Cera
_{Try to find if it was worth what you spent, why you're guilty for the way you're feeling now}

A wince and an apologetic glance is spared for the bear he had unintentionally splashed. Had he known the creature better he would have spoken an apology aloud, but he did not want to be disrespectful by taking his eyes and attention off the Constrictor. Her stoicism seemed so out of place on a face so much like Ranjiri's, whose golden heart and easy smiles had filled his world since her birth. But he respected this woman, owed her so much for bringing Ranjiri into the world and raising her to be the sister he knew. He wouldn't disrespect her, even if this was his herd she was standing before. 

Relief swept through him like the crashing waves on the beach, the subtle tension of his wings and shoulders drooping. She's safe. While it was agony to be alone and not have his sister with him, it was torture to know that if any danger befell her, Cera would not be able to make it to her in time. He wanted to trust the denizens of the Hidden Falls, but he couldn't. He couldn't trust anybody with something as precious as Ranjiri. And Cera dreaded the day the news reached him that something happened to her. 

"Good," he sighed under his breath, barely audible with how the relieved tone swept across his vocals instead of the definition and enunciation of the word. But confusion rippled across his brow, drawing his handsome face into a somber, inquisitive look as Ktulu clarified that she had not come on Ranjiri's behalf. Cera nearly opened his mouth to speak, to prompt and ask her what it was she did need then, but Ktulu finally broke her own silence before it became uncomfortable for him. 

"I wanted to thank you."

Cera's face drew wide and open with surprise, so stunned he didn't even know how to react much less try to imagine what to say. Even if he was quick enough on his feet to do so, Ktulu was faster, smoothly bulldozing her way through (was that even possible?). A flush overtook Cera, humble and embarrassed in equal parts as she confessed that Ranjiri spoke so highly of him. He felt undeserving of such praise. He was hardly Ranjiri's caretaker, she was more than capable of handling herself. He had only tried to love and support her in all she did and would ever do. Be there for her during the nightmares and the dark hours when the world was too cruel to bear its weight. He didn't deserve such praise. 

"You never need to thank me for doing that," the stallion assured firmly. "I'd do anything for her." Cera would die for her in a moment's notice, and never regret the days and hours he would miss out on that he should have been granted. But that wasn't Ktulu's only groundbreaking surprise. As if she'd come here just to knock his world completely off balance. 

Family is never turned away.

Family.

Cera took a long moment to digest what she had said, the subtext and the implications that she wouldn't outright come and say. And he finally realized why she was here. His conversation with Ranjiri. And for a moment he's deeply embarrassed by the fact that Ranjiri had confronted her mother with such a topic. He was a fully grown stallion...it was far too late for Ktulu to become a mother to him in the way he had always needed back then. 

But it still meant something. 

"Thank you, Ktulu," he whispered, overcome by emotion but keeping it tamped down purposefully. And he didn't know what inspired him to say it, but his tongue ran away with him in that moment, spurred on by Ktulu's outstretched hand. 

"I asked Midas every day to go to you. All I ever wanted was to be an unbroken family. It...means a lot to me. Truly." And if she noticed the bitter way he said his father's name, well. She probably felt the same.