The past month seemed to have flown by since the birth of her younger daughter and with each day Lila grew bigger and stronger. By now she was already not the defenceless pudge she had been as a newborn though she still relied heavily on her mother to survive. Thankfully Aponi was now able to leave the den for a few hours at a time and one of the yearlings always seemed willing enough to pup sit. @Sahalie had watched the Aquila child more than a few times and even Kyna seemed to make an attempt to be there if she was needed.

The sun had just began its long descent from the sky, casting the world in a soft orange as Aponi lay at the entrance to the birthing den watching Lila play in the dirt. There were still a couple hours of daylight left before she would need to usher the pup into bed for the night and for now she was content to lay where she was. Offering her muzzle and paws as wrestling partners as needed the mother couldn't deny the happiness she felt in these simple moments. While she still felt flares of anger at the thought of Drestig's rejection the Aquila woman was mostly content with her life.

Perhaps it was the new addition to her children or maybe it was the Bend itself but it seemed the woman had finally found a place she didn't need to run from.

Lila was happy enough digging in the dirt and staring around her in wonder, so many unspoken questions obviously brewing in her small head. Aponi answered them when she believed it was needed but most times she let her daughter try to figure things out for herself. There was no need to coddle her with an easy presentation to every question she might imagine. Still when the pup toddled towards her with a stone in her jaws laying it in front of her paws proudly the mother couldn't help but smile.

Before she could answer her the sound of pawsteps and a polite greeting was offered the pair and the icy blue eyes looked upwards towards her other daughter. The smile stayed planted on her face as she nodded her own silent greeting before looking back to the pup to see how she would react to her sister's presence. Sniffing at the pebble as if it required a deep investigation she pulled back and winked at Kyna, "Why Lil you've found a rock! When they're small like this they're called pebbles and when they're bigger it's called a boulder. When they get really really big they're called mountains." Suddenly she looked towards the ginger girl, a strange expression on her face.

Furrowing her brow for a moment it suddenly cleared when she looked towards the youngest daughter and moved to pull her closer as she often did to signal it was time for a story. Settling her head upon the dirt next to the small pup she began, "Your sister was born on a mountain, and so was I. I had a sister and my mom, Naira was leader of the pack up there. Things were good for a while but my mom could be... mean. She liked my sister better but the pack more than both of us and so she let us run wild and free most of the time." The story was made to seem like it was for Lila but blue eyes trained on the older daughter as she mentioned who her own mother was. That part was just for Kyna.

At first Lila seemed to only offer Kyna the briefest of glances before staring back towards her rock with a deep intensity. That is until the older girl asked if the pup had managed to find the stone by herself and it was like a switch flipped on the child's expression. Attention wavered and was replaced with a proud glow as a smile stretched across her maw. It was mirrored onto Aponi's face as she watched the innocent interaction between the two of them. The story seemed to do the trick as the pup snuggled in close and the yearling even wriggled closer, fiery gaze watching intently. Laughing gently she nodded, "Someday when you're bigger Lila I'll take you up to the mountain, I promise."

In the background was a gagging sound and blue eyes lifted to watch Kyna shaking her cranium to and fro. Aponi couldn't help but snort a laugh, "Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it too." However the blonde was quick to change the subject, something the mother had noticed she was often doing when things got uncomfortable. Still her words caused her brow to furrow as she looked on, "Have I really never taken you there? I guess, yeah I guess I haven't. It's only a day or two north of the Plateau on the same range. I'll bring you there in the fall if you'd like." It stuck some kind of a thorn in her side that the mother just couldn't shake. She had been so focused on her own life yet she had somehow left her oldest daughter out of it.

Clearing her throat Aponi pressed on with her story, glad to have an excuse to shove her emotions to the back of her head. "Anyways, so when I was just little I decided to run away from home. I made it about a week away before I met a boy my age named Karpos who didn't have a family, but then Naira found me and brought me back to the pack. Karpos came a few months later and joined us, but not long after we all had to leave our home or we would be trapped by the snow." The memory would probably always be burned into her head, the image of snow walls that were so high they seemed to have no tops and the adults doing their best to dig through them. At the time she had been annoyed at leaving the Pass but she saw now how dangerous it all had really been. "That winter was the worst anyone had ever seen, there was no food and everyone was hungry, packs were starving. So when prey was found we weren't the only group to take notice, I've never seen so many wolves in one place like I did that day. I can't even say how many, 30 or 40 maybe even 50. Fighting broke out over which pack would get the kill and in the end a sudden snow storm separated myself and another boy from my pack named Mercy from the others and we became hopelessly lost." Saying his name out loud still brought a twinge in her heart but the mother ignored it, that heartbreak was a long time ago now.

Aponi couldn't help but smile despite the sadness of her story at seeing the way that Kyna and Lila interacted. The youngest asking questions and the older quick to answer and to offer to teach her the games that she had learned. It made her proud of the blonde teen who had somehow learned compassion in life, despite everything that had been thrown at her. Thinking about where she had left off she launched back into the tale, "Eventually we were able to find our way home before we starved but it was touch and go, we were very sick for a long time afterwards. While we had been lost together Mercy and I grew very close and bonded in a way that wasn't healthy for children our age, we couldn't be apart from each other without becoming anxious and angry. Karpos was jealous of Mercy and me being so close and accused me of being horrible and said that nobody in the pack had missed us and wished we had stayed gone. So once again I ran away but this time Mercy came with me."

Up until now the story hadn't really involved either of her daughters or anything that they would recognize other than Naira's name.  Blue eyes lifted to look directly at Kyna as Aponi was well aware that the next part of her past wasn't going to be easy for the yearling to hear. "It was childish but we declared ourselves mates and said we would always be together. We crossed the mountains on our own and joined a back called Magnolia Glen when we were yearlings, it was led by Phineas, Kyna's father." The words fell silent as Aponi looked onto the oldest daughter, an unreadable expression in her eyes as she waited for some kind of a reaction.

Looking back towards Lila to give Kyna some kind of privacy to process everything that was being told the leathery nose nudged the pup closer. "We worked hard but kept mostly to ourselves until one day Mercy left without saying anything to anyone. I waited for him to come home for a long time but he never did and I never saw him again. Months later I took a trip back to Nomad's Pass to visit where I had been born to clear my head and I ran into my sister Nova. I convinced her to leave my mother's pack and meet me back at the Glen after she told Naira that she was leaving. But it took her months to show up and when she did she was with a man I had never met who she declared her mate. It was then that she told me that Naira had disappeared with her pups and abandoned my father who was murdered after she left. I was so angry at everything that had happened that I lashed out at Nova and drove her away." Of everything that Aponi had told in this story and would tell this was maybe one of the things she regretted the most. Nova had come to be with her and despite how long she had taken she was making an effort to put together the pieces of whatever family they had had.