((Liquid time to just a bit before Tsunami meets up with the Tojo group, then the band))

After the last time, she'd been here, the raid on the pack when she'd been practically another wolf, she'd never expected to find herself back at Abaven again. The lands felt uncomfortably familiar, she chaffed under the feeling. She didn't exactly have good memories of the place, of the wolves. She sighed. Kimuy was lingering nearby but far enough away she wouldn't really get in the way, but even for her new ranks with Hattori's new band she was not willing to risk being out and about alone so close to where he cousin had last held her. Her story with that part of her life was over and arguably was probably fresher, rawer still but... Something about her time prisoner to her mother in Abaven gnawed at her still. Tsunami's life was changing, she was starting over, not even a new chapter but a whole new book in who she was and so she needed to finally end the thing that started the tragedy that was the life she was leaving behind. Would Shaye even still be alive? She wasn't sure, Tsunami had spent too much of her life avoiding the wolves of Abaven when she'd been here and young enough that it was hard to tell just how old an adult actually was. Well, she supposed she could only find out in one way. Tsunami lifted her voice in a call for Shaye, or whoever now led Abaven. Speech Think Action

Art by Vhitany

Calls are the border were more frequent now that summer's bounty beckoned wolves to travel further from their borders. They were a welcome sound, even if the voice was unfamiliar. Theory raised her head from her place by the rapids and stretched out before heading towards the thicket at a clip. She was still struggling to put weight back on after the illness, but the divots between her ribs had begun to finally fade. At least her stamina had returned. Theory arrived to find a faintly familiar face at the border. It was like she was facing the remnants of a dream that had faded as soon as she'd woken up. Try as she might, she couldn't put a name to the face. "Hello, I'm Theory, Headmistress of Abaven. Have you come to enroll at the school, or...?" The stranger had an entirely unfamiliar smell. It didn't belong to any of the packs she'd recently visited.

"Speech"

Tsunami would not see Shaye, no instead a young woman whose face was familiar would appear and despite herself she couldn't help but grimace slightly, ducking her head to avoid looking impolite at her sudden change in demeanor. Was this one of the innumerable siblings of that dumb boy Theta had been obsessed with? She hadn't even bothered to try and learn his name no matter how much her sister had insisted on fawning over him. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and tried to listen. Theory, that certainly sounded familiar. Whoever this woman was she held herself with the authority of a leader and Tsunami could only assume she'd taken over Abaven after Shaye, but was the woman dead or simply retired? She took a deep breath and lifted her gaze properly, her voice even as she spoke even as her posture showed some signs of discomfort. "I am Tsunami, once a Preator but I don't go by that name anymore. I have a... personal history with Abaven. I was hoping to meet and speak with Shaye." She did her best not to seem too anxious, being here made her skin prickle but well, Shaye was the last (unrelated) wolf she needed to speak to, she owed the woman an apology, even if she could never have known the hatred Tsunami had harbored for her. Speech Think Action

Art by Vhitany

And just like that, her blood ran cold with new grief. It was inescapable and came on so quickly that she was powerless to stop it. Theory's smile faltered, her polite façade splintering. Sadness shone in her eyes and she looked quickly away towards the rapids where Shaye was buried, sucking in a breath quickly to compose herself. "I'm terribly sorry. It's been long enough now that I assumed everyone just... knew, but I suppose that's foolish of me," she laughed but there was no humor there. "I think I remember you. You were with us for a spell... I was so young then." Theory paused to still the feelings that were stirring and continued: "Shaye died shortly after the volcano displaced us, but I'm sure anything you may have wanted to discuss with her can be discussed with me." Even as she spoke the words they felt like heavy ashes in her mouth. Was that presumptuous of her? She was alpha now. Shaye couldn't hear whatever message Tsunami bore.

"Speech" Tsunami, for all the time she'd lost to social isolation, could see the way her words shifted Theory's demeanor, she had to fight the urge to run away right then. She took a deep breath so she could meet Theory's gaze when it returned to her and she tried to keep her anxiety from showing. Ah, the volcano. It made sense, Abaven had always lived so close to it, but that fact hadn't really felt connected to anything until this moment. "I ah, I'm sorry." She swallowed the lump that was quickly forming in her throat, instead, forcing herself to focus on the woman in front of her to keep herself grounded. Theory said she thought she recognized her and Tsunami had to fight the urge to take another full look at the black and white woman. She shook her head and couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "I wish I could say the same, I wasn't exactly the most social while I was here." Theory's suggestion rattled around in her mind before she nodded. "It's a bit of a long and not particularly happy story, and I'd be loath to take up your time if you don't have it." She didn't want to just totally dump all her trauma on this poor wolf if she wasn't ready for it.

Art by Vhitany

Slowly, Theory sat down. "It's alright. We all do strange, unthinkable things when we're young. Then suddenly, we're old - and it all seems miles away. I appreciate you coming back to try and speak with Shaye," her voice broke softly on her adopted mother's name. "It speaks to your character that you would return at all, after so much time has passed. I will hear whatever you have to say, in her honor." A stiff fall breeze cut through the thicket, rustling the leaves until they rattled. Everything was dry and dying or already dead. Evening had begun to fall, casting everything in a red-orange glow; the kind of color you only see in one particular season. "You have as much of my time as you need."

"Speech" Tsunami sighed and settled herself on her haunches, shifting slightly for a while as if trying to find the perfect position, but really she was just nervous, illogically, and trying to settle herself before she took a deep breath to talk. "I don't really know why my parents ended up together, I have reason to believe my father maybe once have felt something for my mother but I cannot believe that's true of her. My father had his own pack at that point and I have to assume that was what she wanted him for." She chuckled darkly. "My siblings and I... We were her pawns. I cannot say if she really loved us, she certainly wasn't a monster but she never put us before her own machinations. She took us from our father, fled to Abaven, claimed that our father had threatened us..." Tsunami took a deep breath, slowing herself and lifting her gaze to meet Theory's. A set of bright blues, gorgeous, but Tsunami forced that thought from her head she needed to impart this to the woman. "My father, for all my complex feelings about him, adored his children. He never would have threatened us. My mother was a liar, and she ran to a place she knew wouldn't be able to turn away someone in need." Tsunami took another few breathes, trying to throw off the tremors that had started to move through her body, but it wasn't really in her control the woman had spent so many years pushing down her emotions, her anger, her sadness... Her Trauma, and now that she was letting it out her body was reacting, releasing all the tension she hadn't realized she was holding. For so long she'd been a rock standing firm against the waves, and now finally she was letting herself be carried away, instead of fighting it. Her voice quivered ever so slightly as she continued but there was a resolve there too. "Shaye she... She saw a scared mother and her pups, she heard my mother claim up and down that my father had said he'd kill her, kill us." The woman shook her head lightly, a sort of bitter smirk crossing her lips. "I understand now that Shaye couldn't have known, she saw pups at risk and what she thought was a battered woman and did everything in her power to protect them, but at the time I couldn't understand that. I couldn't understand why she hadn't told my mother that that was ridiculous, that she should take me and my siblings back home, all I could see was the only world I ever knew being ripped away from me and I was too young to understand why. I blamed Shaye for not seeing through my mother's lies." "I suspect there was a lot of politics at play... My father was an alpha and by all rights, we were still his members, I don't know what went down between the grown-ups then, I know my mother played the concerned loving parent very well but she cared more about trying to use us to get what she wanted from my father, she hardly cared to be around us while she was here. We were left to ourselves a lot. My sister... She took to being here like it a duck to water, seemed unbothered by being forced to leave and potentially never seeing our father again, she was sweet on a boy here, I never got it, he was just a silly little boy." Tsunami rolled her eyes at that thoughts, she didn't know if the boy, no doubt now a man, was even still here, couldn't know it was Theory's own brother, but she wouldn't speak her stronger thoughts on him all the same, she wasn't here to insult any of Abaven's members. "I didn't bother to try and make any friends. As far as I was concerned you were all one big happy family and I couldn't stand it. I felt like screaming every time I saw you and the other pups, why did you get to have your happy childhoods and I'd had mine ripped away from me by someone who was supposed to give a shit? Besides I'd made friends before, my father's pack had had another litter of pups in it at the time, and when my mother had fled with us she had that ripped away, I couldn't trust it wouldn't happen again. I still wonder what happened to those kids..." Tsunami shook her head. "Instead, I isolated myself, spent most of my time with my brothers..." And yep there it was, the tears. She struggled valiantly for a moment to hold them back but the thought of her brothers... Of Tyto the last wolf in the world she'd had in her corner, it spilled forth. She'd treated him poorly when last they'd spoken, and she couldn't help but feel that with their severed relationship that was it, her family was all gone from her. She was alone. Sure Hattori had invited her into the fold and she had no intentions of turning him down, would be joining him soon enough... But she didn't have more than that, an alpha who saw her potential... That was it. Her soul ached for something more, something stronger. But it seemed the world always conspired to keep that just out of her reach. Tsunami cried silently for a bit, staring defiantly ahead even as her body shook, her jaw locking as she wrestled with the wave of emotions she'd held back for years like the wave that made her name now crashing over her. "Eventually Shaye realized she couldn't hold us, our mother fled then, the moment she'd realized her gambit had failed she showed her true colors and abandoned us. I haven't seen her since and frankly, I hope I never do. Our father came for us but the damage had been done. I'd effectively lost my childhood. Things would not get better, not in the end, but in the meantime, I had stability in my life for the first time and I had a lot of time to stew. My family had always been good at one thing, anger, and it turned out I was no different. I simmered for years. I resented a lot of wolves." Her mother, Shaye and Abaven as a whole, Her Father once she'd learned of the children he'd sired in their absence, the woman who had borne her half-siblings, Her sister Theta, the Boy her sister had abandoned them all for... "I'm tired of holding onto hatred." It was a simple statement, but for the first time the wall she'd been so carefully maintaining slipped, Tsunami folded in on herself and her voice showed how truly tired she was, her vulnerability, the tiny child still in her crying out in desperation for someone, anyone to care about her, shone through. "There are some wolves in my life who I can't and won't forgive, they do not deserve it but... Abaven, you, your family, and Shaye? I realize now that anger was misdirected..." Tsunami's voice hitched, the tears had not stopped but now they flowed with wild abandon, all of her protection had crumbled and she was baring her soul to a total stranger. "For longer than I care to admit I refused to see Shaye as a victim of my mother's manipulation, but I know better now. And you and your family... You never deserved my anger. It isn't your fault you're lucky enough to have something I never can, it isn't your fault you're loved." It felt like a punch to the gut, to finally say it out loud, to admit to why she'd always resented the boy her sister adored, why she'd felt so much joy in tearing into the other yearling during their raid... Because she was jealous, in them she saw everything she'd always wanted but that the world denied her... Love. Tsunami wanted to say more, wanted to say she knew Shaye didn't actually need it because she'd done nothing wrong but that Tsunami had forgiven her. That she was ready to move on, to leave the hatred behind but her emotions were overwhelming her and despite everything she'd built up, despite being a mostly logical wolf who'd always rolled her eyes at the dramatics of more emotional wolves she was finally feeling it and after so much suppression it was a tide she could not fight anymore. Tsunami wept, curled in on herself and wept.

Art by Vhitany

The thicket seemed to quiet around them as Tsunami began to talk. Even the bugs and birds seemed to hold their breath. Theory took a breath and stilled herself, listening with an open heart and mind. As Tsunami spoke, Theo tried to imagine her as she was back then: smaller, bones lighter - maybe a little shy. Withdrawn. As the story unfolded, Theo felt more and more like she remembered her: flitting always at the edges of her vision, half-hidden in shadows while she played with Shaye and Poem and Motif. Yes, to any passerby, she looked perfectly happy. But she must not have seen Tana or heard of her brutal death. She must not have known when Theory and her siblings were half-hidden away from the rest of the pack by their mother, overly doting and selfish to a fault. Possessive of Rhyme until her death.

But Tsunami's words still rang true - nevertheless, despite all of her own circumstances - she had been loved.

The tears crept on so quietly at first that Theory didn't realize the smaller female was crying until the tremors overtook her completely and she seemed to crumple before her. Caretaking instinct powering her body on muscle memory alone, Theo sprang to her paws and crossed the short distance between them without thinking. She settled in next to Tsunami, finding herself shocked by the sheer difference in size between them. It made her suddenly self-conscious. How could she console her? Was this too much? Should she put more space between them?

Her mind raced, the sound of her sobs cutting right through to the bone. "I... I've opened the school for children like that. Because I was loved, but I was also left behind. I don't want any child to feel that way ever again. Not while I can spread the word that the school is open. I want to care for yo - for children like you," she stammered. Theory reached out a paw, placing it nearby Tsunami's own. They sat close enough now that she could lean in to her if she chose. "Thank you for sharing that. It took courage. Shaye would have welcomed you back with a smile - she... she would have known just what to say," Theory stammered, a tear snaking down her cheek before she could stop it. No matter how much time had passed, her presence still permeated these lands. Every step she took, she could feel her ancestors watching. Most days it felt comforting. Familiar. Right now, she just wished she knew what Shaye would have said. Was this good enough?