Sleepy Fox Hollow such sweet nothing

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Onto her, the blame fell, though she refused to accept it. She had spoken neither a lie nor the truth, but had simply remained silent; perhaps that was worse than either. He was not hers to control and he had never been, she could not bend his will to fit with her own. All that he had done, every thought that he’d had and moves he’d made, had been his own doing and she would not accept any responsibility for it. “I told you that you would never become him for as long as you did not wish to,” she stated, set in her ways. “I am not the cause of this. You chose to leave, you chose to become your father—you can blame only yourself.” She could not bring herself to shoulder the blame, to accept his words as if they were the truth. She had done so too many times before, but could not any longer.

The glint of teeth made her muscles tense further, and his step forward sent her backwards. She had hoped to hold her ground, to remain still and move not even an inch back, but she’d failed. Her body had acted on its own, driven by the need to protect itself. “I would be a fool to not fear a beast,” she threw out, coming to terms at last with the terror that she felt. She could recall no other points in her life during which she’d felt true fear, aside from the present. When raised to believe yourself to be invincible, it becomes difficult to be terrified of anything, but Ukko had succeeded in making her blood run cold.

“Back away,” she ordered, suddenly feeling trapped. Like a caged bird, she sought freedom but found it to be unobtainable. Even with her knowledge of the mountains, she doubted how capable she’d be at outrunning him. In theory, she need only get close enough to her home to summon her tribe, but even that path felt like one she could not cross. There was quite some distance between the hollow and her home, plenty of ridges and loose earth; her options were limited to stay and fight or flee and risk angering him even more than he already was—either way, there was a risk of death.

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