Sun Mote Copse And I'm breaking down, I think I'm breaking down

Unlike his mother, who had an outburst when Fennec got lippy with her, Bronco's lips pulled into a small, but apologetic smile. Fennec was the sort of wolf who threw out insults as a defense mechanism, and he was able- by now- to see right through it, and not take it too personally. It was almost her way of showing that she did care, and that she had missed them, though she was potentially too proud to admit it. Her actions spoke volumes- she was back in the Copse, after all. It went without needing to be mentioned that if she'd had such an amazing time roaming with Penn and Figment, then she'd still be doing just that. "Yeah, this place is kinda lame," He agreed softly in response to her regrets, choosing not to feed her ire. 

But when she mentioned someone else- a her, that he had apparently left behind, he was surprised. "Wait, who're you talking about here?" He asked, but then answered his own question as the answer was relatively obvious. "My Mom?" He asked. Of course, he had his reasons to have left the Copse, and she was one of them. But why would Fennec hate her? "What'd she do now?" He asked. While Niamh had been hard on her own children, he'd never noticed her being tough on any of the others- she'd spared his cousins the discipline, as she had for Towhee and Phox's children...But suddenly, now- was she picking on the others in his absence?