But they were stuffy, and boring, and made her feel something a kin to bittersweet. But while she was in the mood, she decided to broach a topic similar. 

"Why do people leave?" she asked, removing her head to look at her father, gaze a litle confused. Realizing that the question was a little generic, she asked again, thinking of a more recent example. "Amber left, didn't she? But why did she leave without Dawn and Sunny? And...and Chaska, and Mirabelle?" other, fainter memories of wolves come and gone crossed her mind along with the dim grey shadow that haunted her thoughts from time to time. She knew that Steady and Mirabelle had fought, Valette explaining that it was a misunderstanding. But why Chaska, and even more confusing, why Amber?

It seemed the bone wasn't all that it was put out to be, and was more of a boredom chaser than anything. He was caught off guard by her next question, though he figured he shouldn't have been. Keoni and Nikai were old enough to know what was going on, even if they weren't in on the situations themselves. They noticed now when the wolves that they seen all the time had now disappeared. 

He sighed, knowing he wouldn't skirt the question. Wolves can leave for various reasons, sometimes they want to, sometimes they have to, he began. I don't know why Amber left, truly. She seemed happy with Grayday and their children, and I don't know if something happened between the two that caused her to leave,  he explained. Keoni knew as much as he did when it came to Amber. 

The next pair, however, he knew all of. I didn't trust Mirabelle, sweetie, he said honestly. And she knew that, from that day that she took you without telling me. I thought... Well, I thought she was out to hurt you, and I reacted so. He wasn't sure how much Keoni really remembered about that, but he didn't want to ignore the possibility that she remembered it. About two weeks ago, a wolf came into the pack lands, uninvited. I attacked her, after realizing she had murdered... He wasn't sure just how deep to go into that part of the story, so he kept it brief. She murdered one of our family members. So, when she trespassed, I ended her life, fearing she had come back for another. Then, Mirabelle realized the wolf I killed was her mother. She didn't care the reason I had done it. She wanted to leave, and Chaska decided to go with her. He left out that he felt betrayed by Chaska, figuring she didn't need to hear that part of it.

She listened in silence, wondering what exactly had happened with Amber, and why she had left. Oddly, the thought of being left alone by someone that was so important to you, as she wondered about the smaller children, resonated and made her vaguely uncomfotable. She blinked when Steady uttered the word, murdered, and she was snapped out of her thoughts. A murderer? The thought had her more angry then afraid, especially as Steady continued. 

He had killed the murder, she realized as he continued, which made them both murderers, did it not? Murdering was something generally frowned upon, and she knew the act to be one of the worst a wolf could commit upon another, but what if it was in reason? Obviously troubled by the morals behind it all, her gaze grew cloudy as she continued to listen, wondering at the appearence of murders at their borders. 

Mirabelle's mother was both the murder and the murdered? She blinked at the thought, sudden thoughts of Valette murdered bring a pain to her chest. But she vanished the thoughts quickly, for Valette would never murder someone, and thus did not need to be murdered. Still, she was troubled, by this and the grey lady in her thoughts, but the tale of the murderer trumped that for the time being. She rather liked Chaska, for he had been the one to hunt with her one day, and the thought that he had left with the murderer's daughter had her worried. She did not speak, merely lay her head on her paws once more, dismal.

"Who did she murder?" she asked, for she remembered blurred family members of times past, for she considered the whole of the pack to be such to her. It was an  unnerving thought to think death had been that thing that had reduced them to nothing but murky memories in her mind. Perhaps a name would allow one of the murky faces to become a someone, but truly she was only looking for something to say in the face of Steady's tale.

Keoni was quiet throughout his story, and he wondered what was going through her head. Steady's moral compass didn't always point North, but he felt justified in what he had done. If Chaska would have at least asked the Alpha why he had done, Steady would have been happy to explain. But, he felt his ex-brother was blinded by love. But, had their bond been so thin as to break so easily? Why hadn't Steady seen that before?

He frowned, his eyes downcast as Keoni asked who the intruder had murdered. That day came flashing back all at once, and he wanted to save Keoni from the heartbreak he had felt. But, it was not his place to lie. So, instead, he took a deep breath. You were young when it happened, but this wolf spent a lot of time with you when she was here. You might remember taking a trip with her, you would have walked a lot and been really tired. But, then you might remember being snuggled up to her, kept safe and warm after that. 

He watched her for signs that she might remember such a wolf. After a few moments, he continued. Valette and I were not always your parents, he explained. Althaia, the wolf that was murdered, brought you, your brother, and a sister, here. She explained that she was running from something bad, and she needed refuge. I offered that to her. His words were spoken slowly, almost afraid that Keoni would not like what she heard next, and he was trying to put it off. A couple weeks later, that wolf, who was your Mother, was slain at my borders, and possibly your sister, too. Her body was never found, and I don't know where she is.  Remembering it all brought tears to his eyes, but he refused to shed them. I failed to protect them, he admitted. But, when the murderer returned, I feared she had come back for you and Nikai. I couldn't let her do that. He waited, breath held, for Keoni's reaction.

Steady spoke, and her stomach turned with nervousness, though he did not give a name immidiatly. He spoke of a woman, of safety and warmth, and though a few dim figures drifted to her mind, she knew quickly that was was none of them. "the grey lady?" she murmered, gaze turned to him. was that why the grey ghost that drifted through her thoughts and her dreams was no longer here? the figment of her imagination that had seemed like more? 

then his words hit her like a bomb, and then it was raining hurt, and there was an odd clenching in her chest. a name. a sister. dead, and gone. a sister she thought that she could perhaps remeber in the slightest, a figure that danced on the edge of her memories, taunting. the grey ghost was something much more clear, and as he spoke she clutched close to the forefront of her mind the only and few faded memories of the grey woman, the one she now had a name for. she did not feel the hurt that would have come with someone close to her today vanishing from her life, merely a dull keening at the knowledge that there ought to have been something that was not.

the peaceful, idleness of her world felt rocked, and all she could think to say then was "oh", the single syllable thin and wavering. though she did not know it now, there would come a relief with knowing that the missing, wavering shards of her world were put in their place, and that she knew now the whole story. but now, all the felt was hurt, and a crushing weight. and though it was feeble, a wavering spark when it first came to light, there was a spark. it was of anger, toward that that was bad and that had taken from her the mother and the sister that she never knew. 

and Steady had killed that that was bad. he had brought a kind of balance, she realized as her head lay limp on her paws and her gaze stared unseeingly into the distance. she realized in the moment of hurt the concept that she would come to find was called justice, though there was hardly time to dwell on it. instead, she buried her head in the fur of her father's shoulder, silent as she quaked, sorrow for the mother and the sister that never were. For even if blood did not tie them, she knew through all this that Steady was her father, and Valette her mother, as surely as she knew that Nikai was her brother and that the sky was blue.

Keoni guessed right at the female he was describing and he nodded his head to confirm that was, indeed, Althaia. His heart broke for her. He wanted desperately to spare her from all this, but he didn't think it right to lie to her. Maybe he could have put it off for a while, but the opportunity seemed to be here. Plus, he wanted her to know that the wolf that has trespassed, that might have been a threat to her life, would no longer be a concern.

She was quiet for the rest of his story, and he feared she might turn against him, as Odette had. Steady didn't feel like a monster. He felt like a father protecting his daughter; an Alpha protecting his pack. What was so wrong about that? It wasn't like he just randomly killed other wolves for the pleasure of it. And it wasn't a cannibal by choice, either. Zaria had been a necessity. The intruder.... Okay, maybe there was a bit of pleasure in that. 

When his story was complete, Keoni uttered only one word and then went quiet. Steady went still, afraid to move, afraid she would come out of her trance, afraid she would get up and run out of his life. He finally breathed when she buried her face into his shoulder. Steady turned his head to hug her. I'm so sorry, honey, he said softly.

Her father's words of comfort had her whimper softly, emotions a mess, a pressure in her chest clenching her heart. She leaned against him, inhaling the familiar scent of his fur, small beside her protecter and father as memories came to light, faded and confusing and yet that spoke distinctly f the grey woman, distinctly of Althaia. And though she would never come to know the woman as mother, there was a part of her the wondered and wished that she might have, even though her parents were so much to her. 

She was silent, simply her, her thoughts and Steady, and she would remain that way for a while, for she could not think to put words to her thoughts. Though, eventually, she would heal, as she always did, and realize that her parents, no matter who's blood ran through her veins, would forever be Valette and Steady.