<blockquote><font style='margin-left:20px;'><i>The moment that he had stopped ignoring her, Trisden's behaviour around Hjornir had switched from intimidated to frustrated. The only wolves who had had any right to treat her like a child were her parents and El, and, even then, Borden didn't really count. It didn't help that the stuffy old wolf always spoke with Hocus as if he were mature - almost an equal. Trisden understood that her age set her back, but she hated how the tones always changed whenever they turned to talk to her after Hocus.</font>
<font style='margin-left:20px;'>Perhaps it was their beliefs. The Pilgrimage were a group of wolves who held faith... it just was not her own. She had almost been excited to realise that she had finally found some people who might understand, but had quickly realised that it was not the same.</font>
<font style='margin-left:20px;'>It was not even nearly the same.</font></i>
Coming back was supposed to have made things clearer. In a way, it had; weights had been lifted from her mind that had plagued her for months, and Kade's instant acceptance and understanding had given her an incredible boost in confidence. If he had wanted her back... then maybe she wasn't the failure that she had thought.
Those were old worries, old concerns, and if nothing else, Trisden had been trying to move on and move up. She had come back, but it had taken some time to re-adjust, and there were just a few small matters which niggled away at her, small paranoias which she could not shift. <i>They</i> had given her the courage to face her fears, but it was a different thing just talking about it. Talking made everything <i>seem</i> easy. Trisden didn't want to live her life fooling herself.
Funny, then, how she refused to let go of Kiche's teachings.
<font style='margin-left:20px;'>She sat at the edge of the forest - still beyond Grizzly Hollow's territory, a territory she had been skirting and yet never stepped on - and stared into the trees. She was still so troubled, and she had hoped that being here would fix it. Perhaps being here made it worse? But then that meant her problems lived here, and Hjornir had told her to face her fears... and surely her fears and problems and woes were all the same thing? So nothing would be fixed if she didn't just suck it up and do it right. She had already come so far, made so much progress, and this...
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Head swimming, a single clear moment of stubborn conviction shone out and Trisden grabbed it. Lifting her head, the young Lyall sang a rising note purely for her mother.
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(This post was last modified: Sep 16, 2012, 12:53 PM by Trisden.)