It's wild like the river It's warm like the sun

Briar could see the strain her hesitation caused her mother, but she couldn’t force herself any more than she had. She smiled shyly at the compliments she was given about her horns and how she was growing into a remarkable young woman. She hadn't really felt all that remarkable, but perhaps from the outside she seemed to be. "Thank you," she said softly and gave her mother another, warmer smile, trying to silently say that she was genuinely happy that she was alive since words seemed to fail her, before she stepped back to let Gossamer and Aris continue to fawn over her. It wasn't that she wasn't happy her mother was here, she was only conflicted by her own immediate response. She glanced at Ophelia and Kotori as they joined in, both of them seemingly as uncertain as herself. Kotori at least fell somewhere in the middle, more enthusiastic than herself, but not as audaciously over the top as their sisters. He had never really been the emotional one of the bunch though so his was expected.

She looked up at her father when he approached her, her ears flicking uncertainly. She didn’t know what he was going to say, but once she heard his whispered “I know” the shell she tried to hide behind started to chip. Did he know? Did he understand the uncertainty and the guilt she felt? Maybe he did, but it was still so hard. Why didn’t she feel like Gossamer and Aris seemed to? Why wasn’t she over joyed to see their mother again? Why did her mother feel like a stranger? He didn't really have to tell her that her mother had been through hell, she could see it in the thin frailness of her body. Somehow that only made her feel worse. Her mother had apparently been through so much and she couldn't even be thrilled to see her. There was more that she needed to sort through that she couldn't do here in front of everyone.

Still, she did as her father asked and moved closer to her mother again, finding a place just behind her so that her mother could almost lean back into her while she was being smothered by Gossamer and Aris. She looked up and smiled when she spotted Mortis coming toward them. She had gotten so much closer to her older brother recently and as she looked around at her siblings she realized he was the only one she felt like she could confide in freely. That thought hurt her even more than her own guilt about how she reacted to her mother reappearing, but that was something she shoved quickly to the back of her mind. That was a far larger issue than she had the strength to consider right now. She didn't like feeling like a stranger among her own family. Mort pulled a chuckle from her when he came and swept his wings around them, enveloping them in his own kind of bear hug. She leaned into the wing and the soft feathers that draped over one of her shoulders, smiling at the little comfort he brought.

Once her mother let go of Aris and Gossamer she slipped away again herself, but she didn't go far. She sat between Kotori and Mortis, waiting to see if they would find out more. Aris brought up the question of where Azure was and her brows lifted with recognition. Right, he had been thought dead as well, but now here their mother was proving them that maybe that wasn't the case. She glanced up across the plains toward the border as if she expected him to be standing there, but he wasn't. Yet another sibling she hadn't been close with. She waited to see what the answer would be, looking back and forth between her parents.

"Briar Fatalis"