The Heartwood chasing visions of our futures

Atka looked back ahead from side eyeing him. She was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words to voice what she had envisioned, which up until recently she had no idea.

❝When I left my pack I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't have any direction or idea of what I wanted to get out of life. I was just going forward.❞ She paused, shifting her weight on her paws before settling into the ground beside her behemoth of a mate. ❝I didn't exactly have a good picture of healthy pack life, or families in general growing up.❞

Atka really didn't, but that didn't mean she stopped thinking about it and put it off the table. Her family was hostile, nefarious and corrupt, but she coped with it because of her aunt. The woman who was merely a wisp in her mind now was nearly carbon copy of Atka. She was small, colored like the snow, but had a pair beautiful green eyes. Atka thought of her again and her teachings of how mighty her ancestors were, the breath of the ocean, and the connection it had between all things. Closing her eyes, she swallowed back any of the feelings that crept it's way to the surface.

❝I would like a family someday, but they're such fragile things.❞ She looked back at him, with furrowed brows. ❝My mother used to be a good woman you know. Things happened and she wasn't the same after, she was a shell of a woman. She became distant and cold, bitter. I never got to know the heart she had, but my aunt told me so much about it. I don't want to be my mother. I want a family but I don't know how to prepare myself for the vulnerability that brings, there would be so much that I could end up losing.❞

She didn't know how else to explain it, she hoped that was enough. Atka didn't want to repeat the mistakes her parents had made, and that fear loomed over her whenever she thought of little Dreven's stumbling around everywhere. Joining a pack as well wouldn't bother her, but if Dreven wished to begin his own, she would be beside him on that.