The Heartwood i've loved everything about you that hurt

Mal is never sure what to do with apologies. Perhaps if Alarian hadn't left things would have been better, or perhaps he would have drank the Elysium kool-aid and become one of the witches' minions. He still had no idea how they'd managed to so completely fool so many wolves into thinking that pack was amazing, but it was surely them at the heart of it all. I don't think anyone really wanted to look and see what Elysium was actually doing.  They pretended to be all happy and nice and whatever, but really, if you weren't part of their little circle, you were nothing.  He had never been sought out, never been taught, only scolded when he didn't behave like a little angel.  And given how he was treated, why the hell would he do that?  They brought it on themselves.

He shook his head, Nobody even looked for Solomon after Brillo came back.  And when Brillo wasn't at Elysium, she didn't go to the pack I told her to if something bad happened.  They were just gone.  Probably dead, at this point.  If they ever come back, there's a spot in my pack for them, but I dunno if they will.  He didn't expect to.  It wasn't like he'd ever really had a family, just the fragments of what would have been one.