The silence chocked him, made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. At first she was leading him toward the Bend, then suddenly she veered off and led them toward the Loch. His heart hammered in his chest, suddenly terrified of being abandoned again. Terrified of being alone, of having no one. Why did he have to be so protective, so stupid, such a jerk? But, he needed to live with the consequences and he knew he would. He already knew that his ear was torn beyond repair, not completely ruined but a chunk missing, and the deep scratch that ran along from just below the front of his ear to across just above his eye would scar as well. A monster like him deserved to be disfigured anyhow.

They arrived and wordlessly she stepped into the lake, washing the blood from her face. Kino sat just at the edge, watching as the waves lapped by and trying not to throw up as wisps of it were colored pink with her blood. He never wanted her to get hurt, yet it seemed destruction followed in his wake eventually. "I want to be mad at you, but it’s really hard,” she said quietly, and his heart skipped a beat. Was she so emotionless toward him now that she couldn’t even feel hate? That was perhaps the worst feeling, to think that you could care about someone so much but they were left with utter indifference to you. He thought, for a moment, that he would much rather her to be mad at him. Much rather her be screaming and calling him names, anything but this eerie calmness that felt so…empty.

Please don’t be mad. “It’s okay to be mad.” You should be mad.

The sadness in her tone was like a whip, lashing at him and leaving him shaken and cold. If he could feel anything else other than despair at the moment, he might have been amused at the fact that she was still defending the man. Of course, Hal was always the martyr, saving those poor souls who seemed to be in distress. Wasn’t that the reason that she’d befriended him? Because he’d been one of those poor unfortunate souls, alone and broken. And he’d gone along with it because her warmth was intoxicating, reaching him when no one else had been able to in his cold little corner. Now, he felt the heat receding and a shiver wracked his spine.

Then, there it was. The rage, the burning anger that was so easily consuming. "Then you were... I don't even know who you were.” He didn’t even know who he was. "You could have killed him.” He might have. ”Did you think you were saving me?” He’d wanted to. He’d wanted to be her knight in shining armor. All he wanted in his life now was to follow her, to be near her. And, it was in that moment that Kino Lagina realized he was very much in love with Sahalie Tainn. It was this realization that was nearly his complete undoing.

"Explain yourself." she demanded, and he was a thousand pounds. He was spiraling and the world was spinning. “I just…I saw him…he was snarling at you, so bitter toward someone so sweet and…I wanted to protect you. I just…I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t even think straight. I don’t want anyone to hurt you, I don’t want anyone to take you away…” he murmured thickly. He swallowed loudly, “I don’t even know who I am.” he fought back a whine. He might not have wanted to hurt her, but at the end of the day it was him who had hurt her the most.

Sahalie was a windmill of emotions, from sad, to pissed, to concerned. She felt so many things, opened herself up with a bleeding heart which was quite the opposite of him. He was, as she said, reclusive, totally separate from most others. But, he’d been doing better lately. Throwing himself more into pack events, getting to know the others and he already knew the land like the back of his paw. It hit him how much he was losing all over again, and for the first time in a long time Kino wanted to cry. “You're a good wolf, Al,” she said and he nearly laughed but it was stilled when she reached up to lick his cheek. His heart beat erratically in his chest, heat pooling where she touched. The feeling was so strong, so foreign. It scared him, terrified him in fact. He was suddenly on his paws, backing away with his tail between his legs with his head shaking.

“I’m not, I wish I was but I’m not Sahalie and you deserve so much better. You should never stop trying to help others, but not everyone can be saved. I can’t be saved, I proved that today.” His face was contorted as the internal war he’d been fighting for so long finally made its way into the outside world. “I’m…I’m not who you think I am. I’m not this guy with the best intentions and a heroic heart. What I wouldn’t give to be him, what I wouldn’t give to be Alastor,” he said, then went stock still topaz gaze going wide. What had he just said? What had he just done.

He watched through his lashes as she slowly seemed to grow more distraught, more terror than even from their situation before seeping through her pelt. He’d done that, made her feel that, hurt her. It was something he couldn’t get over, not in some sick twisted way but in the sense that he might never truly forgive himself. She continued with the Al charade, though he already knew that she knew what he mean in the back of her mind. He always knew this would happen when she found out, knew that she could never accept him. After all, who would?

His head hung low as he whispered, “My name isn’t Alastor Leigh. It’s Kino Lagina.” All the air was sucked out of him and he had to blink, physically think about remembering how to breath. He didn’t want to breath, didn’t want to take in any more breaths because each one pushed her farther and farther away. But she deserved an explanation, deserved something more than that at least.

For the first time, Kino was going to tell someone about his past.

“I wasn’t…I wasn’t separated from my family. We weren’t loners…I was born into a pack. My mom and dad were leaders, but he died before I was born. Mom moved the pack into a forest filled with timbers then had me, my sister, and my younger brother. Everything was pretty okay for a while, mom was…amazing. She was my best friend, she used to tell me stories and dance in the rain with me.” he said, gaze clouding over in a daze as he remembered. “Then…when we turned 4 months old the guy who replaced dad called everyone. I knew…I knew it wasn’t good. He sounded upset, I believed he was upset. Then…when I arrived mom was…gone. Just…gone,” his face contorted once more into a grimace, the picture of her lifeless body forever etched into the front of his mind. He saw it when he was asleep and saw it when he was awake. She never left. “My younger brother…started crying. No, it was crying. It was wailing, so loud that it hurt your ears. It was hurting everyone else, everyone just started breaking down and…and mom wouldn’t have wanted it!” he tried to reason with wide eyes like he’d tried to reason with himself so many times before. “Ari and I told him to stop wailing like that, stop hurting everyone and then…everyone turned on us. Turned on me. They started screaming at us, calling us names, calling us ‘brats’ and ‘demons’ and ‘disgraces’. I tried to tell them. Draven wasn’t the only one who lost mom, we did too, but no one cared. No one cared, and so I fought back to defend Ari. Then…Gent hit me. He slammed into me and threw me into the ground in front of my mother’s corpse and nobody gave a damn. They might as well have cheered him on,” he said bitterly, auds sweeping back. “I waited a month to see if anything would get better and it didn’t. Nobody would look at us, nobody would talk to us, all they worried about was Draven. And they think I didn’t hear them talking to each other, calling us horrible things behind our backs. Monster, monster, monster.Gent called a meeting and had Raela take mom’s place a month after she died. Just one month,” he fumed, tail lashing. “I think…I think he killed her. I think he and Raela were plotting, and that he killed her. Probably killed dad too, and maybe we were next. I didn’t know…and I didn’t want to find out. I asked Ari to come with me but she didn’t, she’d have rather stayed with them than come with me. But Kova came with me, and so we left. I changed my name because I didn’t want any of that.” He shuffled his paws awkwardly.

“I was…I was so bitter, Sahalie. I was so angry all the time, it never went away. They left me, they all left me and maybe they should have. Maybe Gent and Raela are right. No…they are right. I’m no good, I never will be and I never can be. I’m a monster and you deserve better…so you should leave too. I’m not going to hold it against you,” he said in a rush. Even though all of it was out and he thought he’d feel free, he only felt more trapped. He didn’t know what she was going to say…or did he? Her reaction from before spoke volumes enough, and he briefly contemplates ways of ripping his heart out so he’d never have to feel emotions like this again.