Perhaps she would cause him not to care what she thought, to cast her aside as she had done with Tristan. Solitaire doesn't know what this meeting will bring, but he does know he wasn't going to take her trying to step all over him for things he couldn't have changed. He'd been scared and hurt and messed up when he had tried to come back. Getting away from the vagabonds had been no easy feat, and it had taken him a lot to get through all that had come after that. To be alone because he couldn't stay here, because he couldn't trust any other group after what had been done. He wasn't the scared child anymore, but he was and might always be damaged from the past. If Viora wanted to push him away more, so be it.

When she speaks, he watches her. The defensive way she moves and acts, but if she were to snap at him, then he would snap back. He would fight to stay here, and he didn't much care if it had to be her that he fought to do so. Solitaire fights back a wince at the mention of mother being killed, trying not to let it break him. It only made him more angry at Viora, though. She wanted to hurt him with those words, maybe wanted to tear him from Tristan with them, but he would not budge. He would be loyal to his brother, because Tristan wanted him back, and that was enough. He couldn't blame Tristan for not being able to save mother, either. Some things were out of a critter's paws, and Solitaire knew that better than he would have liked.

Yet when Viora was done with her little rant, Solitaire's turn had come again. "He walked away, Viora, and that is refusal. You can play it any way you want, but he gave me no indication that I would be permitted to stay. You were there? It would do well for you to remember that." A pause, a shake of his head. "I was held captive as a child and I got away, and I came home to that. So tell me all about how you stood idly by, waiting in a pack where I hadn't been welcomed back into. Go ahead and say whatever you need to sleep at night, Viora. But I came back, no longer a yearling, ready and willing to fight Tesseract, or anyone else, to stay." And his gaze clearly meant that it included her, too, if need be.

[ male ] [ six ] [ unmated ] [ imprint; striker ] [ glorall ]