Bitterroot Valley You got some shit to say and I'm hear to listen

The knot forming in her chest abates at his soft cajoling. Her heart, flitting like a frightened bird, doesn't not completely still; she's still incredibly nervous. It does settle a bit - it's manageable. Liri doesn't respond, she just nods and takes a deep breath. 

She tells Kavik the first half of her life. 

The sylph starts with her parents - how her mother, Ectsi, saved her father, Jono, from a cow elk he'd taken on by himself. It had been foolish, a single lone wolf could not hope to bring down an elk, but it's leg had been injured and her father was a bold young man then. Her mother, with the help of some close friends, had saved him and taken Jono back to their pack. 

It was there that her parents grew close and eventually fell in love. They married in secrecy; for the Beta had made clear his intentions to possess Ectsi, who was famed for her beauty from a young age. Her parents were at peace for two short months until Ectsi went into heat; it came down to a battle with the Beta who sought to claim her which led to them fleeing the pack altogether. 

They searched but it proved to be fruitless - Ectsi died giving birth before they found another pack, or a healer. Jono and his three infants were found by a scout and were eventually accepted into a small tribe - loosely translated, the Moonrise Tribe. 

Liri tells him what it was like to grow up there. She'd been the first to learn the 'old tongue' as the tribe called it but that meant being the first to understand their position. Liri knew, even as a young child, these were not a people who loved her. They were different, outsiders, even amongst their own kind. 

Liri tells him of the old ones, who ran the Council and had taken her from a young age to learn the healing arts. Some had spat on this but the old ones said she had talent; there wasn't anything you could do once the elders spoke. Liri never been so happy. She tells him of the ice fields and hunting the rubbery seals, of the giant white ice bears, of the cold sea and tasting rich whale whenever it washed ashore. Liri tells him of the snow and the lights that danced in the sky. 

Her childhood memories don't contain much about her father - other than sharing his den. Leto is the one she speaks of, with pain. She'd been small and mousy but Leto had always been fierce and quick to anger; her older brother had been the one to protect them from the tribal children. The first mouse she'd caught had been with Leto. He was the one who taught her to move so silently, to disappear into the shadows and escape notice. He'd taught her to swim, he'd taught her to fight - Liri had loved him with her whole soul and the betrayal still stings. 

Liri tells him of Ameta. Her strange, silent sister. Ameta was capable of speech, she just didn't want to speak it seemed. Liri had loved her and it had made little difference. Leto had protected Liri but Liri had always protected Ameta. She was sweet and kind and Liri's and the northron had never forgiven Leto for his part in her death. 

She tells him of the plague and fleeing; of the thunderstorm not unlike this one and how Leto used it to abandon them. Liri tells him of surviving in the wilderness as a pup with only Ameta, who was eventually lost to a bear. 

Liri turns away as she speaks of Remo, of how he tricked her and took her home to be his. Liri tells him of Hagga and what it was like to have step-children, some of which were older than her. She tells him of fighting them off, Remo and Absen, her husband and oldest step-son. She doesn't leave out anything - not the abuse or the awful sounds Hagga made in the night, her fault for not succumbing to Remo, or her terrifying escape. That night had been one of the worst of her life. She'd spent it huddled in a cold stream, hidden from sight under a bank, as they tried to sniff her out. 

Liri tells him of her first time discovering Teekon Wilds, a yearling then, of meeting Aaron and being taken into Rosings. She tells him of the marriage she was again forced into, this time with the sweet Samuel. He'd never hurt her but looking back, the love she had for him had been of different stock than she had for Kavik. She'd cared for him but he hadn't had her heart. 

Liri tells him of the locusts and famine, of Kierkegaard and Pallas, of the end of her life in Rosings. She tells him of Aaron's leaving and Amara's descent into madness. Liri tells him how she had only held the forest for a week before losing it all. 

She tells him of traveling west and losing Leto and Minna, her closest friend, her sister-in-law, her Beta. She'd left Zavier then, or maybe it was Zander, she no longer recalls. They'd been trying to found a new pack but everyone had abandoned her, she no longer cared. She left to find them but she ran into trouble - angry and grieving, she'd gotten into a couple of fights. 

Finally, Liri presses close to Kavik, hiding her face within the ruff of his neck. With the taste of bile in her mouth, she whispers to him about the man. He'd been bigger, stronger. Liri had tried, she'd fought with everything she had but there was no gaining the upper hand. He'd forced her to her knees and ripped her apart. Liri can still taste the dirt in her mouth. 

She tells him of the blurry memories of afterwards, of fleeing as far as she could. She'd found herself in a dark forest, ominous in a way Blackfoot Forest was not, the borders dripping blood and layered with carnage. The fae doesn't know how long she was kept in that cave, surviving off rats and the stagnant pools of water. She doesn't remember escaping. A whole season had passed, it had been midwinter, when she found herself in the mountains. She'd been weak and emaciated, covered in the various wounds where they'd tortured her for trespassing. 

After meeting Burke, she'd agreed to travel to his son's pack - Broken Antler Fen. It had seemed safer to travel with a group and she'd hidden in the Fen for some time before daring to venture into the outside world.

"Now you know," she whispers, still pressed against him. Her voice is tiny, drained of emotion and apprehensive. "I'm fucked up." 

It sounds broken. She feels like an icicle, the kind that hung from her cave in the north. Any second now, she'll fall and shatter into thousands of little pieces.

 Please, she wants to say, please don't break me. I can't put myself back together, not again.