We can forward date it if we need to. She's looking for Cypress, noticing something different in the air and remembering Oak; I left it open so that Cypress can be wherever you want him to be, she can find him anywhere.

There had been a change on the airwaves, a new scent that caused the princess to shiver. Someone was in her home who did not belong. Why couldn't they leave her alone? Why did they suddenly swarm her, like moths to some strange flame? She knew why the other had come, the russet boy with blue eyes — for Gabriel. Her Gabriel. Her father. Had he really lied to her about the children she so desired to rid the world of? Wolves. Dogs. He had said they were children for their mother, not his own, laying no claim. Why did they so desire to come near? How quickly the strange scent had permeated the air in the kingdom, leaving the new mother's mind distressed. Her children suffered for it as she obsessed with the past.

It needed to leave. That was why she'd left the children with Enkiel's quiet little patient, to find the wolf and show it what she had shown the other. They were monsters. Their father, her father, loved so little, and she would not share what small part of him she managed to still keep after her years of hypocrisy and disloyalty. She was a rightful daughter, just as Ezekiel was his only son — she refused to recognize the outsiders who could never hope to touch Inferni's soil. But this one had, and it was the one she sought out for the day, her mother's red eyes blazing with a vengeful fury and desperation that clung to her like old rags. She refused to lose her family. Not to brats who would never belong. Not to anyone.

Her feet were quick as they moved across the forest's ground, across Inferni's territory to find the needle in a haystack, the wolf amongst coyotes. The one she wouldn't allow to belong in her home. She had to accept his transgressions, but she didn't have to accept the products.

They weren't family.

They were parasites.

Sorry for the wait.

The world warped around her while her sole focus became finding this monster who had come to her home. She passed the mansion in silence, wrapping around the side nearest to the borders as red eyes searched the clear territory. Her trail ended as she came to the rear of the building, following the dirt and paved paths to the pond where the small, dark shape lingered. Her disgust was fueled by his pelt -- it would be hard to deny he was Gabriel's son, for the physical tie was there, but she had denied even the most solid facts in the past. "Why did you come here, boy." It wasn't a question, but words demanding an answer that came from a superior.

Hands found hips as she waited for her response, head turning over all that she wanted to say in order to make him leave. Gabriel wasn't his father. Gabriel hadn't raised them, Gabriel hadn't desired to see them, Gabriel had told her they were children for their mother. Of course, Gabriel had said that about the bastard children in the dog pack, and she was sure he'd lied about that as well. There was no love in her for the outsiders, regardless of their ties to the world around here -- the orange boy hadn't understood, but she would make this one see it.

She was by no means a skilled stalker, and she knew long before he turned that he realized she was there -- how could he not, when her feet crunched leaves and sticks beneath them without care that she would be known before she was meant to be? She had come with a sole purpose. It didn't involve carefully tracking him, carefully waiting for him to realize she was there, carefully anything. She wanted him to realize what she had forced down the throat of the other one, the orange-furred one who had come to the borders in search of a place there with Gabriel. And so when she spat out her venomous, superior words, she waited without patience for him to answer. What came forth was what she expected -- he was there for Gabriel, for an absent father who could never hope to love him as he had never loved his first children and would never love any. A bitter laugh eminated from the autumnal princess, fingers curling in her palm as she wondered just what had driven him to her home in search of a monster.

"Gabriel isn't your father, boy; I told that other one who came searching for him, and thought that would be enough, but clearly your ignorant wolf minds can't comprehend the words I speak." Her mother's eyes, shared in Talitha and so full of emotion, narrowed on the mottled face of the boy before her. Her hands found her hips, fingers curling about the carefully tattooed Chaos wheel found there, a symbol of her family and the members of it moreso now than it had ever been. "What do you expect to find here? A family? A home for your bastard blood, where you'll be loved and shown compassion for what you are? If you're looking for love, you're in the wrong place. We won't love you. He won't love you, he's incapable of it -- Ezekiel and I already took what we could and he's left with no love to give for the children of other women he has no desire to be a father to anyways."

The younger male proved just as stubborn as his brother had been, and the princess rose with stiff muscles to stare down at him with dark eyes that were fueled with hate and disgust. Dealing with them, with outsiders, those who would never belong to her family, was frustrating in the highest degree. He was defiant as he spoke. He challenged her. The cruelest smile crossed her black-liked lips, baring off-white teeth and casting her face with darkness. Her fingers curled around the padded palm of her hand, scratching at the red scar of her family heritage. A scar that they couldn't claim, at least not in her mind. That was what proved them wrong. They would never be family.

His speech was met with cold laughter, lacking emotions as he tried to plead his case in his own anger. His outrage amused her, his challenge of her on her own land made her heart race with excitement as she thought of what to show him of their world. She leaned forward on large feet, grounded. "What makes you think you've ever had that right, boy? You come to my home, demanding to know a father that has never had any desire to know you, and you think you still retain rights of blood? Did Gabriel raise you? Did he even try? Has he ever tried to get to know you, or has he left you and your whore mother alone in some other place, where he hasn't shown you love or consideration of who you are?" She knew the answers. No. Gabriel had been a leader to Inferni first, and a father to his eldest twins second, so she knew that other children went ignored by him.

"You and your sibling came here with the illusion that you have rights in our world, to know my father, the man who raised me and showed me that this world is cold and that this world is hateful and that there is no justice for those who can't stomach what happens here. You don't. You never will, no matter what blood you claim in your past. You can't be a de le Poer. You don't have what it takes to be his son, not like Ezekiel is. We're a prince and a princess, and that's lost on the rest of you, who prove failure in your mother's blood, warm and cozy in these places where you're kept safe and content. Where you can't suffer."

She shook her head, knowing he wouldn't understand what she spoke of, and unwilling to explain it to him if he didn't. All that mattered was that he knew now that he couldn't be Gabriel's son, no matter what he tried to do or how long he took to get to know the dark man. Her smile faded. "You should leave before someone stronger than me finds you. Our family doesn't accept your kind, and Gabriel can only save you from some of us."