Swiftcurrent Creek you soon find you have few choices — mandatory meeting, r2 ends 11/17

Talos's puckered face suddenly unglued itself from its soured and rotten expression as her father told them all about Viinturuth. Her brother...was missing?! Talos's eyes were bewildered and wide as she looked all about again, almost as if she expected to see him suddenly magically appear in their midst. Come to think she hadn't really smelled him about, either, but she had been so busy being angry and making sure everyone knew about the cold shoulder she was turning here that she hadn't really paid attention...

Genuine worry furrowed her brow as she looked about, and then her eyes finally spotted her mother, and were caught there for a moment. Hurt and frustration and worry were apparent, and for a moment Talos tried desperately to rekindle her familiar anger before looking down at the ground by her feet instead. Mother was going to go looking for Viinturuth... might in fact have already been searching, all this time, while Talos herself had been off stomping around everywhere except the home packlands here and hadn't even know he was missing. The girlchild shoved her upwelling of guilt aside and did her best to overlayer it with further irrational anger. It was still her parents' fault somehow, she was sure, and Aria too—maybe Viinturuth had been so upset at the revelations that he had run off. Talos thought back to the last time she had seen him, when she had been so wrapped up in her own overwhelming feelings of upset even as her world felt like it was literally being upset all around her, and tried unhappily to remember exactly what she had said to her sibling, anyway. Her eyes flickered to Akatosh and Akavir in turn as well, and then away again.

Dully she heard her father's voice as if from a great distance handing out one assignment after another. You pack wolf go do this, you other pack wolf go do that...yeah, yeah, yeah. What did any of it matter, in the face of all of this?! Another fresh burst of anger broke through as she heard him with his oh-so-leaderly calm gravity asking if there were any last questions. Her eyes were aflame and her pelt freshly abristle as she found herself on her feet and staring in furious challenge at her father—hoping all the while that she could garner enough of that fury to mask her sorrow and concern. Yah I gotta ques'ion, she ground out, a small burst of white teeth flashing vibrantly against her dark pelt. Wha're you gonna do, Father? Or are you jus' gonna follow Ar'ya?! Her burning gaze settled itself on poor Aria's figure once more, at last. Anger was better; anger was safer. Talos wasn't sure that if she let her misery and fear burst forth it wouldn't simply engulf her entirely and drag her down into its dark depths along with her. So: better to stay mad at everyone. Far better. Maybe even at Viinturuth himself—what'd he have to go and do a dumb thing like getting himself lost anyway, at a time like this?! Dumb brother! And Aria was the safest and easiest target, at least of those currently present, for young Talos's wrath, most unfortunately for her.

Chusi had said something about Kubo missing too and yet being willing to stay here but Talos couldn't find the space within her to much care. From what little she knew of Kubo the boy was always forever getting himself into one scrape or another anyway; what did any of that tell her about her brother, the one who wasn't supposed to be getting himself into trouble all the time and tearing her attention away from the horrible drama that had so unexpectedly to little Talos waylaid their parents' relationship and, by extension, the very foundations of their little family and maybe even the entire pack. Or so it seemed to Talos. She was if anything a little madder at Chusi for being so damn reasonable and accommodating, when really all that Talos wanted to do was scream and wail and throw things, or maybe rip a few innocent nearby trees to shreds with her teeth by way of venting her internal turmoil—first her parents had started fighting, and now no one knew where Viinturuth might be; it was more than she could bear. Someone or something surely had to pay for all this: on some primeval level Talos suddenly wanted to see another hurting outwardly, obviously, just as much as she was deep inside. But instead, this might have to do: before her father had too much time to collect his thoughts, before he could possibly formulate one of the answers she most dreaded hearing, Talos exploded afresh. Our whole fam'ly is fallin' apar' and it's all your fault! she screamed tearfully at Constantine, and, with a final white-hot scathing look thrown in Durnehviir's direction as well, just in case her mother might for a single instant consider holding herself blameless in any of this as well, Talos turned tail and blindly fled, as fast and as far away as she could get from not just her own kin and what had once been her beloved safe haven of a pack but, most of all, from her own feelings. It was all just too much, too much for her to even attempt to handle. Maybe if she could just gain enough speed and distance she could leave them all behind.