Walk | Talk | Think
He had seemed almost reluctant at first, eerily quiet after he had initially greeted her and up until she had finally crept close enough to have a quiet moment with him. What she had viewed as evasiveness vanished and in quiet terms the answer she had sought had been given. The news was like a physical blow, even worse than the sight of his new appearance had been. "Banished?" The echoing word was whispered by the Seracian fisher, her mind struggling to come to terms with what this meant for her, but more importantly for their family as a whole. They were being torn apart, her husband stolen from her just as the last one had been. And worse yet, she had actually grown to care for this one, had actually been granted her family with him. What would the children do knowing their father was no longer allowed home? What was she to do having to raise them on her own?
And, perhaps most shocking for her, he took the blame himself. He refused to name names, to label any one member of the pack responsible for his current state other than himself. It would have been so easy for Tahlia to displace her anger on anyone of her pack mates, to look to them as the reason for her husband and the father of her children being taken from her and her young. To know that Bane owned up to it left her with no one to blame but him, and she was conflicted. He was her mate, her husband; he was not supposed to do anything to jeopardize their family. He was supposed to watch out for them, to keep them safe, to be there for their children and see them into adulthood with her. He was supposed to be right there at her side for as long as he could be, just as she had vowed to be for him. And now he was banished.
She had thought herself incapable of being angry with him - even when he became a nuisance he had never been anything more than annoying - but her temper began to flare. For a moment, she was incapable of speech, struggling with her mouth slightly agape while her husband released a howl to stretch across the territory in farewell to those he left behind, and knowing that somewhere out there her children - their children - would hear it too finally helped her find her voice. "How could this happen? How could you let this happen?" Her tone began to rise, forgetting almost that the healer was still nearby. "We had everything here. Everything. We could have raised our children happily. How could you throw all that away?"
She had more to say, so much more, but Loccian was there again, stepping between them to try cleaning at the bloodied male's face. Drawing in a swift breath, Tahlia forced herself to look away, blinking against the rain but also against tears. This was horrible! This was worse than losing her husband through death because of sheer stupidity. This one would live but at a distance, estranged from his family because of his poor choices. She glanced once at the healer as she drew away again, wishing that she had decided to stay back or even left entirely to allow them the privacy to speak openly. It was bad enough that the pair needed to have this conversation in front of someone when Tahlia would have much rather spoken to Bane alone, but to have Loccian stepping in, especially when she could feel her words getting heated, was aggravating. By luck, she managed to steel her tongue from saying anything irritable and continued to refrain from it, certain that anything she said in her present state would only make things worse than they already were.
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