It is said that the way one reacts to events shows their true colors. Defines them. I hope that I wasn't defined solely by my innate fear to return to the moors, my true home, the place where I had been born and raised. The soil upon which I had staked my claim proudly and boldly for years. My memories were mired in chasing the tails of alligators, slapping my paws in muck, and carrying cat tails around in my mouth with Pine. Of learning to hunt with over-sized paws with a father who truly loved me and of being taught solemn lessons with a mother who, despite her lack of outward affections at times, loved me just the same as he did. Blood had ended me and birthed me - I was a phoenix now, rising from the ashes, but even a phoenix needed time to get strong again.

I was but a babe in this world, new to it all once more.

My very nature was one of boldness. To go where I needed to go and do what needed to be done. To demand answers instead of asking the questions like Elohim, who pondered everything, whose very existence seemed to hinge upon the answer to such things. He was composed, poised, everything calm and everything I was not. One might call me wild yet I wasn't unkind, mostly. I wasn't vain or foolish, I think, just youthful and exuberant. That Elohim saw my fire and was drawn to it like moth to flame never occurred to me. My whole life had revolved around simple facts: I wanted to be an Empress, I did everything to train for it, and I felt something indefinable for my guardian, Halcyon. I can even now remember being so young that rain scared me and Lazarus stating Halcyon did not have teats so therefore was a boy. How he had warmed us when we shivered.

There is always more to know. I smile at him then, flicking one ear back in a pose of complete confidence. "All that I know now," I amend because it seemed he needed me to amend it. "I'm sure I'll know more wolves." I hope I've learned enough to rule, I think, but I don't state this because this is not a statement a leader makes. One doesn't offer doubts about themselves to others because it meant they would, in turn, doubt them, and I wanted my rule to be secure. I hoped that one day they would look at me with loyalty as deep as the looks afforded my parents.

Ah, then I could ask too. Again I frown because I am uncertain what he means by this. "You can always ask," I say as if that is self evident, having no intentions to encourage whatever burns in his breast but otherwise unaware of it. He talks of the past and my eyes trail down a little, my fire dimming perhaps in his eyes for a moment before they rise again. Forward is where you belong and he looks to the south, to Iromar, and I cannot misunderstand his meaning this time. My ears pin back and I give him an almost reproachful look, certain that he will understand why I can't when I am done. "I belong here. I can't go back there and see the stain of my mother's death or the ruin that Iromar is now. The only reason I wish to see Iromar again is to find my brother, still in the clutches of that... that foul creature!" My voice had grown passionate in it's vehemence as I speak about Iromar, the pain leaking through if Elohim could hear it, but I know how ot put two and two together. Why here and where I belong - I know what he means, what he hints at, and I must impress upon him that I cannot. My heart cannot take it.