Ceres had come with nothing? Perhaps, but she had only been a small puppy when she had found Clouded Tears, if the stories were correct. Most puppies had nothing, aside from a father, mother and siblings and Cercelee knew well enough that often those were taken from children. They had been taken from Cercelee herself. She had nothing, aside from Coli and Laruku when she had come to Clouded Tears, and she had had nothing at the start of Dahlia de Mai, except for the friendship of a certain female who swiftly abandoned her. Ceres supposedly rose up in the ranks, proving herself time and time again and taking charge when it was needed. The position of alpha had merely been handed to Cercelee. Their stories were not similar, and perhaps it was part of this that bothered her so greatly.
“I am not strong though Mew, whether she was or not. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. I am a bumbling fool of a Rosea, and to be honest, I never asked to be one but Colibri left it to me, so what can I do? I love the pack, I love my role, but I fear I will never fill it to it’s fullest potential. I will never be a Ceres, and I don’t want anyone to expect me to be.” Perhaps that was part of it, but Cercelee knew the resentment had started long before she had ever helped to created Dahlia de Mai. It ran too deep to be embarrassment over Cer’s own shortcomings in light of the flawless ghost. “So many others expect me to care, expect me to mourn her, to revere her maybe. And I don’t. I never can, because I never knew her, and I never will know her. My father made sure of that. Did you know he never even told me about my family and Clouded Tears until the day he left me there?”
It had been a secret. Another world that Cercelee had to find a place for herself in. Adrastos had cast her out of the life she had known before and into one that was dominated by relatives she had never known, and in a way she blamed his mother for this. If Ceres Sadira had never spawned such a family clan, she wouldn’t have been thrust back into a world she did not know.
