No respect around here

Recluse's anger remained steady even as she saw the Warlord, the weight of whatever was sitting on him so visibly did nothing to diminish the rage that pulsed through her. And she would have stayed like that, bristling and alive with her fury, if not for the words the man would speak. Where she expected something confrontational or even groveling he was simply tired, and the words he spoke punched right through her anger, the armor she'd donned to hide the pain, a pain that was dragged kicking and screaming to the forefront of her mind. Reclus visibly deflated, though there was a level of resentment still in her eyes, behind the clear confusion and pain and the tension that remained in her limbs.

"You were wrong." She informed him, an edge to her voice. But then she sighed, ducking her head slightly. "Just tell me where she went, go take care of your family and I'll take care of mine." It wasn't dismissive or meant to brush him off or undermine his complicated relationship with her aunt but an acknowledgement that he was tired. And had his own issues to deal with, Deathbelle was her members and it was supposed to be her responsibility to take care of her.

But she couldn't help feeling like her aunt had abandoned her. And for all the adults in her life that had done that, her mother's sudden disappearance, her father's inability to focus for more than a few days on his own children... Somehow those hurt less than Deathbelle's rejection of her. When Recluse hadn't known where she'd belonged she'd turned to her aunt, had felt lifted up by her and had hoped that by offering her a place in Habari that the woman would find her stride again. And when she'd fallen so far she was willing to abandon her own children, yet another generation of Klein children thrown to the wayside, she hadn't even tried to come to her alpha. That stung worse than the loss of her parents.

speech think action