She only managed to turn on the spot before he called out to her. Funny, wasn't it, how her name on his lips spoken with his voice could sound prettier and more detestable than any foe had ever managed. It brought her to a halt more effectively than any spell of magic; with cloves glued to the ground and rigid back she teetered on the verge of tears. But that wouldn't do. She would not cry in front of this man, no matter what happened.

With monumental effort she brought her trembling lips to stillness, and when Erthë slowly turned to look at her father her face was impassive, a stoic mask of such cool indifference that it would have made Mauja proud to behold. It really would have been preferable to just keep walking, but it was not within her power to do so. Not when Vlasi was dancing like a merry devil in front of her, so obviously overjoyed to see her that her heart broke anew. A soft but oh, so cold nose reached down to press into the pelt of the creature, a slow inhale that brought back unwanted memories of things she had come to view as something of the past; of curling up together in the snow, watching the northern lights dance overhead while shadows, one black and one white, foraged nearby. Never further away than a whisper.

It was only an instant, the touch, but it made the fortress of resolve she built around her bleeding heart tremble, and her voice was perhaps not as callously casual as she would have wanted when she faced the pale grullo, flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.

"Hello, Father" she said. Voice soft, but the eyes were cold as they met his gaze. I missed you too, do you even know how much? Why did you leave, where did you go, how have you been. Where did you look, to fail so utterly at finding me?

"Who is your friend?"

It was all she said, but there was no hiding the venom in her voice now, nor the malice that darkened her gaze as she glanced towards the girl. The other girl, who so unknowingly had become the target of all Erthë's loathing. But it wasn't only the beautiful, fragile fae that received her anger. Vadim too was included in that maelstrom of toxic emotions, dragged in now that he finally appeared but in all the wrong company. And the silence that followed was pregnant with all her unvoiced questions, all the silent blame only a child abandoned could think to hold.

Because she was hurting, his absence from her life was an open wound rivaling that of her mothers death and almost as permanent. All the times she had been lonely, frightened or in pain, and where had he been? Why had he let others take his place, when the only one she really ever needed was him?

Did he even care about her at all?

Big girls cry when their hearts are breaking