What You Need Isn't Always What You Want

Manea's call for him had fallen on deaf ears. Saracyn was far too consumed with bitter anger that the young wolf just continued to trudge away, storming off down the mountain path in the direction of the woods. He needed to be away from his family right now—all of them. He needed to go out and vent his rage and kill something, and if he didn't, he was likely to take it out on his oppressive mother instead. Would that really have been such a bad thing though? Maybe she needed to get knocked around again some to realize she didn't hold dominion over everyone and everything. The red-furred wolf growled and huffed, eyes narrowed, paws stomping heavily as furious snorts left him. Fuck her. Fuck their laws. Fuck the Mendaciums. He didn't even want to be a part of this bullshit any more. There was no point, nothing for him except constant disappointment and upset.

His twin sister's voice calling his name from behind him made white-tipped ears flick back, but the dire prince did not stop. He kept pressing on through the loamy soil in the pine forests, hellbent on getting off this fucking island. Avacyn wasn't accepting that, it seemed, as the next thing he knew, his smaller sibling was darting in front of him to block his path with her body, dark eyes fixed on his pointed glare. Sara reared his head back, fangs bared at her while he tried to push past her and keep moving on, but again she made a nuisance of herself by darting in front of him. There was no avoiding this. Saracyn growled a low threat to Ava, warning her to keep out of his way, but she decided to start trying to convince him instead. Cold cobalt eyes flashed with indignant fire the more she spoke, trying to convince him that Manea was doing this for their benefit. "For us?!" he snapped back, incredulity heavy in his snarling voice. "Ava, she's keeping us apart! She's selling you off for a political arrangement to a worthless waste of life so she can advance her own motives and she's getting me out of the way of your succession by passing me off to the scraps of some family on the other end of the world! Tell me how that's 'doing this for us'?!"

Avacyn reached for his face, but Saracyn was having none of it. He recoiled back from her touch, still heartbroken and upset from seeing her submit so willingly to Manea's commands. He didn't step away from her, but he did reject her, spurning her affections out of anguish and anger. "And you... you just agreed to it. You didn't put up any sort of fight when she did this. Why? Because it's expected of you? So what, was I to be your whore on the side, second to whoever you took as a husband? Just something nice for you to use on the side when you felt like it?" Saracyn snarled his last two sentenced, clawing at the ground in frustrated anger. "I thought that together we could do what we wanted. I thought that we-" Sara let his heated words die on his tongue, once again biting them back to prevent from saying too much. He looked away from Avacyn, snorting and glaring at anything around him but her. After a moment of seething, he calmed down enough to look back down at her again, no longer on the verge of exploding, but still nowhere near calm.

"All my life I've been forced to settle for second best. I've never resented you for being heir, but all I want is to feel like I have some control in my life and not be told to accept what I'm given. Mother was allowed to fuck our uncles silly and still go out and fuck her way through the world to find her mate, found her own pack, do whatever the hell she wants, and I'm expected to do as I'm told without any consideration or voice. Everyone besides me is given something they want, and the one thing I've ever wanted is denied to me. What I wanted never mattered, and it seems it never will." Saracyn lifted one large paw and pushed Avacyn's paws off of his chest, turning his gaze from hers as he moved to step past her again, pointedly keeping his gaze averted. "I'm clearly just a problem for your succession that the Matriarch's trying to rectify by pawning me off to the most convenient bidder. I should have never been born in the first place. And I won't stand around to be dealt a second rate hand again and expected to be grateful for it."

"Saracyn Mendacium"