Chapter Text
Annoura rummaged through her daughters’ closet, knocking a pile of sweaters into a heap at her hooves. She sighed heavily, ears drooping as she bent to gather the pile, returning several sweaters to the shelf. Some years snow still clung stubbornly well into spring or later. Besides, the girls’ fur was still thick from last winter.
Just to be safe, she laid two heavier sweaters across Alina’s bed. Her gaze lingered there for a moment before wandering the room. The space carried traces of both girls despite their growing differences: Annika’s restless disorder mingling with Alina’s quiet neatness. Books organized next to color-coded pens, and old stuffed toys hiding magazines she wasn’t supposed to know existed. Slight scratches marked the wall while perfume lingered, almost covering the stench of dirty cleats.
Back in the closet, a dark lace camisole caught her eye from beneath a pile of shirts.
Annoura hesitated before pulling it free. Soft fabric slipped through her fingers, igniting an old memory of warm summer afternoons spent wandering the woods free from classes. Leaves crunched beneath bare feet and hooves drowned by laughter while James dragged Alanna by her hand. Often she would run ahead, eager to reach the next hill, then glance back to watch James slow beside Alanna, laughing as they paused below.
She stood motionless, her grip on the camisole tightening. Back then things had still felt simple. Before she started noticing the small smiles they shared when they thought no one was looking, and the touches that lingered a little too long afterward. Before she realized that James always looked for Alanna first.
She drew a deep breath, pushing the memory back to its corner, brushing a stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. Folding the camisole neatly, she searched deeper into the closet until she found another, the girls still insisting on buying matching clothes, then added both to the growing pile waiting to be packed.
“Add these as well, girls. The evenings there can still get quite chilly.”
Annoura kept her voice even as she crossed the room and handed the folded clothes over. Alina accepted hers first, careful as always, though confusion flickered briefly across her features when she noticed the lace camisole folded among the heavier clothes.
“Mother…” A faint blush warmed the soft fur along her cheeks as she lifted the garment lightly between her fingers. “You do remember Uncle James lives in a cabin out in the woods, not the middle of some trashy romance novel?”
The embarrassment in her voice only deepened Annoura’s smile.
Alina had never been able to hide her emotions. Even now, with her ears dipping shyly and her eyes fixed firmly on the floor, Annoura could read her daughter as easily as one of her patient’s charts. Like Alanna, it had always been that way. A crying classmate, a wounded animal beside the road, even a stranger having a bad day all seemed to draw Alina in before she could think.
Across the room, Annika snorted.
“Please,” she laughed, sprawled half off the edge of her bed, digging through the mess of clothes around her. “If some rugged forest hermit does sweep Ali off her feet, maybe she’ll finally stop overthinking every little thing.”
“Annika,” Alina protested, hands twisting around the cami.
“What?” Her sister grinned unapologetically, pushing herself up on one arm. “You know I’m right.”
Alina turned, ears and tail stiff, grabbing one of the stuffed wolves from her bed and hurling it at her sister. Annika laughed all the more, fending off the missile with one hand.
Alina grumbled under her breath, shooting her sister a sharp glare before turning back to her task. Each article of clothing was folded neatly before being tucked into her suitcase.
Across from her, Annika continued grinning to herself as she pawed through the scattered chaos of her bed. After a moment she plucked a pair of panties from the pile and tossed them toward Alina. “Might as well pack the cute ones too,” she teased, grinning wider at her sister’s embarrassed silence.
Despite herself, Annoura’s ears tilted toward each girl as her tail flicked lightly behind her.
Annika ran through life with the same abandon that carried Annoura deep into college. Sharp smiles, stubborn pride, and a habit of rushing headfirst into every challenge without thinking. Watching Annika sprawled across the bed, Annoura sometimes caught glimpses of the reckless girl she used to be. Especially now that Annika was heading toward the same woods.
Annika’s tail flicked lazily behind her as she shoved another shirt into her suitcase. “So...how bad is he, really?”
Alina’s hands stilled atop the dress she’d been folding, her ears swiveling toward their mother as she waited for the answer. Annoura straightened slightly, tail and ears stiff, her body still as she breathed deeply.
“Your uncle has had a difficult time the last few years.”
Annika snorted, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment. “That sounds a lot like doctor speak for ‘he’s pretty fucked up.’”
“Annika,” Alina groaned, burying her face briefly in her hands.
“What? I’m just asking.”
Annoura sighed, glancing back out the window. “Days pass in that cabin without him speaking to anyone.”
Alina’s tail drooped a little, her ears lowering as she thought. “Does he even want us there?” Annika shifted slightly, biting her lip.
Annoura’s throat constricted as she watched distant clouds crawl across the spring sky. Beyond that sky, a cabin slowly surrendered to rain seeping through cracks and wind scouring the siding. James likely sat, alone with his thoughts, somewhere under creaking boards and gathering cobwebs.
She visited him as often as she could, but the trips across the ocean were long, and each time he was quieter than the last. Conversation had fallen to little more than grunts and the occasional solitary word. His smiles had become rare enough that Annoura sometimes found herself waiting for one that never came. Still, Annoura could never quite stop searching for the traces of the man who used to laugh beside them while hunting through those woods, or the man she had once loved enough to lose.
Her fingers curled tightly against her palm, nails digging. Perhaps the girls could reach him where she no longer could.
Maybe Alina could listen patiently enough to open his heart, or Annika could force him out into the forest. Hopefully, that would be enough to pull James back into the world a little. Though maybe she simply wanted to believe someone still could.