Speaking with Aesire…? A Freudian slip, surely. Perhaps the furphy was actually true? Was this a guilty conscience? She could mean no other but Speiden, but how similar was this situation to the one she must have been in last year? But then she had the Argyris alpha to care for her. Now, she had a daughter to assist her with the raising of the pup. Pups? Kyna’s mouth twisted to one side as she realized she probably would be responsible for assisting with her siblings.
The switch in names was discarded as the young girl considered the more eminent matters, kneading her paws into the earth below. She might have pressed about their plans – where would they den if she was allowed to stay in Oak Tree Bend? Would they look for the father? And what would they do if Speiden threw them out, mother and daughter both? Where would they go, how far could Aponi travel while pregnant? The youth had a thousand questions on the tip of her tongue, and she got not one out.
But we can be a family.
The words rang between her ears, through her skull. What are we now? she wanted to demand, but that was no way to get anything out of the silver woman. So Kyna only say, and let the words sink in. “I suppose we might,” she intoned, promising herself to nothing, casting away no opportunity. “We will see what time brings. When the pups come.”
If nothing else, Kyna told herself, she’d not become the stone cold bitch that Celedine was, nor the ghost Takis became.