her questions were not surprising, but they made lasher uncomfortable all the same — he did not know how to aptly answer her. lowering himself wearily to his haunches, the earthen servant gazed off toward the storm-dark shadows of the plateau, as if they held the proper rejoinders to her inquiries. "i do love your father," he said softly, returning his attention to the girl. "he means more to me than i can possibly say. this land," taltos continued, brushing at the loam with a forepaw, "has naught to do with it."
he supposed she deserved honesty; he would only have withheld it from her if he thought the girl too young to understand, which she was not. "perhaps in a way i did let her 'win,' but it is no true victory. i am not her subordinate. i would not serve her and her demands and her whims. i would not be relegated to the sidelines because i could not do as she and give peregrine children. my love for him abides, but fox and i would have contention between us forever. he would have been miserable knowing this."
lasher made no move to hide the tears that began to run ceaselessly down his cheeks; he watched junior through a blurred veil of saltwater. "therefore, though it broke our hearts, i left him. i want his happiness to abound, and forcing him to be the liasion between myself and fox would not have brought him joy. i feel that my departure was for the best," he explained softly, finally dipping his head to let the tears fall noiselessly to the ground.