Redhawk Caldera i hit the sunday matinée

Hope this is ok & 'scuse the ramble...

After a restless night of little sleep, Reyes had watched the dawnrise and then gotten up to start his day. He might've slept an hour or two of true sleep but there was no tracking it, not really. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach - nauseated and hungry at the same time, or maybe it was purely stress that churned inside of him.

Deep down it hurt to think that Teya would replace him. Wasn't that just the way of womenfolk, though? He loathed himself for a moment, thinking that. What would his mothers say if they could read his mind? That he was being just like his own father, maybe. But he wasn't — he refused to be anything like Firefly. He was still here, more than a presence in his daughters life, but a force for good. A protector. He told himself that over and over; that he was protecting his daughter in every way he knew how.

It wasn't his fault that Teya dabbled. That she roamed the night for company other than her husband. (Some piece of Reyes knew the truth and squared the blame upon his own shoulders, knowing that something had changed between them, but he could not face that; Sorana had changed so much, and he refused — entirely, obsessively refused, to place any blame on the girl for existing.)

In his early wandering he found  a cache and dug in to it. He dug, and scraped, and beat the earth until he was blue in the face and his tongue lolled from his mouth, punishing himself with the excess labor and cutting in to the ground. His shoulders burned from the effort, and the cache was in the end, destroyed beyond repair. Reyes drew a piece of something out of it that looked almost edible and, with a sigh, cast it away with a heave. The rustle of the object in to the underbrush was pierced by the high-pitched shout of Sorana.

Reyes hadn't noticed how long he'd been awake; he hadn't realized Sorana had been unattended and sought the path back to the den, moving so fast that he was stumbling among the trees. A thin branch thwacked at his hocks and he didn't notice the red line left behind. Near one of Sorana's playing spots was a series of stones — but further out was a bobbing shape struggling in the water.

Reyes didn't think, and ploughed in to the water after her, roaring so loudly that the whole of Brecheliant would hear him: Sorana!!!