Lost Creek Hollow I'm not gonna try and change your mind.

even as the girl retreated — a little — and took back the nasty things she had said, they still stung. the sting in more than just the emotional sense. terance could feel them in his chest, burning furiously. in the corners of his eyes, where no tears were, but threatening to appear. he felt it in every fiber of his body, the pain of hearing your own child tell you that you failed. and even as she backtracked, the ‘kinder’ words hurt more. 

frustration welling more and more within his chest. who cursed him with this inability to speak, god damn it? was it osprey? dante? what did it matter anyway — they were both dead. what childhood trauma curbed his ability to know how to handle emotions? what made such an empathetic man so mute? 

ibis, he said, a little sterner than before, but it softened as he continued, i loved your mother very much... and when you and okeanos were born you were the light of my world. i wanted you both. he stared at her with his brow furrowed, deeper than before, and he mustered up sentences. it hasn’t worked before, so he tried again: somehow he felt it would go worse, but terance was out of options and felt backed into a corner. seabreeze left me, he tried to clarify, but how could he make her believe that? she loved her mother more than him, and he didn’t want to play any victim... i didn’t leave you. and we other moved further away because there was no food on the mountain and the rest of the pack was suffering. the hollow is safer for us.

you can go wherever you want in the world, i’m not your keeper, but i hope you come back to visit me, he said, ears flicking backwards, i want to get to know you better... i.. am sorry if you don’t care to know me. the last part was more defeated than before. terance just wasn’t made for a for arguing — for insults — for cruel words. not when the wolf before him was his daughter.