Redhawk Caldera WSS: Prologue

Ewww, exclaimed Alyx, recoiling slightly when Bronco dangled his gnarly-ass toenail in her face. That was so disgusting. How does that even happen? She only asked because she wanted to know how to avoid the same fate, not because she really cared. She was still kind of bitter about him leaving, so she couldn't give the impression that she cared too much, even if he seemed regretful right now.

Bronco had a lot to say about how he would have loved to be here. The longer he talked about it, the lower Alyx's brows went. It was all well and good to talk about how much he loved them and was excited for them and wished he'd been around, but he'd left anyway. If anything, claiming he loved them so much and wanted to be there while also turning his back on them dug the knife a little deeper. She almost cut in to ask why he'd left, then, what was more important than that, but she reminded herself that he was getting to that.

Then he dropped the bomb: he'd left to get away from Niamh. Alyx stared for a moment, flabbergasted, and then she laughed. It was a cruel and low laugh. Wow, she said, and he might think at first that she was judging him for running away from his mom with the way she said it, but then she added, so it's not just me, then.

He wanted to know how she treated them? I think she loves Rosie more than me and Q. I mean, I dunno, maybe she's nice to Q but she treats me like crap. I'm pretty sure she doesn't like me and would rather I wasn't here. That was a huge exaggeration. She didn't know that for sure, and Niamh hadn't done anything to give her that idea besides calling her a baby. It was just a feeling that Alyx had cultivated between her mother's distance and the insults.

Which is funny, 'cause, like, I asked if I could go live with Rusalka because I have lots of friends there. Okay, so... One, but maybe Chacal and Solaire were her friends, too. She just didn't care about them like she did Val. I asked if I could go and be like an ambassador, like how Meerkat is, and mom was all, ugh, but they tried to kill me once, like I was asking her to go live there or something, but they were really nice to me, and maybe I could've made the relationship better. And now it was just pouring out, because she'd found a kindred spirit in Bronco and that felt so good. It felt like when Fennec validated her, but even better. I got kind of mad and lost my shit a bit and called her a bitch and dad pinned me and they all said I couldn't go, so whatever. She could've got rid of me then. We moved here. I started hunting lots, and mom didn't even notice. She just came along one day like oh, you going for a hunter trade? But I got that already. I told her she'd know that if she spent more time with me and she just called me a baby and then pretended to want to hunt with me, but I'm pretty sure she would've just called me more names if I didn't do good enough. She makes me feel like crap when she's the one who doesn't like me.