Might Have To Tell Me Again

He had never felt like she blamed him for what happened, but there was still his own self-made guilt over the situation. That's how he was for everything in his life, always wondering if there was something he could have done better or different choices he could have made. It was trait of his that he was constantly battling against. Could he have stepped in and stopped his father from going to that fight somehow? Could he have supported his sister better? Could he have prevented Azariah and Everlyse from going missing? There were so many slip ups and set backs that it was hard to figure out if there was something more he could have done or if life just went the way it went. Eska was helping him live more in the present and less in the past, but he still got lost in the "what ifs" pretty often.

His brow furrowed when Serenity mentioned how badly her mother had spoken of him, his ears flicking. It seemed awfully bold of her to speak like that of him when they had spent such little time together, but at the same time he supposed that she was the single mother without a father to help with her children in this situation. He quickly tried to shrug the fact off though it was difficult to do, feeding into his tendency to put blame on himself. He did wonder what kind of things her mother might have said, but in the end he supposed it didn't really matter as long as Serenity hadn't taken them to heart. It made his blood boil to hear how she had been treated badly. Pups and children held such a treasured place in his life that the thought of treating any pup badly just refused to sit well with him, no matter the reason.

His frown deepened when she brought up the fact that there had been a lot of men involved. By now he was watching Serenity almost from the corner of his eye, occasionally glancing at the path in front of them just to make sure he was watching where he was going. He didn't really want to ask what she meant since he could tell from the look on her face that these weren't exactly pleasant memories, but the uncertainty of it made him uneasy. Her mother being with a lot of men was one thing and even though that wasn't something that a young wolf like her should be exposed to he couldn't really dictate how her mother lived her life. But if anything else had happened he just wanted to be able to give her the support she needed that it seemed like she had never gotten before. He was quiet for a moment before he told her, "I won't ever force you to talk about any of it, but if you ever want to talk or want to get something off your chest I'm happy to be an open ear for you."

Ulric Adravendi