Wapun Meadow waiting in my room, and i lock the door

as ibis continued to invite the stranger back, terance felt a bit of agitation prick along his spine. it was bundled with fear, mostly, that ibis would probably find this girl again and not have the sense to turn around. he hated saying it, but seabreeze and elysium has raised her too naive. he pushed the thought away, realizing his nerves were making him sound cruel. she was his daughter, and he loved her as she came. but gods... he hoped she could hold her own should the time ever come.

when the strange crow didn’t turn back despite the call over, terance took a step back from ibis to offer her a little more space. his ears flicked, giving a gentle sigh of relief. should he ignore what just happened?? should he scold her? god, why was parenting so hard? i’m glad to see you, little bird,he repeated, expression softening again, you look older, i hope you’re having fun traveling.

When the dark girl did not respond, she felt disheartened. When the figure of the girl turned and fled quickly away, she was hurt - and without the ability to control herself after the immediate sting of the moment, Ibis turned and looked to her father. He seemed unaffected; his commentary went in one ear and out the other, though, while Ibis felt herself beginning to fume. It wasn't really her dad's fault that the girl had been non-verbal. It felt more like he had driven her new friend away, stupid as that might have sounded. He had been protecting her from a potentially dangerous trickster but Ibis did not see it that way.

She turned from where she had last sighted her friend and began to stalk off, limbs stiff, passing by Terance without a word - at first. His comment about having fun soured her a little bit more, made her frown, and she stopped to look at him again as if he had been the one antagonizing her. Having fun? Having fun?

The world shakes, the food is all but gone, mom is gone, and now you're here to what, chase away more of my friends? Fun. Go home, dad. Maybe she'd learned more from Mal than she thought. Her mouth ran, and with it burned the small hurt until it became a conflagration of emotion, directed erroneously at Terance - but well, he was used to his sweet airhead of a daughter being overly emotional, so maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked.

if he could've, terance might've learned into his arms and buried his head in his palms, massaging the bridge of his nose. he couldn't understand why he could never do anything right for his daughter, who seemed to hate him no matter how hard to tried. he couldn't fully wrap his head around the accusations that she threw at him -- the implication that it was his fault that she was out experiencing how fucking terrible the real world was. he'd asked her to stay, hadn't he? he instead started with just the present. that wasn't a friend, terance replied softly, brow furrowed as an apparent hurt spread across his face, she hurt you, you're bleeding. though he wasn't sure the reminder was enough to spin her out of the fuming pit she had crawled into. 

that the real world, ibis. if you're going to choose to run off and explore it, you have to be a big girl about it, he said, still hurt by the comments, i'm sorry about your mother. i don't know why the earthquakes are happening. not that any apology would ever be enough for her. terance was apologizing for things that weren't even his fault, and for saving her life. he stood still, not making any movement to leave. for gods sake... why did he have to leave her?? why couldn't she see how much he loved her?? how badly she was hurting him??

It was entirely unfair of her to blame him for so much, and really she didn't, she was just fuming and letting off steam in his direction - which again, wasn't fair, and later she'd reflect on that and understand just how unfair. In the moment she was an erupting volcano, bristling a little when he tried to counter what she was saying with logic and reason; she knew she should be nicer to him about most of it, but his previous words had really irked her, and the hurt she'd felt at the vanishing of her new friend was a tiny tipping point.

It isn't for you to decide! She shot his way, sounding every bit like the petulant child that she still was. Don't patronize me! She argued a beat later as he referenced being a big girl; how dare he infantalize her like that! She would've said more but she couldn't think of anything that would make sense in that moment, not until Terance mentioned her mother - almost like he knew she had vanished from Elysium. You knew mom was gone? When? I went home to look for her, for everyone, and the place was abandoned. Did she at least stop at the Hollow? Have you seen her, spoken to her?

Finally she was feeling the desperation again, that empty feeling in her chest, that gutted sensation which had overwhelmed her when she'd learned of Lily's death. This was different, it was like a homesickness, and Ibis knew somehow she'd never see her mother again - leaving her with Terance, who had long ago moved on from Seabreeze and the children he'd created with her.

i'm not patronizing you. was he? no -- he decided instantly, he definitely wasn't. if she couldn't handle him saving her life that was her problem. the fur along his shoulders fought to raise, but he kept it down. agitation was replacing the hurt that was so clear on his face. and as ibis suddenly began to interrogate him, like he had something to do with seabreeze's disappearance. bitterly, terance held back the accusation that seabreeze probably left on her own accord. just as she had left him. 

i didn't know your mother has gone. i haven't see her since the uh... holiday event, he replied, shaking his head as the questions ebbed away, his expression falling to something softer again, i figured you and your brother had gone back to see her, honestly. his ear flicked.

She was confused, suddenly. That didn't help her indignation or any of the other mixed emotions inside of her, but it sort-of tempered her too. She was slower to counter what he was saying; watching the way he looked at her, the tensing of his body, the slight prickle of his top coat - something she'd said had really gotten a rise out of him and Ibis didn't feel bad about it at all. It was the same feeling she had when fighting with Mal, actually; a sense of power she didn't often experience. That said, she hadn't meant to dredge up the past and so when Terance mentioned not knowing her mother was gone, well, there you go - confusion.

You just said you were sorry about mom. She drawled carefully, still sounding a bit heated. I went to see her when -- I found out a friend died, someone who raised me and Okeanos, just thinking of Lily, not being able to say her name aloud, made her throat feel as if it were burning. She hastily swallows the lump in her throat. I --

She...? Ibis didn't know what to say. Her mother was gone and evidently Terance had no idea, and that should've hurt, but she knew that they weren't on the best of terms. It wouldn't make sense for the wolves of Elysium to give up their idyllic little sanctuary in order to live beneath her step-mother. Imagining Olive and Seabreeze tending to her step-siblings made her feel ill.

The fire seemed to die out in her, then. I'm sorry. I don't mean to always fly off the handle at you dad. Its just.. Nothing is going right, its not fair. And here you are telling me to be an adult -- I am an adult! I'm not a little girl in need of your help or your protection. But oh, she was starting to miss the carefree days among the willows pretty badly. And I'm worried about mom. If she's not here, and not with you... Where..? Her little face creased in a pronounced frown as her words finally petered out.

i just meant... i feel sympathy for you, that mom was gone. i didn't mean i knew anything about it, i know how close you are to her. i'm sorry to confuse you, he said, gently, his lips pressing together in a tight line, his brow furrowed. he hated hearing about someone else, but now wasn't the time for some sort of deep rooted jealousy to sprout. i'm sorry to hear about your friend, too, i know how you must feel, he added instead, ears rotating backwards. 

as ibis apologized, terance found a similar relief he felt the last time they'd gone through this. it didn't make anything better, of course, and ibis still seemed to have a bit of fight in her as she demanded he not call her a child. i don't think you need my protection, he told her, only half honestly, if i thought that, i wouldn't have let you leave the hollow and go off on your own. i'm sorry i stepped between you and your friend, maybe i read the situation wrong. terance had a hard time believing that comment... but he was trying to be reasonable. he couldn't always be right. i mean, arbiter had been more right than him in many occasions. 

i don't know where your mom went, but i can keep an eye out for her. when the quakes die down i can send out a scout to look for her, too, if you want me to? he asked, trying to mitigate what few moments of non-fiery ibis he could gather.

and then, with a small smile, terance tried to calm her nerves -- about the world, you know, and all it's unfairness. i told you when i turned one i left my parents too, didn't i? took off with my sister to find our uncle peregrine. maybe it wasn't the time -- but terance was trying.

The more he spoke the more she felt calmed, mostly because of the time spent focusing on his voice; but what he said felt right too, being comprised mostly of apologies and sympathies, which Ibis gradually appreciated. He even offered to send scouts out to find Seabreeze, which was a surprise—and she smiled, unable to stop herself, while the last of her storming emotions ebbed away. Only if you can spare them. I know the times are rough now, so... Any search might have to wait a while. Which meant if something was wrong then her mother might be suffering, might be dying, but—Ibis refused to let herself dwell on that grim possibility.

When Terance moved on to a little story about his own travels Ibis listened respectfully (as one often does when a parent goes off on a tangent) and while she wanted to find a way to dismiss herself and return to her marsh, she lingered. She'd treated her father so horribly and it was only fair that she endure his attention for a little longer, she surmised. You did, she murmurs in response to his question, You said you were the same age as me'n Okeanos. Did you find your uncle?

he nodded gently. i'll send someone out, terance told her, ears flicking backwards. he appreciated her understanding, but even as he fell still on the surface, he did worry for seabreeze. and he knew how hard it was for ibis to come across such an emptiness. he would never just slide that under the carpet. 

i won't bore you with a story, terance said with a small smile, but no, i didn't. it was a bad journey -- my first taste of the real world was rough. i was separated from sarah in a bad storm, too. i was attacked by a stranger halfway here and ended up sidetracked. it was a disaster. and, when i got to the pack, i found my uncle wasn't even there anymore. he'd died, but terance left out that detail in light of seabreeze. 

the stone shrugged, giving ibis a wry smile. the world is cruel, but leaving the nest is the best part of growing up. you'll find your groove, and then it'll be the best decision of your life. if i had never left home, i never would've met your mother and had you and okeanos. which was true. even if terance had a new life with arbiter now, ibis and okeanos were two of the biggest lights in his life. and i'll always be right around the corner if you want to stop by.

In many ways Ibis' journey matched up with her father's. Leaving home was difficult, a fact she'd overlooked in her desire to reunite with her brother; finding what they'd sought out - rather what Okeanos had desired - had left her unsatisfied and pining for something different, leading her back to the familiar valley of home. It was hard for Ibis to discern if home was the Willows or the Hollow, for they both held special places in her heart. She couldn't imagine returning to either place for good though. Especially now that she'd found some kind of groove out in the wilderness. From what Terance said, it was the way of things - one often grew up and left home, unlikely to return.

She was grateful all the same for the sacrifice she'd made, and even more-so for the offer he presented. If things got bad enough perhaps she'd take him up on it, she thought -- but deep down in her bones she knew it was unlikely. Still, he cared, and he was doing his best to show it, which earned a little smile. I'll visit sometime, okay? I'll make sure to bring any friends over with me so you can meet them too, the girl added with a little cheeky glint in her eye, wondering how he'd react if she came home with a boyfriend or a girlfriend (she was getting close to that age after all). Just like you, dad! She could've said, but refrained. The implication was there but it wasn't serious.

I should get back, though. Okeanos is probably missing me -- She murmurs, and as she speaks she's moving to close the gap between her tiny shape and his burly, tall one; planting a quick kiss to his cheek as a farewell gesture, then withdrawing nimbly.