Wraiths and Shadows

His breaths heaved in his chest, and his eyes, which had been wild just moments before, began to settle. “Well, then.” He said softly as her own voice rose. Her own battle cry joined the fade of his own. He looked at the girl, found her spark, and his heart broke. Zee had always been the one who was never afraid to raise her voice to him. To answer his anger with her own. He would never hear the rage and anger of Zee’s voice again. But he heard an echo of it in Adelina’s.

He crouched down before her. Raising a paw towards her, and for the third time he let it fall before he could complete the gesture. “There it is. Little Adelina. There's your spark” He said softly. “There's hope for you yet.” He wanted to hate her, he had hated her. For a brief moment, until she had developed into a person before his eyes. He could hate the idea of her, he could hate what he wanted her to represent. But he could not hate the broken pieces they had left behind. If she had been one of the guards, one of the slavers. Perhaps then he would have taken her down, and torn her slowly to pieces. But fate wasn’t kind enough to gift him with answers he could compartmentalise away. He crouched down beside her for as long as she needed to regain her sense of calm. “You will find the Armada to be far different than the places and people that have owned you before.” He rubbed the back of his paw across his eyes. Feeling tired, and old.

"Speech"