Undoubtedly as she grew there would be moments in the young girls life that she would look back upon as those that had led her to what she would become, just as undoubtedly this would be one of those moments. There is a weightiness at realizing your place in the world, to knowing where you belong in the big picture and as a child trying to form an understanding of that can be hard, but as her moon-rimmed eyes scanned the horizon and underlying lands of their home she could fathom it all. Her dark-tipped ears twitched as she heard her brothers join her on the precarious ledge, but her eyes just danced in the new light of the day while brilliant hues crawled their way across the lightening sky.

It was not until the sound of her mother speaking filled the area around them that she could bear to tear her gaze away from the breathtaking view. Only then did her so similar mahogany eyes turn to the comfortably familiar form of her mom, the one person in this world that she looked up to more than anyone else. She shuffled in place, turning a bit to better be able to focus on her as she launched into a tale that she could almost recite herself, a small smile on her sculpted face for she would never tire of hearing it of course. As the tale progressed her smile widened, a soft sigh of dreamy happiness falling from her lips when Daenerys recounted how their grandparents had met, imprinting and falling into love at first sight, the far off dreams a girl had for her own life one day. Shortly thereafter the tale took a bit of a different turn, adding a character she had not known existed in her mother’s life until this day and she found her smile faltering…

She knew and loved her uncle Taliesin, protective as he was over all of them, but instead her mother focused on this new boy she named Leonidas who had apparently been a childhood friend and Kalseru pressed harder into Rhaegal’s side for comfort from what she wasn’t yet sure. It didn’t make sense why this Leonidas, who claimed to care for their mother, had abandoned her time and time again, and why Dany had let him back into her life all those times over. Her small brow furrowed, smile dissolving into a thin frown of consternation as she recounted how Leonidas had left in a fit of jealousy after Meryl had made himself known as her imprint, all it just didn’t make sense, but as her mother paused to let it all sink in she knew this story wasn’t over yet and her heart sank a little.

As the story reached its ending Kalseru turned her dark-masked face into the comforting softness of her brothers shoulder, wanting nothing more than to not know that this flippant, jealous man had been their father. She had never questioned not having their father around, after all they had their uncles Jericho, Taliesin, and the rest of the pack whenever a male role-model was needed. Perhaps her brothers felt differently, being boys themselves, but Daenery’s was the only parent she would ever need or have. She inhaled deeply, drawing strength from the familiar smells of mountain and den that covered Rhaegal, looking back out over the now sun-washed landscape below before turning her eyes to the almost identical ones of her mother. “Why… why would he just leave all those times,” her high voice sounded very small in the quiet of the morning that surrounded them, but it was the one thing she did not understand about their ‘father’.

Abandonment was never something she had felt until this moment, the idea that she, they, her mother and brothers, were not enough to keep this Leonidas around. If what her mother said was true he didn’t even know they existed, but that only made the cut deeper. “If he truly loved you, like he said he did he wouldn’t have left,” she said, sounding a bit more confident now if not a touch upset as well. All the fairy tales she had heard, the ones where true love conquers all and the prince gets the princess never ended like this. This wasn’t what love was supposed to be, at least not to her.