Heron Lake Plateau restore me, restore life the way it should be.

In the end, that was what did the trick. It wasn't Wildfire's words, or Kiwi's defiance, or whatever hippie bullshit the common wolf was blathering on about. It was Wildfire stepping forward to place herself between him and Kiwi that triggered the break.

Artaax felt anger swell around him like a safety blanket, shielding him away from the heartbreak of betrayal and the anxiety of his fear. He shut his eyes and breathed it in, allowing it to steady him so that when he let his mismatched irises out to see the world again, he could see it without the pollution of pain clouding the view. He could look on with cold, clear nothingness, with that low burn of rage to keep him safe and warm.

Anger was far more comfortable than hurt.

He ignored Quixote completely. Dude was a coward who didn't know the first thing about family or loyalty if he was going to stand there and defend Wildfire's right to abandon her children and her mate. He ignored Kiwi as well. She had proven herself to be a complete waste of his time and effort, and he would be giving her no more of either. Coldly, he looked at Wildfire.

"You do not command Dragedakru, natrona," Artaax replied in that deathly soft, deep voice he had always used with strangers, never with his family. "All those months we searched for you. All we lost to fight for you and bring you home, and you turn your back on us. You are nothing. I am ashamed to be your son."

The feisripa turned away then, trying hard to believe his own sentiment and to make it true - that Wildfire was nothing to him. It didn't totally worked, for he paused after only a moment and looked back. "Don't stay here. Go where I can't find you," he urged, his eyes flickering briefly to Quixote before he turned again and continued away.

In spite of what he'd said, he wasn't sure how heda would react to all of this. He knew it was their way, but still... It was Wildfire. As much as Artaax wanted to doubt though, some part of him remembered that fox kit, and he knew he was being childish. Still, in spite of what his mother had done and how terribly she'd wounded him, when nomi's little soldier stood before her with this news, Artaax wanted desperately to be wrong about where Wildfire and his little sisters could be found.