I want to be alone,
he repeated stiffly, not really sure what the other was trying to prove with what he said. Laruku wouldn't really count the few months he spent in Clouded Tears as a child as substantial time to "grow up." Maybe if Acid hadn't taken him away, maybe if he hadn't been abandoned in the mountains, and maybe if Teimines hadn't also left him, he would have turned out different. Maybe he would have been closer to Maluki and maybe he would have never hated Colibri. Maybe he wouldn't have carried a chip on his shoulder for much of his first two years of life, and maybe he wouldn't be where he was now. Maluki's blood was not his blood, and even the place their families intersected didn't feel real enough. Laruku's closest blood relations came from the children his uncle had sired, but he had never met his uncle, so maybe it didn't really count after all. Maybe things would have been different if he hadn't been the only one to survive.
But none of that mattered now. He didn't long for the family anymore. He no longer had a grave to visit, and he no longer had a position to try and fill. You were jealous of them,
the hybrid noted, Of Colibri's second litter. Maybe that's why you left.
But the timeline was hard to keep track of there. Colibri had also disappeared after Ceres's death, so maybe she had been the one to leave first? Lisichka had also left, gone off to cheat with Konane. Perhaps Maluki hadn't liked being the one left to take care of the siblings he never wanted. Laruku couldn't remember. He had had his own troubles at the time. All he knew was that no one had bothered to say goodbye. They never did.
Are you still trying to remember who Maluki was? Or is Jefferson good enough?