Broken Boulder and i haven't sold me

She basked in his attention and his affections as long as she could, listening to the strength of his voice and finding immense comfort in that; the words themselves registered but Ibis didn't really care what her father was saying, she was just so pleased to see him—he was here with her! It was a good moment.

The moment didn't last, though.

Ibis has burrowed her face in to the plush fur of his chest, the highest point she could reach, and her tail was batting a mile a minute. Her mind was buzzing too, filled with questions gone unspoken. Typical to the little girl, once she'd latched on to an idea she couldn't let it go — and now she was talking again.

I miss you too! I'm big, Okee is big, we can go home now! She drew back from his fluff and his warmth and his musky smell, that smell she had missed and hadn't known she had missed, and Ibis beamed a grin up at her father as if all the troubles of their move were already  behind them. You—You taking us home, right? You here, an' we... We go home? Except, the more she spoke the words and the more she thought about it, that didn't make sense. They'd been here in this Other Place with these Other Children for a while now, by a child's standard.

As Ibis glanced from her father to Alarian, she caught sight of her mother approaching. Seabreeze stopped short and the expression on her face said everything—Ibis knew, then, that she was wrong to hope. Her eyes flit between her two parents over and over, and then a little frown developed on her face. Looking to the ground now, staring at the dirt beneath her feet, she sullenly commented—No. You... You won't bring us home. When she looked up her eyes were brimming with tears and they were leveled at Terance. Where did you go, Daddy?

Poor Ibis didn't realize it wasn't Terance that left, but the other way around.