Since Fia had come home, it may not have seemed much different than her usual self but she was quiet and distant. She may have seemed like her usual charming self when her siblings found her in the lake, but there was so much she was burying under herself. She was a strong woman, it came with her lineage. She wasn't destroyed over this time away from home and her family, but it paid more of a toll on her than she allowed even herself to admit. She found her solace in alcohol most nights.

She hadn't gotten back into working in the pack yet, and maybe it was getting extended. Everything around her was different. It was like a lens over her reality of life. She moved back into her den that was just a ways down the mountain from her brother and sister's, if they even still occupied there she didn't know. She found the drive to come home, but what was here for her now? She struggled to find an answer. And maybe that's why she started drowning herself. She was laid on one of the few pelts she kept out on the ledge outside of her cave-den gazing under at the forests below. A very low fire showing she had been here at least a couple hours or so. And on her second bottle she was pushing the limits on. How much would it take for her to black out, or would she never get the pleasure. She knew she'd have to force herself back into a normal life soon.

"Fiametta"

She had been busy with the preparations and many, many discussions over the coming changes to the pack's structure and of course that was all on top of all of her usual daily duties and trying to keep up with their very quickly growing children. Still, she insisted on carving out a bit of time to go check on her sister and see how she was settling back into the pack. She hadn't seen Fiametta around much in the days that had passed since she and Saracyn found her in the lake, but Fia had tended to keep to herself when she was younger anyway so Ava didn't think too much of it. She assumed Fia would have moved back into her old den and as she came around the bend in the mountain path toward her sister's den she spotted the low fire outside of it and knew her hunch had been correct.

As she drew closer and spotted Fia laying outside next to the fire and eventually caught the smell of alcohol on the breeze Ava started to wonder if perhaps she should have checked on Fia sooner. She walked over to Fia's side, spotting the bottle near her. Avacyn certainly had no issue with her sister drinking–she partook in a wine or mead with their dinner pretty frequently, after all–but Avacyn could pretty quickly tell that Fia had been in this spot for some time and to be drinking like this in the middle of the day was concerning. "Fia? Are you alright?" she asked as she settled down beside her with a little tip of her head.

"Avacyn Mendacium"

Fia was a little more in tune with her having a problem with the drinking as she kept prolonging her responsibilities to the pack though she thought it could have been worse. She was drinking for a reason, not just socially. That was clear in this moment.

Her sister walked down the mountain path and stumbled across her outside her den as she drank all her problems away. An easy thing to see. Her head feeling like a weight as she turned just slightly to look at her as she spoke out, she twitched her lip slightly to her as she seemed worried. She looked back forward as if she was looking for words to say but it was a simple response, "I broke up with Stolas." Excuse, but maybe reasonable. She expected Avacyn to care, or more accurately to care about her. She was closest to her older sister when it came to anyone else, or at least beyond Stolas. She felt very fondly of her, she wasn’t much good at making friends in her youth after all. But she wouldn’t hate her if she walked off either, it wasn’t her problem after all. It wasn’t Fia’s honestly.

"Fiametta"

She wasn't sure what kind of response to expect when she asked her sister if she was alright, but the one she got certainly caught her off guard. She had noticed that Stolas hadn't come back with her, but she definitely hadn't been expecting Fia to break up with the Klein man considering how they seemed to feel about one another before they left. Well, that could certainly explain the drinking if it was a recent thing, but somehow she still felt like there was something her reserved sibling wasn't telling her. "I'm sorry, Fia," she replied with a genuine sympathy regardless, her ears flicking back and a frown pulling at her lips. "Did something happen that made you want to break things off? Did he do something to you?" If he had then she would need to figure out where he was to defend her sister's honor, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions. The fact that she had been the one to break up with him rather than the other way around said a lot, but she wanted to hear the reasoning from her sister before she started making assumptions or trying to probe further to see what was really bothering her.

"Avacyn Mendacium"

A long quiet huff blew out of her nose from the back of her throat as her head slightly waved around like it was a spike, as if she was reliving something behind her closed eyes. No, Stolas didn't do anything. He wasn't the problem, Fia was. As much as it may not have been her fault, she felt like she ruined everything. She couldn't find a better time to bust out and come back home, she let herself get taken in the first place. How could someone like her be restrained so easily? She never thought as herself or anyone of her immediately family to be weak, but this happened to her. Having it out of her control messed her up more than the things that actually happened.

"He was too soft." Was all she could give as an explanation. In turn meaning, Stolas was too kind. Kind for her. Maybe a part of her felt like she didn't deserve him. The happily ever after especially after all that had happened. At the very least it was too soon for her to sit and face the problems. Talk it out with him, tell him what was really bothering her. She just couldn't bring herself to look at him anymore. Not right now.

After a short moment, Fia's face crunched into itself, easily noticeable as a look of emotional pain. Probably one Avacyn had never expected to see on her sister. Fia reached out a paw quickly to take Avacyn's. When her dark eyes opened though, she wasn't seeking her sister's. Instead looking at the space between them like she was reliving something somewhere else other than being here with her, "I had to fucking kill them." Her voice was cold, almost emotionless like she didn't feel anything despite the fighting look on her face just a few seconds prior. It could have been the drink that was making her seem bipolar on the matter, but really it was the alcohol that made it easier to get out without hiding, and without losing her mind.

"Fiametta"

Avacyn's brows pulled together with a kind of confusion as Fia expressed how Stolas had been too soft. She hadn't interacted with the Klein man enough to have a real opinion of him other than he seemed like a nice, respectful individual, but she couldn't imagine any of the Klein wolves as soft. Regardless, she knew that Mendacium tastes tended to run a little more on the rough and tumble, more ferocious side of things so she tried to just chalk it up to a change of taste, maybe even a change of priorities. Not every relationship was bound to work and she wasn't such a romantic to not acknowledge that fact. She made a small shrug and chuckled a little as she went to assure her sister that everyone's tastes are allowed to change and that they could find someone that was more her type if that's what she wanted, but before she could she noticed the pain on Fia's expression and suddenly Fia's vibrant red paw was covering her own white tipped paw.

Blinking with surprise, she looked to Fia with concern as her other paw came to rest over Fia's, holding her paw between both of her own. She knew her sister was drunk, that much was obvious, so being a little over emotional was to be expected, but as Fia's similarly ebony gaze opened again it was distant and looking at everything and nothing all at once. Avacyn was already concerned for her sister just from finding her in this state, but that moment told her it had to be something much more than just a break up pushing her to this state. Her eyes widened a bit when Fia admitted that she had to kill 'them'. Avacyn waited through a beat of silence, waiting to see if there would be some other kind of explanation, something else to go on besides a confession to some kind of murder, but when there was none she gave Fia's paw a gentle squeeze and asked, "Who? Who did you have to kill?" She didn't assume it was Stolas since she had phrased it as 'them' instead of 'him' and she got the sense that this was a separate issue, but she still needed to know what had happened regardless.

"Avacyn Mendacium"

Avacyn was truly the most important wolf in her life. She had always looked up to her bigger sister. As an only child in their second litter, and then the only child of their parent's three, she had some emotional qualms as well as some perks. But she never had a bad thought of Avacyn. She knew she could fully trust and open up to her. She was more important to Fia than she may have known.

Her voice no longer dead of emotion, but not overly exaggerated, Ava may have been able to tell it was the first time she could actually get the words out and tell the story. "They took me off the shores of Auster. They took me on a boat and we drifted off to sea." Her jaw clenched, and while not saying the words, Avacyn could assume the worst. It was what happened. "Three of them, I had to take my chance and kill them. I had to wait for the right moment." Lies and truth, because Fia had plenty of opportunities to make her escape. But she believed had they trusted her more, it would be easier to get the upper hand. And in that aspect, she was right. But she could have come home so much sooner. "I didn't find Stolas until after." And then she came home. And she had to leave him as a distant memory. All of it hurt. Nothing could be the same. She wasn't the same.

Fia moved to wrap both of her arms around Ava's shoulders, at least from the angle of being beside her. Her face pushed gently into the fur of her neck as tears finally fell. They never had before. The alcohol, the comfort of her sister, she could truly feel like herself in this moment even if it could all be a haze in the morning. A part of her felt like she could never forgive herself for letting this happen to her. But she still had so much life to live. And she wouldn't let this stop her from being the strong Mendacium woman she was. After some time had passed, she still waited in the sort of peace she could feel here. Finally she would pull her face back from Avacyn, her paws gently rolling down the front of her shoulders but not leaving her just yet. Fia looked softly back to Ava, a half lidded gaze searching across her eyes before she would push herself forward in an attempt to take her lips with her own. How badly she wanted to have a fraction of what her brother and sister had, but maybe she was being too confident or too emotional. In the moment that wasn't a thought across her mind.

"Fiametta"

As the truth of what had kept Fiametta away began to steadily come to light, Avacyn began to realize that all of her fears of her sister's absence had been true all this time. She had convinced herself that Fia's departure was simply a natural part of a Mendacium wolf's life. They heard plenty of stories of their ancestors going on long journeys to find themselves, to find Soul Mates, to stake out a home of their own. Their own mother had done it before she settled Elysium for them here. She had let herself believe that Fia was fine and well and that nothing bad could happen to her sister. In reality, it seemed like all of the worries and fears she had silenced had come true after all.

As Fia broke down and wrapped her forelegs around her, Avacyn immediately returned the embrace and held her tight to let those tears fall for as long as Fia needed. "I'm so sorry, Fia..." she said softly, resting a paw gently on the back of her sister's head as her face pressed into her fur. She should have gone looking for her herself, she should have been more concerned about her absence. There was nothing that could be done about it now and she tried to remind herself that there's very little chance that she would have been able to find her sister regardless of her efforts if they had taken her off of the continent, but the regrets were there regardless. All she could do was thank the Ancients that she had the strength to get away and make it back to them one way or another.

Eventually she felt Fia's sobs begin to slow and settle and when her sister pulled back Ava let her hold on her loosen a bit, their matching dark eyes meeting once again. Just as she was searching for something to say, for some kind of reassurance or promise that she was safe now, her train of thought was wiped clean when Fia surprised her by leaning forward to press their lips together. Ava's eyes went wide with shock at first, but she didn't pull away. Once that initial disbelief and confusion began to fade, she softened and returned her sister's kiss with one of her forepaws shifting to rest on Fia's cheek. She was gentle as she slipped away from the kiss after a few lingering moments, her gaze connecting with Fia's once more with a little smile.

The logical side of her mind rationalized it away. Her sister was heavily drunk, emotionally unstable, and certainly didn't know what she was really doing in this moment. That's all it was. Still, Ava couldn't help herself from pulling Fia into her chest again and pressing a tender kiss to the top of her head. She was quiet for a moment before she said softly, "When... When I was grieving the loss of me and Saracyn's pups I just wanted to push everyone away and be by myself, but in the end that only made it worse. Will you come stay with us? I don't like the thought of you being up here by yourself like this. I love you... Let me help you." She wasn't sure what that help would look like or what Fia even needed to process this trauma she had been put though, but being alone couldn't be the right solution.

"Avacyn Mendacium"