Blood ties

It seemed Asla and Kotori both agreed on a favorite sibling.  There was certainly no problem with Kotori not being Aslatiel’s favorite.  It would have been a shame had it been him since they had no real knowledge of each other.  He mostly recalled her as being distant and being the reaper.  She had helped fight the giant wolves his first winter as well.  To Asla he would have just been one of several kids that she was apparently not interested in at the time.

Kotori hadn’t been blind to his father's suffering even if he didn’t know the full extent of it.  It was a time in life that Kotori didn’t care to recall overly.  He hadn’t been traumatized by overwhelming sadness but by a numbness that as a child he had no explanation for.   Then she’d come back and that had just caused more confusion in the young boy.  Certainly, a time period he’d rather forget.

Ignorant and naïve as children are, the boy that he was hadn’t worried overly about how the pack would handle his father’s absence or the work that would be tossed on another’s shoulders.  Was it fair to push Asla aside for Azure?  Was there a reason for it?  It was a thing done and over with now and he imagined each side had its own viewpoint.  Regardless, Asla felt she’d been wronged.  If Kotori had been cheated of something he felt was deserved he’d have reacted also.  “I don’t recall the pack falling apart nor worrying about it so I imagine you did a good job.  I was too naïve at the time to really think on it.”

Kotori listened to Indigo, curious of the brother he even knew less than he knew of Asla. “It seems our family has a good number of healers in it.  Other than Briar all my sisters went into the healing art.  I tried it at first when I was young but I found it boring.  Hunting is much more fun.”  Focusing on killing for food instead of focusing on healing.  Kotori liked his other two brothers so would he of enjoyed this one as well had he stayed?

Kotori nodded to Asla’s words of leaving and how it had helped her children grow strong.  “After that ‘mess’, a time after that I was feeling lost.  I roamed a lot to find my own identity outside of the pack so that I wouldn’t be swayed by others’ viewpoints.  I needed to hear my own mind and find new experiences, see the larger world versus one small spot of it.” It had been when roaming he had run into Iki.  

A family roaming as mercenaries?  That didn’t sound bad at all.  That could just be an aching heart wanting to escape more than truly wanting something of the kind.  The wine was helping though, and this distraction.  Roaming about with family and offering strength.  Would that make him happy?  It didn’t quite fit the picture he’d set for himself though.  He’d have to decide what his dream was going to shape into now.

"Kotori Fatalis"