Blacktail Deer Plateau open your heart to it

the siren queen lifted her head as a male broke from the dense wood; from the bearing of his stalwart figure she surmised he was a member of importance to this pack. she kept her posture neutral, though her tail hung low — a current still roared through her, tense and electric as a bow’s taut string — yet somehow, she kept her composure.

until he came.

she had sworn for months she would have given anything to see him again — and that was still true — yet the hardened way he looked at her, as if she had betrayed him — it cut her down fullbore, and the hope in her withered down to grief.

she felt a prickle along her back at the loaded words her son spoke — and yet, who could blame him for feeling abandoned and cold? as much as she wanted her children to grow hardened and strong, it was not in this way. her expression darkened, yet the sylph tamed the sharp lance of her tongue. this was not the reunion she anticipated, and even with her son’s barbed words, it took everything she had not to rush to embrace him.

everywhere, surviving.. caiaphas’ voice was palpably unsteady, but her eyes betrayed her by the steel glint that remained well after the claws of his accusation sunk into her hide. looking for you, for ephraim, for rhakios.. there was no undoing the damage harvested following the wake of the tempest that disunited them — but caiaphas would do all she could to repair their splintered lives. is.. your father with you? her voice fell to a broken hush, the words so tentative it seemed even the hope was chased out of her heart.