Only Dead Fish Swim With The Stream

Even if it was words that were hard for him to hear or believe, he still listened to everything his mother told him while she comforted him and let him get out all of the hurt and sorrow that had weighed on him so heavily for so long. It was difficult for him to believe that there was really nothing more he could have done to help prevent his father's death, but it was also difficult for him to remember just how young and little he had been at the time. When he was a pup he had felt invincible, like he could conquer the world if he had wanted to, and that had all crashed down around him in an instant. He didn't wish that he had died and he didn't want his father's death to be in vain, but he desperately wished there was more he could have done, some way he could have intervened. He just wanted his dad back, not a warrior's honor.

If there was anything that he could agree with while he was sobbing into her chest it was that he was the best father he could have asked for and that he missed him deeply. He knew she was right that his dad would just want them to be happy and make him proud. It was all his dad had ever really wanted while he was alive too. It was just so hard when there was such a big gap in his life that was impossible to fix. Still, as she reminded him of what his father would have wanted for him it did just prove to him that all of his efforts to make himself appear like he was meeting those goals had failed. When she told him how proud she was of him it made a pang of guilt hit him, making him feel like a sham. He knew it was all well intentioned, but he didn't feel like he had done anything worthy of her pride and certainly nothing that his father would have been proud of. The only thing his father had asked of him was to take care of his family and he knew he had done a poor job of that.

He sniffled and breathed in small hiccups as he tried to pull himself together, though he didn't lift his head from her chest right away. He knew he had to do better. He couldn't keep living like this and he didn't want to—especially not now when he knew he had been found out. He thought about Tira and how she had asked him to try, how she had wanted her brother back, and he knew he had failed her too. He eventually got his tears under control with a good bit of effort and lifted his head, rubbing his eyes and cheeks with his paw as he blinked his eyes open to look at her. "I'm sorry, momma," he said softly, ashamed of himself for letting himself get so bad and being too blinded by his own grief to see it. "I'm going to do better. I know you're right... I know it's what dad would have wanted, it's just... It's so hard." He sighed and looked down at their paws, curling one of his paws around hers. "I want to deserve you being proud of me. I don't want you do just be proud of me because I'm your son."

"Arcturus Indarra"