Blacktail Deer Plateau Back in the days

Raleska understood. She didn't want to, but she understood. She knew that need to feel whole, just as much as Aningan did.

The tears that glittered, hard and fast in Anigan's gaze, were mirrored in her own. She had cast out her own mother -- and she knew, as Aningan knew, it was a betrayal that could not be taken back.

Yet she did it for the same reason her mother had campaigned endlessly against the wilds: for her family. It didn't matter her family was not uniquely blood -- for Raleska had chosen family elsewhere.. as like Aningan, her true family had scattered to the four winds.

There were a million things she wanted to say, to explain. She wanted to phrase them intelligently, poignantly.. and in the end she did neither. Her ears fell, and a look of defeat overtook her. "It sucks."

But it was right.