All grown up

The silence between them was heavy, his grief palpable and suffocating. Vanta watched in horror as her father's reaction unfolded, the pain in his gaze, the unvoiced questions lingering there that spoke louder than words ever could. She saw the longing; the raw, aching need within him.

His struggle for breath was a silent scream and in that moment, her own pain flared anew, not for herself, but for the magnificent wolf before her. Her father, her rock, the man who had been her first and only hero. The paw he reached out was trembling, and she took it desperately, her own two paws enveloping his with a grip that said what her words could not.

She leaned closer, their foreheads nearly touching, her voice low. "Dad." She whimpered, her voice cracking, "Maybe... m-maybe you could ask for her, too. Call to her." Her eyes, brimming with tears, sought his. "I don't know if it will work, but sometimes when I am lost, when I feel like I might die without her... she comes to my call. Through fire, she finds me."

Her breath hitched as she added in a whisper. "I-I can't bear to see you in pain." Vanta's chest heaved in a sob, her tears spilling over, tracing clean lines through the fur on her cheeks. "Tell me what I can do." Pleading now, she squeezed his paw tighter, desperate to find a way to somehow mend her father's broken heart.

"Speech"