It's never the same

Basilisk was not fatherly, at least not naturally. He fumbled and stumbled and learned as he went with Spider. He didn’t know what Ignita was seeing, what was going on with her. But he could hear her hitched breath and the quickening of her heart. She didn’t respond to him, except to flinch when his paw came down gently on her shoulder. She backed up into a boulder, and at first he let her. Giving her room.

But when she started muttering softly, and shaking her head, he moved forward again. Slowly, and carefully, as if trying not to startle a wild animal. He was starting to guess what was happening to her. Only because of his association with Halo, who was like a mother to him. She knew what a panic attack looked like. She had told him about them, and told him that one of her children had them after the flood. He didn’t know exactly what had triggered Ignitas, but if her mumbled words were anything to go off… he could guess.

He reached forward and scooped her up, as if she was a very small child, instead of just a very small wolf. He sat back, pulling her onto his lap, and cradled her. As if she was his child, instead of a disobedient, silly slave. How she wormed her way into his heart he did not know, but even as she frustrated him, he had already realised he didn’t like to see her in pain. He didn’t speak, he didn’t try to say anything. He was not good with words. Instead, he rocked back and forth gently, holding her, and hoped the episode subsided.


"Speech"