Chimera Fields Roast Mutton

The soft crease of her brow never lifted from her face, all the time as the boy spoke. This boy, whose world seemed so different than her own - and her father's strong voice rumbled through her heart again: that world is not safe - and perhaps even in ways she would have never thought.

Honestly, she didn't know where this boy had come from, but her grandmother had given her a saying once - a snake can only birth a snake. She did not think this boy was a snake - but she believed him, when he spoke so blunt and so cold against the wolves who had really failed to raise him. And a part of her wanted to defend them, give the benefit of a doubt. Like, maybe they had reasons for doing what they did -- reasons for what? For leaving? For ignoring him? For not wanting him at all? And perhaps an adult would have confronted him to look at his story from a different angle, but she was but a teenager herself.

"So you know, that doesn't sound normal," she said, "That's not - that sounds awful, and cruel. And they were your family?" No wonder he was like this - that wasn't what families did - was it? In that moment, her heart genuinely moved for him - felt a tight string of pain for the pain he must have suffered - oh gosh, to be unwanted? She wanted to say sorry, wanted to apologize, but she didn't, didn't think he would understand what she was apologizing for. Didn't really know what she was apologizing for herself. So Ceilidh simply shook her head. "I - gosh, no, they had no right to do that to you! To not want you?" I'm sorry, I'm so sorry - "That's not what a family is supposed to be."