Morningside Cuesta sons & daughters

when soleon confirms it, her lips tighten a moment. disappointment, first and foremost, blossoms. she's given her brother so many chances, beginning from their childhood together. she remembers conversations, fragments between herself and her father. 

Grayday found that the only thing he could do was speak from his heart. "Look, Dawn - I'm worried about you and your brother. I know that things haven't been great between the two of you, but he loves you," he said earnestly, his voice quiet and, honestly, a little desperate. "It just... it kills me to have this distance between us. I know that he left. It hurt me, too. But he was young, and he missed home, and he's not as strong as you."

she knows she's not been perfect. when the plains had burned and they'd lost so many, she hadn't returned from her failed mission to find the missing. she'd made mistakes. but she's grown weary of going after her brother, despite the promise she made to Grayday all those years ago. "I'll go see him, Da. For you." their relationship had never been entirely smooth, but this — disappearing, to return months later only to disappear within a few days, and to learn he'd been here, trying to rebuild something long dead without sending word, seemingly discontent with what she'd built on the creek — wounded deeply. 

sadness, then, as something finally shifts. she will not stop loving her brother. but she can no longer trust him, can not expect anything from the man who comes and goes from her life like the tide. it is bone-deep, a tired, aching thing, and then it fades. 

smile returns, a little less easy than it had been before. "my brother. he's got a tendency of doing that." small sigh, though she tampers down whatever other feelings might come with the knowledge of her littermate's activities; those can be dealt with later. 

the information he volunteers next has her test for, and notice, the distinct herbal smell that seemed to come with the trade, and one that seemed to be adhering to her daughter as of late. "my daughter's taken to herbs and healing, lately — we have a healer, aphrodite, in our ranks, who I'm sure would be willing to share her knowledge with another interested learner, should you ever be interested." she does not know the depth of the healer's expertise, but surely there exists some way in which they might trade knowledge; she remembered seeking out the same thing for morningside's healer when she'd been a yearling.