You're At The End Of The Road

The young male was trying to get into the habit of rising around dawn, as the days were growing longer that seemed to be an easier task with each passing day. They were all going to be a year old with the next turn of the season, which loomed uncomfortably close. Would they all stay together? Or would they all vanish like Aranea had, off to lead their own lives and search for fulfillment without one another? The thought tended to catch him unawares in the late hours of the night, and whenever he found himself with downtime. So the pale Destruction had thrown himself into his studies and honing his skills. As he awoke today he could hear one of his siblings shuffling in the main atrium of the den. That was enough to convince Solo to roll out of bed and shake the sleep from his coat. He pulled his weight forward and stretched his hind legs, flexed his toes. Pushed his bulk backwards and stretched his forelimbs, curled his toes into the dirt. A yawn wrenched his thick jowls apart, and a whine snuck out of him at the end of it.

Slipping through the thin curtain that veiled his hollow with privacy, he immediately noticed Balthier. Something was wrong. Black and gold auds tipped back against his skull, brows drawn together as his appetite was replaced with a hollow sensation, stomach dropping to his feet. "Why do you look so upset," it came out as less of a question than an observation, wariness creeping into his accented lyrics. Careful steps closed the distance between himself and his brother, and how had he never noticed himself growing taller than his brother? Than either of his sisters? Pushing the random thought aside, he drew closer to his sibling and sought to press his cheek along the side of his neck. "did something happen?" he asked softly as concern pinched his dark brows together, one pale paw stretching out and seeking to wrap loosely around a dark shoulder for comfort. Only a brief hug, drawing reassurance from physical touch. At some point he noticed Psalm's presence, compounding the intensity of his anxiety.

As he pulled away, silver gaze met sapphire as he waited for a response. He moved closer to Psalm, leaving his posture open and welcome in case she needed him. Something was about to come to light that he almost certainly wouldn't like. "Dad left last night." their brother began with something simple, a fairly common occurrence. Allegro left quite often, hunting trips or brief excursions beyond the borders to take a break from the strain of the hard winter and spring. "He's not coming back. I heard him leave the den and he told me he was going to live with his mother's family." the solemnity of Balthier's tone did little to lessen the dead weight that seemed to buckle his knees and shove its way down his throat. Why? What did he do wrong? Why not tell all of them together? What made Balthier so special, that their father entrusted this news to him alone? Where did that resentment just bubble up from- he loved his brother! A thousand questioned began to arise one after the other, drowning each other out as new voices arose to form an echoing cacophony within the confines of his skull. The boy steeled himself against the turmoil inside himself, turning his attention outwards to his siblings. They were the ones that needed him the most in this moment. "He said he loves us..." it was reassurance that fell flat in the face of surging emotions, and it took a remarkable resolve for Solo to bite back the snarl, the curl of his lip that spoke outright disdain for the bullshit sentiment. How could he love them, if he left them just like Aranea had? Instead, he slowly canted his head towards Psalm. He wanted to get a read on her expression, figure out how she was reacting to all of this. He wanted to reach out and pull her to his chest, partly for his own selfish desire for closeness right now.

"I couldn't stop him from leaving. He wouldn't even let me get a word in before he was gone." Balthier seemed to draw into himself, and somehow Solo's brows managed to pinch even closer together. Auds held close to his skull, he glanced between his siblings. Azzurra wasn't here, he wasn't totally certain why she was being left out of this. Perhaps Balthier was going to break it to her later, they had always been closer to one another from all the time he spent looking after her while she was at her sickest. "None of this is your fault, Balt." he said quietly, tail beating roughly on the hard packed earth of the den floor. "We don't need him anyways, we can do just fine ourselves." the alabaster youth took care to mind his tone, skirting outright aggression in favour of dismissing the man who had just walked out on them. He was reassuring himself as much as he was trying to reassure them, a false confidence in the hopes that it would manifest that hard truth. "I'll see if I can find someone to help me with my hunting, and I'll try to bring back more food at the end of the day. We can always borrow from the pack stores if we need to, I can ask Corvus or someone about it." already there were solutions to be found, workarounds for the provisions their father wouldn't be providing any more. Gaze hardened to a steely resolve, he once more shifted his attention to his siblings' features. Checking their reactions, their emotional state. He would support them in whatever ways they needed, without question.

"This isn't any of our faults," he repeated, and made sure to catch their eyes as he did. Maybe it was a hard stance to take immediately, but he didn't want those thoughts to fester in them in the same way they were already beginning to claw through the back of his mind. "I love you guys." he said softly, lifting one paw just slightly off the ground and flicking his paw towards himself. If there was ever a time for him to be wrapping those meaty paws around his siblings, it would be now.

"Speech" thoughts "others"