Pinch myself awake

Just as she had felt when her father had tried to comfort her the day her mother had returned home, she wasn't sure that Zee really understood where her confusion stemmed from, but it still helped to hear her say that she understood, to hear that she would have alerted them if she could, to hear her apology for the difficulty it caused. In the end they were just words, but they were a start. It was difficult to leave the resentment she held in the past, but she wanted it to be left there. This was their second chance. If nothing came of it well... At least she could say that she had tried. Then she could more confidently say that it hadn't been her fault that her mother hadn't spent time with her, that it wasn't her fault she didn't feel close to her. This was her olive branch, and effort to get to know her mother now that she was back in their lives and she would make this effort count.

When Zee's matching tan paw came to rest over hers, her chest felt tight with emotion while she listened to her thanks for caring for her father while she had been gone. She looked away, looking at their stacked paws while her ears flicked back against her skull, conflicted and feeling as if she couldn't really accept that thanks. "I... I tried to help him at least," she said after a moment, a frown pulling at her lips. "It didn't feel like anyone was trying to help him so I felt like I had to." She thought about the day her father had come back with the burned up remains, how Aris and Gossamer had denied it all and made things so much harder on their surviving parent, gritting her teeth at the thought. They had all expected their father to be the strong one because he always was, but she saw how broken it had made him. Had she been the only one paying attention? Or was she the only one that cared?

"I don't think I did a very good job though," she admitted uncertainly, still looking at their strikingly similar paws, only different in the fact that Zee's paw was far smaller than her own. "After... After he..." Had her father told her what he had done? He had told her how he had done the same thing to Zee once upon a time and she glanced up at her mother, her turquoise gaze looking for the matching scars on her neck. "I just... ran away. Asla gave me a place to stay in her den after that, but I ended up staying in The Hallows for a while. I was too afraid to even be here for some time. I..." She looked around at the den and added, "I haven't been in here since he came back with the burned bodies. I've stayed with Asla or Artorias or Mortis every night since then."

With a sigh she brought her other paw over hers, holding her paw between her paws quietly for a moment, shifting a bit closer to her mother. She could feel tears prickling at her eyes and she tried to fight them off, blinking them away before they could really form, but she feared it was just a losing battle. There were so many things she wanted to say but felt like she shouldn't. But out of all the things that had hurt her, all of the things that had frustrated her, the silliest and most unimportant of them all was the one that suddenly stuck in her mind. Maybe it was because it was one of the things that she had spoken with her father about when she returned from her stay in The Hallows, but for whatever reason it was what she thought of. A little smile twitched at her lips at the stupidity of it, a little laugh escaping her as those tears finally started to collect in her eyes. "I know it's stupid and there's no reason to even think about it with so many more important things going on, but... but is it selfish of me to be mad at dad because he didn't do anything for our birthday even though he promised he would?" She laughed again, tears spilling over onto her cheeks as she grinned at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. She got caught in a fit of silly giggles as all that frustration and pent up emotions suddenly found an outlet out of her.

"Briar Fatalis"