Emberwood i don't know how to love anything without sinking my teeth into it

Lotte steps up and sweeps her up into the other side. She doesn’t realize how cold she is until they touch and she leans into it. A soft whine escapes her muzzle and she closes her eyes lest they spill over but she is strong—or so Lotte tells her—but she’s seconds away from falling apart. Where is this strength she speaks of? She cannot face her own problems and, instead of facing them head on, she runs away.

Blixen is right about that.

When her mother goes on, she decides she can keep together a little while longer. She pulls away just slightly, listening to the story of some great woman as her eponym. A woman worthy of leadership, of loving her mother, and she bears the weight of expectation she is far from exceeding.

The girl turns her head and presses her face into the woman’s fur, unable to hold back. Tears spill over and meld between her cheeks and Lotte’s mane.

”I am not worthy of a crown,” she says quietly and into her fur. ”I thought if they knew anything, they would throw me out, or think I was a spy,” she tells her, thinking of the conversation with Étoille—oh, how she misses him too—and the fact Drageda would kill her if they found out she’d been lying. ”I am a traitor. I run away from everything. Leaders don’t do that.”

Afraid to pull away and see the disappointment that she is a failure, she stays close a moment longer and releases a shaky breath. ”I did not mean to get lost. I thought I saw Roarke one day, nearby, and...” ran away. She didn’t even stick around or follow after him but he’d been so sure of who he was. But now? ”Maybe if I hadn’t, you’d...” she trails off again and pulls away, eyes lowering to the fog covered ground.

”I never thought I’d see you again,” she says and this time she does not even try to hold back her tears, slumping forward into nothing. How can a mother be proud of this?