Growing pains

Kichi’s pace faltered a bit as she gave her answer, but he quickly bounded a bit to catch up.  The talk of food was enough to have his stomach grumble a reminder it was hungry.  He didn’t respond right away, just listened to Lurid go on. His mind struggling an emotion to land on, there were too many for this concept.  There two key emotions that were winning out over all others.  Fear and anger.  

Anger always fed well on fear, it took away the painful paralyzing sting of the fear wrapping it around in anger, whether it had solid reason or not mattered little.  Kichi didn’t want to hunt, not ever, not real game.  The thing that had killed mom and dad had been much bigger than this but it didn’t matter.  He didn’t want to think of that day, didn’t want to remember any of the past, not any part of it.

Hunting was scary as it hunted down past memories so in a defining moment Kichi decided he simply wouldn’t.  There had been a fight for emotions on his face for a bit but then it had gone oddly calm as he had followed Lurid.  Once he had his answer he looked up, way up to his mom.  “No,” The single word came with a hint of the anger he mostly filtered out of it.  How dare she want to make him confront his past? No one could make him do that, no one. The excuses came to mind of not being hungry, or quietly asking to go home and he knew none of those would shake Lurid.  So he offered no other explanation or excuse, just no.

The tiny puppy stared up at his guardian waiting for his answer to be accepted.