Nova Peak If I'm to have regrets, let them be for deeds and actions.

Her mother swooped in close, and with her acknowledgement of building emotion, Ciri released the floodgates. A sob racked her little frame, unforgiving. The child resisted at first, turned her dark face from Nyx and slumped to the ground, curled away, but the lioness was unphased. Nyx wrapped her baby in the warmth of her, let her cry, but was sure to remind her that she was there to be leaned on.

CirI turned, shifted to push her damp cheek to her dam's throat and trembled against the pale of her chest. "There was a girl," she cried at last, "and I wanted to be her friend, but-but she... she didn't want to be mine." She gritted her teeth then, squeezed her eyes shut. It was not unusual for there to be rejection among youngsters, but it was something Ciri had been sheltered from - and it was an awful experience engrained into her memory. 

"And I-I looked for Papa when you told me he was hurt," she continued, sniffing back the clogging of her nose that came with free-flowing tears, "but I found someone else. She was there - at the cave where I found him, and-and she -" Ciri stalled then, as she sucked in another breath to accommodate the wail that was swift to follow, "Mama, why doesn't anyone see me!?"