If she had really pushed herself, Kyna probably could have made it to the borders of Oak Tree Bend much more quickly than she did. It had been the entire purpose of her journey away from her home and her Greer – that she’d stopped to visit Sahalie and Quaking Vale first was simply a delay tactic. The point was to steel her nerves…and find a suitable gift, of course. She might not have parted ways on particularly good terms, but the Archer still had some manners about her.

The marmot tasted like ash in her mouth as she set it down. Its lifeless eyes stared back at her, and the young woman sighed. She had to do this. It would only eat away at her. Greer’s parents had died recently – she’d already lost her father. Did she really want similar news, knowing the last time she’d screamed and raved at Aponi like some sort of lunatic?

She was not certain if she could forgive the woman, not yet – but they were close, and Kyna knew better than to ignore it. It was now or never. She needed to get home as quickly as possible, dig herself a den, and-- One step at a time. Kyna lifted her strawberry muzzle and called for the pack’s alphas; she was here to see her mother, but she had to apologize to Serach, too.

She came. The smell of the lead female predated the woman’s arrival, but Kyna could not leave now and fear no repercussions. It was with no great surprise that her mother was expecting again – but now, it was her right. She was the lead female of Oak Tree Bend. Frankly, she could do whatever she wanted. And as the lead of the mountain pack, the strawberry blonde had that very same right.

“Mother,” she greeted the other alpha, offering a small nod of her head. She did not move the marmot any closer. If Aponi wanted it, she would say so. The woman was hardly a shrinking violet. “You did. This was not an accident.”

Just as Lila had been no accident, just as the current litter the woman was carrying was likely quite intentional, too. But her first child? Kyna still wondered if she and Phineas had intended to have a child. Certainly didn’t seem that way. But that was not why she was here, not the matter of her own birth, and certainly not a worry for her upcoming litter. It was, without question, intentional. “My mate and I founded a pack on the mountain. But I wanted to see you before they were born.”

One tooth dug into her lower lip as Kyna fought every fiber of her being, resisting the urge to sigh at her mother’s stiff response. Whatever she’d been expecting of this meeting, that reaction was not it. Listless was not a word she’d often apply to Aponi, but the response couldn’t even be classified as cold. It…it simply was. It left the strawberry blonde on uneven footing, ears falling to an airplane position as she stared forward and steeled herself.

She did not come here to grovel and cry like a puppy. She was still young, but her swollen sides were enough to insist she was no longer a child.

“Because I left on poor terms,” Kyna replied evenly, making no move to approach her mother any further. Pregnant or not, she was all too aware the silver shewolf was still dangerous. “And I did not want it to end like that.” Aponi would not care what happened to Greer’s parents, nor would she care that her daughter still thought of Phineas nearly every day. Quite frankly, it would probably go to her head to know her eldest child still did not want that to be the last time she saw her mother. It was unlikely their relationship would be anything even remotely maternal, but still--

“So I came to apologize to you, but also Serach. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I should have said goodbye to him.”

The silence no longer bothered Kyna the way it had when she was a child. Whether this was a product of maturity or all the quiet time spent with her inky shadow, or perhaps a combination of both, she allowed her mother to process with no attempt to hurry the process. She simply stood her ground as Aponi approached, the offering forgotten, and brushed her nose against the redhead’s sprung ribcage. Before the alpha could say anything, someone inside give a small push back – well, it certainly didn’t feel small. A soft grunt escaped her as she glanced back at her sides; when they did that, it felt like she might explode. It only reinforced what she already knew – once her meeting here at Oak Tree Bend was concluded, she could waste no more time returning to her mountain home.

But… She might have to linger a little longer.

Aponi’s accusation drew a soft sigh from her daughter’s lips, ears falling further downwards. “I-- Yes. You are correct.” To be frank, she had not considered what Lila would think. She’d barely even thought in the moment, too fired up by panic and adrenaline. While she’d considered Serach a friend, possibly, ties of blood linked her with Lila. She might not be Celandine, but at this point, she was hardly any better than the haughty princess. Her tail twitched. Hopefully, she would be a better mother than she was a sister. “If she is here, I will speak to her before I go. I do not-- I did not make things easy, I understand, but that is easy for me to say now looking back. I had no idea what I was doing. After you left and came back, after my father dropped dead--” And never would she forget his expression as he crumbled back to the earth. “—I thought you were trying to replace me with a better daughter. I wanted to be a good sister, but I had no idea how. I had no idea where I fit.”

For perhaps the first time, Kyna’s own honesty warranted honesty. Where fear had stilled her tongue in the past, the young adult had done a lot of growing on her own in the past few months, cold and alone on the mountain she so loved. Yes, she had recruited others to join her in her home on high, but @Ember had not been wrong when she had touched on the idea of finding one’s self. Oak Tree Bend had not been bad to the strawberry blonde, but as long as she remained in the shelter of the dense forest, she had no idea just who she was.

“I-- What?”

At no point in their relationship had she ever dared hope that Aponi thought that highly of her. For a brief moment, open surprise rolled over her face before she could school her expression into something more neutral. She shook her head, a small, self-depreciating chuckle falling free from her dark lips. “That is not-- That is not what I expected to hear,” she admitted, her voice hoarse with unlabeled emotions. “That is something I wanted very badly when I was younger, and thought I could do no right. I understand, now, that you need to be able to take pride in yourself before you can worry what anyone else thinks.”

A small smile played across her face. “I would like to be able to bring the cubs down, when they are old enough. So they know their family. Greer’s parents died this past winter, and I-- Want something better for them than how I feel towards Naira.” Better for them than what she dealt with, even if at least half of her troubles were self-imposed.