Redhawk Caldera gia

whenever! <3

it had been, what, a month and a half, since bronco had asked to court her. @Sorana was old enough to have noticed something was up, if not extrapolated it outright.
the evening was cool. snow had begun to smooth down the edges of brecheliant. she exhaled, thinking of ibis. thinking of bridget. and then she pressed on, looking for her daughter's trail across the coldening ground.
there was trepidation in teya. suppose the new changes were not taken well? but that was what this was for: a discussion.

Sora had indeed noticed. She made a strong effort to be anywhere else if Bronco was about.

Her feelings on the matter were complicated and impossible to put into words, or even to comprehend. She wasn't stupid enough to think Bronco and Teya were just friends. She knew how Maia and Eljay acted together. She knew this was not just some friendship.

Sora felt certain Reyes was never coming home — she was sure that it was her fault, somehow — but the little girl inside her heart held out hope that her daddy would return and things would go back to normal. Some semblance of normal, anyway. Normal without the fighting. Now Teya was tearing that fantasy apart, and she did not know whether to feel betrayed or angry or scared to death.

She began to avoid Teya, too, spending more time with Bridget, Jay, Chickadee. Anyone but her mom and Bronco.

She could not avoid her forever and always, though, and she thought she was clever enough to not let on about it even when it was obvious. She had gone from clingy to scarce in a matter of weeks. Anyone with eyeballs would see it. Nevertheless, when Teya came looking for her, she found her, and Sora greeted her with a quiet, hi, mama, that was warm despite the snakes writhing in her belly.

She loved Teya dearly.

Even though she was replacing Reyes.

Even though she would inevitably replace Sora.

She hated everything that was happening and wanted to run, run, run.

she loved sorana dearly, and had not been immune to how the girl had withdrawn. but she had told herself it was due to age, to growing. to independence. all an avoidance, as she looked directly into the eyes of her half-grown daughter.
it had never been her way to hold back; teya worried her lip for a moment and took a breath. "i wanted to talk you. about bronco."
her ear flicked. "walk with me?" her lips curved in a smile. sorana wore reyes' coat; she looked so much like him. and yet she was also teya. 
she only hoped her daughter would share the turmoil she sensed was beneath the surface. the raven looked down at her paws and began to slowly walk, lifting her head again to give a warm look at the snow.

Sorana's expression turned downward, but she fell in step with her mother anyway. It was impossible to turn down alone time with Teya, no matter the circumstance. Thing is, it didn't much matter what Teya had to say. Sorana had already put the puzzle together and imagined every scenario, and very few of them included her or what she wanted.

I don't want to talk about Bronco, she said in a voice that pitched slightly toward petulant. It was a new emotion. She was rarely ever like this with her mother, but she really didn't want to hear about her daddy's replacement. She really didn't want Teya to make it — and Reyes' absence — more tangible and permanent than they already were by confirming what Sorana had already witnessed.

teya stopped, unsure of how to respond. she was shocked though she had no reason to be. frustration welled in her throat. 
it was sorana's sudden resistance when she had seemed to adjust well. or not. teya thought of her daughter's terror around the lake, how she had withdrawn to herself around bronco. not well. just silently.
akashingo flashed through her mind, sorana and tierra, sorana and lilitu. too many words.
"what you wanna talk about then?" she heard herself saying, gold-orange ears shifting toward her child. there was apology stark in her eyes. "maybe we — shou — could talk about daddy instead."
she tried to force encouragement into her face, but teya was frightened now and did not know why.

Teya's ears shifted forward and Sora's twitched back. Her mom drew to a halt, but Sorana kept walking, imagining she was proving some kind of point by not buckling at Teya's obvious surprise. Was it so surprising that Sorana would be resistant to a new man in the equation when her own father was a huge question mark? She felt she was the only one agonizing over his departure. She felt utterly alone in it.

It was something of a relief when Teya asked if she wanted to talk about Reyes, then. Truth was, Sorana didn't want to talk about any change at all. She didn't want to talk about a future without her father where Teya was happy with some other man and some other kids that were so much better than her, but she couldn't imagine a future with him, either. She hated Reyes for leaving almost as much as she hated herself for being the likely cause of it. If he came back right now, the mix of emotions would be volatile, and the reunion would be incredibly ugly.

Bronco was only a catalyst to add to that eventual nuclear meltdown.

Still, it meant Teya did see her. Her mom could tell it bothered her. Sorana could not coax her tongue to say anything at all despite that. Bridget had been easier to talk to, but fear of driving her own mom away from her made her clam up. Not that it mattered, she supposed. She wished she could be as bold and certain as the three-legged medic was, but all she was was hurt and terrified, and all she could do was plod along in silence, blinking against the shimmering stinging of her eyes and the burning sensation in her throat, leaving the floor entirely open for Teya.

teya kept close. sorana did not talk, but the electric current seemed to flow between them, an ebb for mother and daughter. teya bit her lip and searched for the words. "i not think daddy leave on purpose. he loves you — so much, sorana." her throat hurt, and now the same tears stabbed behind her own eyes. "i think — something happen. i look for him, bridget too. and eljay."
and that felt like a failure also to say, to admit she had just moved on without waiting for reyes. but the truth was their relationship had been over before he ever disappeared. 
but that was hers with him. and this was sorana's with her father. "i think he come back, and i think when he does you — tell him how you hurt."
her turn to struggle, to look quickly away so that her baby did not see the wetness welling in her own eyes. "reyes always is your father, even if — even if he and mama not together. families can be like that." slowly she made herself look at sorana, openly, the grief and perhaps a touch of anger at the redfurred man clear in her eyes if only for a moment and eclipsed by love in the second.

The burning in Sora's throat grew with every word Teya uttered. It tightened until she felt like choking on it, and that was when she discovered that her cheeks were wet. Her chest felt tight as well. All the feelings wound carefully within were beginning to unravel, much like when Bridget cut directly to the heart of Sora's ever-intensifying misery.

Only now they came out in a well of frustration and, yes, anger. Teya had moved on from Reyes. She had done so swiftly, without consideration for the minefield her daughter still navigated regarding Reyes. She saw how they acted with one another. They acted like Maia and Eljay. In this, Sora felt like an afterthought, and all of Bridget's careful reassurance fluttered away on the wings of her greatest fear of all:

Being abandoned by her mom.

He did leave on purpose or he would be here! And now he has nothing to come back to! she sobbed, planting her feet and feeling her hackles ripple down her back. You replaced him so fast! Why would he ever want to come back here? Certainly not for Sora, who had not been enough for him to stay for in the first place.

You replaced him and you're gonna replace me, too, 'cause you're so much happier with him, aren't you?! Her throat burned. Her eyes burned. Her heart cracked and boiled in her chest. Words came streaming out, nearly half of them not meant, but she could not silence them.

teya said nothing as sorana cried out, but when her daughter had finished and stood in a furor of tears and anger and pain. "he have you, 'rana," she finally croaked after a moment. she shut her mouth hard, swallowed, tried again.
"ah — i know how it look. that i — not care. but i care very much," and now her own eyes were overflowing, and teya was staring at the ground trying so very hard to keep her chin from trembling.
"you remember when — we fight? well — we keep doing it, sorana. so by the time he leave, i — we — are not wanting to do that again."
the raven tread so carefully, attempting not to push it all onto reyes, to not dash any of their daughter's stock in him. even though she had lost her own. 
"bronco not replacement for reyes. no one — no one can replace him, sorana. we made you. that never change." teya coughed a little, tasting salt, and turned away sharply to grasp a mouthful of air. "nothing change that i love him either." her voice was easier, less raw, but she wanted to weep now.
and she wouldn't.
"and no one can replace you," teya went on, looking back over her shoulder at her trembling, tearful daughter. "bronco make me happy, yes. but you do too. and nothing he does — no one else — stops that. i want you here with me, sorana." she turned at last to face the girl once more. "yes. i want more babies. and when they old enough to hear i tell them, this your sister, sorana. listen to her too."
all she had was directness, directness and no template for parenting a teenager, let alone one let down by both her parents.
but reyes wasn't here. she was. and so she had to try. "but nothing that come next change who we are now. i your mother. you my 'rana."

He didn't want me! Sorana countered, and while there was no proof to back up the claim, her confidence had fallen so low in Reyes' absence that she was certain it was true. She was certain of so many things, few of which were supported with any sort of evidence, but chief among them was the incorrect belief that she was the catalyst that ruined her family. How could anyone want her after that?

You're right. He's not a replacement, he's an upgrade! she insisted. If Bronco says he wants you to leave with him to go live where he wants, what then? You'll leave me, too! What if daddy comes back and they fight? Or maybe he'll chase me away because he doesn't want any competition. Then what?! She choked on a sob. Bridget had said Bronco would be the one chased away if he tried it, but Sorana wasn't so sure that Teya wouldn't just go with him and leave her behind.

Bronco made Teya happy. Sorana also made her happy. But she could never make Teya as happy as Bronco did. In Sorana's eyes, that was a fact. Bronco represented a change that Sorana was not prepared or equipped to weather. A normal pup her age would be embracing independence; a pup who had adjusted to her father's disappearance would know that it was his fault, not hers, and would be able to separate Teya from Reyes and trust her place in Teya's life.

But Sorana had yet to come to terms with Reyes. Her greatest fear was losing Teya. She lacked the emotional maturity to trust that it was not one or the other, but that Teya would ensure she had a place in her new life with Bronco. For that reason, Bronco represented everything she was most afraid of.

Bronco was the Big Bad Wolf in her story, and she the weeping piggy whose straw house he was blowing down.

no, no, no! she wanted to argue! sorana had it all wrong, all backward, all ugly. nothing about this was ugly and she was insisting on it. but teya bit her tongue. sorana was a child, a child who had lost her father and now thought she was losing her mother.
and so she said nothing, she let her child lash out until the words were gone.
the raven moved closer then, wanting to touch but not daring in this moment. "i not let daddy and reyes fight over you. and you not competition. you my daughter, 'rana. i know you think you not part of a family now, but you are."
her voice felt heavy and garbled. "bronco want you there too, with us. talk to him," she half-urged, half-pleaded. "yes. i go to live with him if he ask. but there no reason you not come to, unless you not want to, sorana."

What if I don't want to? Sorana challenged, wet-eyed but fierce in her own small way when she turned her pleading gaze on Teya. It was Rosalyn's blood, that small spark of flame. What if I don't want you to? Would you stay with me or go with him?

Sorana was so certain of the answer to that that she didn't give Teya much time to even voice it. Why should I? Nobody talked to me before changing everything! She could not see how Bronco and Teya had taken things slowly, or how Bronco had looked to spend time with her while she had done everything to avoid him. She saw only that they had taken the first steps without her.

They had not even broached the subject of Reyes before Teya was courting another man, moving on, while Sorana was still grappling with that loss. How easy it would be to leave her behind, she thought.

teya knew she'd fucked up, knew it in all the ways and all the silences she'd let go too long, and now all the things she said, and nothing stemming the rage and fear of her daughter.
she opened her mouth to answer, and maybe it was best that sorana's voice covered the snap she was about to make, that she would never go back to that den on the lake, that she too was miserable, and then the unretractable thing she could never ever in a thousand years say to sorana.
for a long time she stood staring at her girl, eyes wet, frustrated, wanting to plead and promise, even though none of that had mattered before.
what she said was "you right, 'rana. i messed up. bad. i not know how to take it back. but i want to make it right. i want to show you i mean this."

Teya acknowledged that she had screwed up, but if that was enough for Sora or if it was not, she couldn't say. No amount of acknowledging it or apologizing would root out the fear of abandonment that choked the heart of Teya's lake daughter. The source of it was Reyes, undeniably, but it was so much easier to point the finger at Teya moving on to another man, Teya moving on without her, and Bronco for existing at all.

You moved on without me, she quietly cried, ears flung tightly back against her skull and eyes to the ground. Bridget had told her to know what she deserved. She deserved a dad who didn't walk out on her. She deserved a mom who considered her before making huge, life-altering changes that affected her, too. She deserved happiness and security.

But she did not know how to put these things into words that didn't bite and scathe, and so she said nothing more.

"not without you," teya said heavily. "without him."
and sorana was more a part of him than maybe either of them had realized. she didn't comprehend the magnitude of the pain that simmered under her daughter's skin, only sensed its bloody sides and knew she had put it there.
and then there was silence.
"stay with me tonight," a whispering plead. bronco was not part of this. she had to mend something, make at least one stitch.

To Sorana, it was the same thing.

She could see only the jagged edges of this thing Teya and Bronco were building and how those edges might cut her. She was not ready for her mom to move on like this; she lacked the emotional maturity to see the ways that embracing this change might be good for her. That growth had been stunted first by the departure of her father.

Nevertheless, when Teya asked her to stay with her, Sorana nodded her head through a sniffle. She might as well make the most of the finite time she had left with her mom before Bronco inevitably stole her away for good.