Sweet as the Grape

Absinth watched her daughter, noting the way Sericea’s gaze faltered, the anxious fidgeting of her paws. That soft ’I’m sorry’ lingered in the air between them, and while Absinth didn’t need pity, she heard the ache in it all the same.

She sighed, a bit rough but not unkind. “Don’t waste your sorry on me, Sericea,” she replied bluntly, with her own brand of motherly care. “I got out, didn’t I? I’m here, scars and all. Freedom doesn’t mean walking away untouched. It means you drag the shit with you, knowing it’ll hurt like hell even when you’re past it. I survived, made my choices. That’s what mattered. It’s what mattered to me.”

Absinth’s jaw tensed as she caught the quiet hope woven into her daughter’s words. She’d been there herself once, clinging to the idea that someone like Setekh could change, that something inside him could be fixed. But some realities were too harsh to ignore, and she wouldn’t spare Sericea from this truth. For whatever reason she was empathizing so hard about.

“Setekh’s nature isn’t a flaw to him, Sericea,” she said, her words as heavy as stone. “It’s his strength. It’s what makes him tick, the way he feels alive. Wolves like him don’t learn compassion—they learn to fake it, to mimic the parts of real emotion they think are useful. He’ll spin dreams, promise you everything you crave, and by the end, he’ll have you so tangled in his web you can’t tell where his will ends and yours begins. That twisted shit? It’s who he is, through and through. There’s no changing it.”

Her gaze hardened. The thought of Sericea letting her guard down around someone like Setekh set a fire in her. “There are plenty of others like him out there. And they… he doesn’t love like we do. He loves in the way a spider loves a fly in its web. Useful, trapped, and his.”

Absinth held her daughter’s gaze, her eyes fierce and unguarded. “But I’ll tell you one thing,” she continued, her tone hardening. “His so-called ‘love’? It’s his greatest weakness. That bastard can’t stand the thought of not being adored, not being someone’s whole damn world. It eats at him, gnaws him from the inside out. He’s out there right now, angry and disturbed as all hell that I tossed him aside like the filth he is.”

She shook her head, a bitter smile curling on her muzzle, her voice laced with a dark satisfaction. “Let him rot with it. Let him feel a shred of what he tried to put me through. He thinks he’s untouchable, but even someone like him can taste their own poison when it’s served right.”

Absinth’s gaze softened just slightly as she looked at Sericea, a spark of blazing protectiveness flaring within her. “Don’t ever let someone like that have that kind of hold on you. He’ll starve without it, and he deserves nothing less.” She huffed, brows furrowing as she prodded her daughter with her nose, emeralds seeking the understanding of the little fiery girl.



"Absinth Artemisia Inferos"