Sleepy Fox Hollow all i can do when the plans break down is stay on my feet

Kallik had come to Paleo, returned from wherever he had gone, to put @Siku through a wringer of emotions he neither asked for nor was equipped to handle. Mahler had informed Wylla of this, so she had given the boy space in the aftermath, but now she cantered over the deep snow of the vale under a glaring sky full of flurries in search of him.

There was an ember of anger banked down behind her breast, but it was not for Siku that it burned. The boy had done nothing wrong by seeking shelter with wolves whose lifestyle, while hard in its own way, was nothing like that of a soldier. The same soldiers who broke apart his family, no less. No. She was angry at the circumstances that had turned life to misery for that young man.

Wylla wanted him to know he would never be forced back there if that was not what he wished.

he retreated from all.

which was not to say he neglected lessons or did nothing more for paleo, but he favored the silent tasks. where once he had shadowed wylla, he found it better to go out around the edge of paleo once her trail had started to stale. he listened to hunting lessons from afar and often times left early to go test his skills in the snow.

he also made sure that he never took his emotions out on paleo. emmerich and mahler had been there for him that day. wylla had been there for him when he had first arrived. now that trio felt more like family than the man who had come to turn his world upside down.

so he mustered up enough social stamina to greet wylla when he spotted her coming.

hi. he chirped, a bit tired in tone and smile. did i miss lessons?

Siku materialized out of the snowblown scenery like a sudden apparition, causing Wylla to come to an equally sudden stop. The only things that made him stand out from the snow were the peppered hairs upon his face and back and his two-toned eyes, and both of those had disappeared behind a screen of flakes. His question was understandable given the purposeful stride with which she'd approached him. It made her dark ears switch back apologetically.

No, nothing like that, said Wylla, tipping her head gently to the side and bidding him to, walk with me?

She went in silence for a few beats, giving him space to feel more at ease, then said, you will never be sent out of Paleo if that is not what you wish. Not for anyone. Not for anything.

he did not have to be asked twice. especially when there was a gentle edge of relief to know he had not missed something.

it also, admittedly, it felt a bit like a safety blanket to walk alongside somebody else. that ease of camaraderie. he never had to second guess his path or direction when it was wylla or mahler who led him. even emmerich, but ah, she wanted to talk still.

which was fine! fair! truly!

only he felt an awkward shifting of his lips and ears at her words.

i...i think it's neat, when mahler or emmerich want to show me something somewhere. he started with as he swallowed the lump of acid in his throat. but i don't think i wanna do a long trip. off the mountain or anything. for anyone.

he knew that would not make him less! wylla had brought it up first! yet still he wondered if disappointment might still be found in his words.

Then you won't have to, said Wylla, doing her level best to soften her features for Siku. It didn't come naturally to her. She was much more the kind of wolf to tell someone to get over it and stop moping around, as her mother would have told her, but Siku had been through a lot. She had seen in other cubs from years past how this approach was not always the best.

Her relationship with Tiercel had deteriorated over such a thing. Siku was not her flesh and blood, and like Astraeus, she would never consider him family in that way, but she cared for the adolescent more than most wolves. Stag's name floated unbidden into her mind and she shoved it away.

He was a little like Stag, at that.

You are safe here, Siku, she told him. I promise. I know your father showing up was a surprise, but do know he will not be allowed to return here unless it is your wish for him to do so.

he sucked in a deep breath suddenly. as if wylla had simply removed a weight from his chest in such a simple response. lackadaisical and nonchalant. a good pillar of rationality where siku was made of nothing but budding nerves.

only he felt the tremble of his own legs in movement as she brought up his father. could he really be called that? any giant white fur wolf who knew his name might as well have tried to take the spot. what better would siku know?

he's not even really...like a father. he had seen the way mahler interacted with emmerich. the relations of the family members here. i don't want him here. ever. he doesn't even have a — he willed himself to not cry in front of wylla. he figured everybody had had enough of his dramatics after the border.

he has no right. to anything with me.

the breaking of a boy into something new.

Even for Wylla, who could be callous at the best of times and downright heartless at the worst, it was hard to watch Siku grapple with his emotions. One might say she had grown a little sentimental with aging, but the truth went much deeper. Had this been Astraeus or another youth, she likely would not have felt the same.

But Siku's similarity to Stag opened Wylla's heart a little more, and his similarity to herself did her in.

Then he will not come back, she vowed. She liked Kallik well enough, but Paleo's young charge came first, and she couldn't help the way her opinion of him fractured to know how he had hurt his son. My father left my mother. He left before I was born, the spineless bastard.

I never knew him, and I'm glad of that. I wanted nothing to do with him, and still don't. Had she even shared this with Mahler? Wylla couldn't remember if it had ever come up. She hardly ever thought of her father. Worms had a more significant role in her life than Tachyon ever had. I'm with you, kid. One hundred percent.