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47

Renna's tears were already starting to freeze in the cold night air, clinging to her fur in hard drops of ice as she moved through the village, her little pack slung over her shoulder.

She stopped and looked back at the tent she had grown up in. It was no different from the others. Just a black triangle in the dark. She waited, hoping to see her mother stick her head out of the opening, hoping to hear her voice one last time, telling her to come back, telling her that she had made a terrible mistake, that she really did love her and that all the years they had lived together weren't just a burden, that they had meant something, that there was a reason behind all the screaming and the hitting, and the reason was that she really, truly loved her daughter, and only wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from this cold, awful world in the only way she knew how...

But there was nothing. The tent remained absolutely still. Mother had probably gone back to sleep.

She choked back her tears and trudged through the snow, weaving through the winding pathways between tents of Wolves she would never see again. All of this, everything inside these walls, her very life. She was leaving it all behind.

No. That wasn't true. She wasn't leaving because she wanted to, she was being forced to.

Her own mother had thrown her away like a rotten piece of trash.

Renna stopped. The snow was up to her ankles, and not moving was making her feet go numb, but she couldn't bring herself to take another step.

She had tried. She had tried so hard to earn her Mother's love, and for so long she had believed it was really there, just hidden away beneath layers of grief. But now she knew the truth.

Mother had never loved her. Not one bit. All this time, all she'd ever been to her was an affliction, a waste, a pitiful excuse for a daughter.

A bad Wolf...

Renna sank down to her knees, unable to go any further. She wasn't tired, but she could not move. She was paralysed by the realisation that, not only did her mother never love her, she might actually have hated her...

Her hands went up to her face; her bruised, swollen face... and she gingerly touched her wounds with the tips of her fingers, each strike branded into her memory.

You're going to get the both of us killed, you little bitch!

I'm sorry, Mother! They were about to kill Hezzi! I had to!

Do you want to get Thrown to the Wolves!? Do you want them to throw rocks at your head!? Do you want them to break your bones!? Do you want them to bite and scratch until you bleed to death!? Do you want them to do something even worse than that!? Do you want them to take you away!? Do you want them to touch you in the woods!?

No, Mother! I'm sorry! Please stop!

You're the one making me do this! Why can't you understand!?

I'm sorry!

I punish you because I love you, Renna!

Because I love you...

Love...

Renna pressed her hands against her wounds, feeling the pain rise up from a low throb into a sharp, pulsing cloud of agony inside her face. Was this the love she had been talking about, or was it all just a lie? If Mother really did love her, then why would she throw her own daughter out in the snow without so much as a goodbye!!?

Was she really such a terrible Wolf? Was she really such a disgrace that her own mother would rather be rid of her forever than look upon her?

Renna couldn't feel anything except the pain and the cold. Her whole face was slowly going numb, but she knew she must be crying, because she could hear the patter of her tears falling into the snow. She could imagine them carving tiny graves for themselves in the white powder before finally succumbing, hardening into ice, and being buried.

Maybe she should just carve her own little grave somewhere... Far, far away, where she wouldn't be in anyone's way anymore. Maybe that would finally make Mother happy...

She sobbed in the dark, making that shameful mewling noise like a dying mouse, the noise Mother always scolded her for, the noise that always slipped out when things got bad, no matter how hard she tried to hold it back.

Being all alone was a terrible feeling, because it meant there was no one around to hold you, or comfort you, or tell you that everything would be all right in the end. But there was something even worse than loneliness, and that was the knowledge that you were completely unwanted in this world. If you were merely alone, you could end it by finding someone to care for, but if you were unwanted, you could be surrounded by hundreds of people and it would make no difference. You'd still be unwanted.

It was in this moment of her darkest despair, crying in the snow, that she heard a voice call out to her from the shadows.

"Renna? Is that you?"

She froze, knowing that if she was found outside all by herself on a night like this, all the terrible things her mother had warned her of might come true. She raised her head, moving slowly, terrified of what she might see. There was a figure standing before her, large and imposing, but Renna's eyes were still swimming and she could not tell who it was in the dark. "I... I didn't..." she stammered, frantically trying to think of something clever to say. She wiped her eyes, and when she lowered her shaking hands, it was not a monster that stood to meet her, but a she-wolf wrapped in a thick winter pelt, looking at her with the utmost concern.

It was Taberah-Kai.

"Child, what happened? Did you fall?"

"I - No, it was -"

"Come on, you must be freezing." Taberah extended her hand and Renna looked at it as if she had never seen one before. That hand, covered in old, leathery burns from the tips of her fingers almost all the way to the crook of her elbow should have been a frightful sight, but it wasn't. It was completely open, almost vulnerable-looking, each scar completely exposed in the hellish half-light of the sickle moon.

And it was the kindest hand Renna had ever seen...

She reached for it and Taberah closed her fingers around her hand, and after sitting in the snow for who knew how long, her grip was as warm as the sun. "By the Cora, you're like a block of ice!" Taberah said and pulled her to her feet. "Are you hurt?"

Renna looked down and to the side. It was an old habit of hers to do this whenever someone asked her if she was hurt, or what had happened to her face, or if she had decided to head-butt a tree stump, and the answer she gave was just as much a habit as everything else. "No, I'm fine." She almost continued the habit by walking away, but Taberah was still holding her hand.

"Let me see," she said.

"But I'm fine."

Taberah placed her fingers just underneath Renna's chin, barely touching, and gently guided her face upwards where it could catch the moonlight. She gasped and pulled her hand back, her lips trembling. "Dear child, what did that woman do to you?"

Renna didn't know what Taberah was seeing, but the way she was looking at her made her feel completely exposed, worse than naked, and the only answer she could think of was the truth.

"She threw me away..."

Renna thought she didn't have any more tears left in her, but clearly she was wrong. They spilled from her eyes in twin streams, and she was powerless to stop them. Sobs wracked her body, so intense she could barely breathe. She would have sunk back to the frozen ground and never gotten up again, had Taberah not been there to catch her and hold her tight. She didn't even realise what was happening at first, only that she wasn't as cold as she was before, and that there was something warm and soft pressing against her body.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay..." she whispered, lightly rubbing her back. "Everything is going to be all right, I promise."

Renna wrapped her arms around the kindly she-wolf's waist, crying uncontrollably into her shoulder. Taberah did not yell or scream or raise her hand, she did not threaten her with stories of what would happen if she did not toughen up and stop her mewling. There was no shame, no guilt, no disgrace. It simply felt right, like something she had been needing to do for a very long time.

"Renna, you have to listen to me very carefully," she whispered in her ear. "I know you have many, many tears to cry, and I promise you, I will be there to catch every single last one of them, but right now we do not have the time. Do you understand?"

Renna nodded against her shoulder, gradually pulling her tears back to sniffles.

"Okay." Taberah took her by the shoulders and pulled back a little, so she could look her in the eye. "I know you've been through a lot, but there is still much more to be done, and I have no reason to suspect it will get any easier. That's why, just for tonight, I need you to be strong. Can you do that for me?"

Renna nodded.

"Okay." Taberah reached for Renna's face and she instinctively pulled back, expecting some kind of pain, but she merely wiped away the tears with her thumb, first underneath one eye, then the other, her touch as light as a feather. "There, much better," she said with a smile. "Do you have everything you need?"

Renna nodded again, not exactly sure what just happened. "Ni-Nilia told me to pack light."

"Okay, good." Taberah threw half the winter pelt over Renna's shoulders so that they could share its warmth. "Come on, walk with me, quickly now. We'll wait in my tent. Sorrin will come get us when the coast is clear."

With Renna's arm around Taberah's waist, and Taberah's arm over Renna's shoulders, they walked through the snow, huddled together, drawing strength from each other on this cold, difficult night, keeping the pelt wrapped firmly around their bodies so that the wind wouldn't snatch it away.

"Kai?"

"Yes, child?"

"What if..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the question. Taberah was risking so much by helping her, and Renna didn't want to repay her kindness with a question that would only cause her worry.

"What's wrong, Renna? You can tell me anything."

Renna swallowed the lump in her throat and just blurted it out, because this was a question that needed to be asked. "What if... What if Sorrin-Sai doesn't come for us?"

She wasn't expecting any kind of real answer. Maybe just stony silence, or a shake of the head, or a vague 'I don't know'. But Taberah surprised her. She gave Renna's shoulder a soft squeeze and said: "If that happens, we'll find a way out together, just the two of us. And may the Cora have mercy on anyone who tries to hurt you while I still draw breath."

Renna wasn't exactly sure how those words made her feel, because it was a feeling she had never experienced before. The only thing she knew with any certainty was what she did not feel.

She did not feel cold. She did _not_feel lonely.

She did not feel unwanted.

She leaned her head against Taberah's shoulder, feeling the warmth that shone through even on a frigid night like this, and she whispered, "Thank you, Kai."

She was warm.

So warm.

So -