Hey, beauty supreme
Yeah, you were right about me
But can I get myself out from underneath
This guilt that will crush me?

Caligula had set up her temporary home back where she had started her life as an adult. The crags. It was here that she had born her first litter, where she had raised the three girls without the support of the pack but with every support of Tesseract. She had hoped that the thunderous noise of the falls would drown out her repetitive guilt for leaving him. It hadn't. She awoke from another empty dream fraught with unease and anxiety. Her head raises and her mouth opens to pant to expel her demons into the winter air.

She moved to get out of her den. She was stiff and though she would never admit it, there was a little bit of arthritis starting to creep up that she generally only felt in the mornings before she started moving. Caligula stretches, a few older creaks before she shook off the night's anxieties and stared up into the cold grey of the day. She licked her lips and picked her way through the crags, before she came to a small pool of clear water, a natural pool that was kept clean as the river moves through the rockscape. She takes her fill, her pink tongue wiping off the droplets of water and drying her face.

Ears twitch back and forth, listening for something other than the water to distract her. She hears the footstep above her and she tilts her head up. What was beheld in the mismatched eyes she could hardly believe. Ruvindra. Or at least it appeared to her that it was Ruvindra. She lept into action and seeming galloped up the hill to greet her mother. Ruvindra would know how to make things right with Tesseract. Caligula was sure of it.

And then she inhaled, and came up short. It was not Ruvindra. It was not her mother. And yet, the female in front of her looked so familiar. She inhaled again, before it registered. Vesper. Her tail wagged back and forth with such speed that it was hard to see at either side. She did not wait for Vesper to invite her forward, instead she began to clean her silver daughter's face the way she had done when Vesper toddled around on short puppy legs. Did it matter that Vesper was older? No. Caligula would always see her children as pups, and would always lay down her life for them. Even if she had abandoned them. Even if she had not been the mother of the year. She had tried her best, but there was so much that she had to atone for.