Phoenix Maplewood Remember When

Nanook mirrored her sister's frown and felt her defences rise. "I did listen," she insisted, even though she knew she hadn't. Really, the only words she'd heard after her sister had disclosed mother's whereabouts were hang out, but Desna didn't need to know that.

Mother said do this and do that, but why did she expect Nanook to listen if she didn't listen to her? That only started the list of things that didn't make sense about mother. Nanook still couldn't shake the day she'd witnessed her tear into the ruddy intruder. At the time, the grey girl had lived in the moment, spurred to join by a desire to keep her mother from harm. But as the adrenaline wore off, the more she grew confused between mother's violence on that day and her punishment of that same behaviour in Nanook. The episodes clashed, and try as she might, the polar child could not make sense of the grating opposition between her mother's words and her behaviour.

The third-born's empathy had never stretched as far as her younger sister's, but she felt the offence seeping from Desna now. Nanook's own gaze hardened at the accusation Desna hurled her way. "I haven't forgotten you. I don't want to go to papa and Xan." Her voice grew quiet, and her frown quivered. "I want them back."

It was a reserved display of the deeper sadness she felt, a diverted glance and a slack of her tail, entrusted to no one but herself until now. "You're safe. You're here. I don't know where papa and Xan are." And that was why she spent her days alone, because everyone else seemed happy here without them, and she didn't. She couldn't be. Nanook flicked her gaze to her sister again. But Desna was happy here - and yet she said she missed them, too, and her hope quivered at that. "If you want to help, then help me find them. We'll be a family again."