Torianna found she did not care about the heavy rain that poured down upon her as it masked much of the pain she felt inside… where it might show on her face, the rain’s assault made her squint and held her face in a certain manner that was vague and unassuming. She was merely trying to keep the rain from her nose and eyes… sort of. She was out doing what she had begun to do every morning: look for her father. She refused to accept the fact that he was simply gone. That he had left them. She did not understand.

In reality, she would never understand.

“Father! Father!” She would call out as she neared the border, not understanding just how truly large the world was as the rain continued to pour, causing slight shivers. It was pretty cold, she was pretty cold, but she was also determined in her own stubborn kind of way to find him… to bring him back. How dare he abandon them? Abandon her. He was one of the few figures she knew she needed… him and mom…

The pain echoed in her chest, and it slowly started to sink in.

He was never coming home.

He was gone.

She found herself slowly collapsing on the border with a sob in her body, a rare moment of weakness shining through and echoing through her mind.

She had been so sheltered, her entire life. She’d never known pain, and only known victory… and so her father’s leave followed by her sister’s abandonment and carved her chest out, a cruel knife that introduced her to the truer realities of the world… one that for all her bravado, she was not prepared for. The sobs overcame her, and in that moment, she was unaware of his presence behind her. Instead, there was simply the pounding of rain against her fur that felt as if it echoed in her ears, and it would linger for a few minutes before her head turned, her small frame feeling so much smaller now in his presence.

It was a harsh kick in the teeth.

“Why?” She knew he would understand what she was asking… that any adult would. Why had he left? Why was he gone? Why did he abandon them? It felt like she were reeling, like a speck of dust in the window that was being forced to move from place to place when she wanted nothing more than to settle against some patch of dirt… she hated feeling so helpless. It felt so… unlike her.

And then Euna. Stupid Euna had run after him… she’d get herself killed. She wasn’t ready for the harsh realities of the world either.

“Why?” This time, her voice was more pitiful, as if she were lost and overwhelmed and angry all at the same time… because she was all of those things, and she didn’t know how to handle it.

She longed for answers, and yet the crippling weight of reality kept screaming deep into the void that she would never get them. His voice was quiet, but loud enough to carry over to her. She felt angry. She felt furious. She felt hurt. Her chest physically ached from the mental weight of it… and she didn’t know how to move forward. In that moment she didn’t know how to move forward, or how to do much of anything.

Her gaze turned to him, confusion and pain lingering in her eyes as he promised to help her track him… in that moment, she wasn’t much sure that she wanted to either… and yet she knew deep down she would. But why?

To bring him home, or to ensure he stayed gone?

“R-really?” A rare stutter fell over her tongue, a hesitation in her voice, confliction burning deep in her soul as she shifted uncomfortably. “It just doesn’t make sense. He loves mom. He loves us. Why would he just leave?” She wasn’t certain she believed in love… but she thought that it was meant to entrap those who claimed to love in your life.

And now, she wasn’t sure she knew much of anything.

Her mother and her father had always been the easiest for her to rely on, even when her mother or her father scolded her for her behavior or tried to wrangle her more violent tendencies against her siblings. To some measure, they had been successful… until now, until her father decided to leave them. She could feel that anger continue to broil hot underneath her skin. A part of her wanted to lash out.

Lash out at her mother, at her siblings, at Eros and Viorel… and yet, there was a part of her in her later pup years that knew it would not help alleviate these feelings. It hardly made it seem worth it.

Your dad does love you. A part of her wanted to snap ‘don’t lie to me’ but the words never escaped, instead, she simply stared at him, pain mixing with her disbelief. “Well he’s wrong! It’s not what’s best for us!” She had found her mother sobbing on the forest floor, and she wanted nothing more than to bring pain to the one who had put her in such a state, expecting it to be Khalon or maybe Tuwile… she had never expected that it would have been her father.

It didn’t sate her desire to kill him… even if it was mixed with her desire to find him and drag him back to the pack, or even to go with him.

Except she couldn’t do that to Mother.

Pain still radiated from her chest, and there was little that his words did to ease her. Instead, he simply let her feel… he did not try to sway her, and though the young girl could not process it in the moment, she could appreciate it later, after the exhaustion from the horrific feelings she felt died down in her chest and allowed her to breathe again.

“I hope he never comes back.” A vitriol filled her voice as she rose, turning away from the border in her anger and stomping off, intent to find their mother and to lay with her… a rare display of compassion from her… to check in on the one parent she had left.