Larksong Grotto With apple blossom in her hair

So many emotions were flung back and forth, sharp words directed at others and mostly sweet ones directed at her. But no explanation came why her mother had left her in the first place. She looked at Casmir as he pleaded her and Indra that he needed them. But he'd treated her like a child, and she wanted to be grown up and do her own things. Reek let her do her own things but he had that stupid Jhala, the stepmother that she didn't want.

So there were two options in Laurel's mind; either she would get whatever she wanted at the Creek and be treated like the princess she was, or Reek would get rid of Jhala. As her mother's sharp words sliced towards Reek, Laurel considered going a different route and embracing Jhala as mom if not only to show Saena that she should not have left, to hurt her where it mattered because Reek hadn't stolen them, he'd taken them here and given them a lot, too. But then she'd still be stuck with Jhala, so the plan was easily checked off.

"You don't love us," Laurel said coldly as she looked at Saena. "You were never there for us." The first months were already beginning to become a faded dream, a part of her life she remembered little to nothing of, now. She looked at Jhala and said, "But neither do you." She looked at Reek a moment, as if showing him that had he kept his promises, this would all be different now.

"I don't want to be treated like a baby," she declared as though laying down terms while looking at Cas and Laika. "Reek treats me like a princess. But I don't want a stupid stepmother either. If you want us to love you so badly, give me a good reason for us to stay with any of you." This was directed at all of them, and Laurel nosed Indra's cheek in comfort as if to say, I've got this; she'd make them offer the girls something good, she'd find her and her sister the best option. Love was such a twisted and unknown factor at this point, a thing she felt only for her sibling, that that would not be the basis of her decisions today. She recognised that she, herself, was nothing more than a currency to be used to get her way, that she had power, and she was going to get the best bargain she could.