Blacktail Deer Plateau buried in the dark

Saena quirked a brow as Tryphon stumbled over his words, but she understood his sentiment. Saena had called many places home since Blacktail Deer Plateau, and had lost many as well, but none resonated so greatly as the plateau had. Nevertheless, to return to it would be to sink into sentimental stupor. She would be lulled into security by the memories, and that would cause vulnerability. Saena's mind was sharper than that, so the plateau was off limits, perhaps for as long as she lived. And had she known of the pack of wolves in the woods below it, out toward the sea, it would only reinforce that.

"You forgot it?" she wondered, genuinely curious. "I forgot a lot of stuff, too. I forgot my own kids and family for a time. I still don't remember if I had parents that stuck around or anything. It's... rough not remembering. I'm sorry." Her expression grew stony, but then she shook her head and let those thoughts fly away. Those sorrows had no place in her new life, and she didn't want to burden Tryphon with that. He seemed to have enough troubles of his own. "Well, maybe one day you'll stumble across it, and remember it in a flash," she tried, though she doubted the truth of her own words. Being here didn't help her remember who her parents were, after all. But she could hold out hope for Tryphon.

He asked how it was, and she crossed her forelegs, ankle-over-ankle, and sighed wistfully. "To me it was a magical place," she breathed, "the safest in the world. I so wanted to help lead it someday, but the alpha here wasn't likely to let it happen, and then I started to see the cracks in the foundation, the little weaknesses. The pack's leadership played favourites, and let their friends get away with things others were punished for, or worse." Grimly, she remembered Junior. Nowadays, she knew a mere drop in rank wasn't the end of the world, but that had never been what she loathed Dante's sentence for. It was for shattering her sister's fragile pride, when she was already so low, while letting Osprey break a wolfish law without penalty. Saena believed—deep in her heart of hearts—that Dante was to blame for the way Junior had turned out, in the very end. He'd broken her that day.

"That's why I left. I couldn't lead with those same principles, and would not have been allowed to change it." She huffed lightly. It was all in the past now, but talking about it made the wounds raw again, and she realized she had never forgiven Dante for it. Maybe on the surface, but never truly.