-hugs-
WC: 600+
Blue-and-silver eyes watched her intently as she finished setting the periwinkle plant in the soil. She stretched out her arm, dipping her cupped hand into the streamwater. "The flower will be fine, silly. If it gets lonely, it will scatter seeds and grow more friends around it!" Coli let the water trickle through her fingers to dampen the earth near the flimsy stem, leaving a puddle of mud that slowly filtered into the ground. She shouldn't have to water it like she did her garden, but it was mere habit. That would perk it up sooner, and then the puppy slobber wouldn't weigh down its forlorn leaves.
Colibri couldn't keep the happy smile from her delicate countenance, as she lay comfortably on her cream-furred tummy in the grass. "How many? Catalyst, there are more flowers in the world than there are wolves, by a lot! I couldn't begin to count them all. Every climate, every habitat, they support different kinds of plants... and I've never been much farther than over the mountain," she divulged, gesturing the direction vaguely with a hand. The northern forests, the stormy coastline, the rocky cliffs, those were the extent of her knowledge. She had never seen the sunny deserts, the steamy tropics, the colourful worlds underwater, and the countless other nooks and crannies hidden from a homebody like herself. It was fun to imagine, though. "I learned mostly by myself, collecting them and growing them, but... the names and the facts I was taught by my birth pack. M-my mom, she... she died right after I was born, but her pack looked after me for the early months of my life, trying to teach me what they could. Then..." Her smile grew sad, bitter, as she tried to picture those faces. She could not. It was just too long ago. She could remember the strict teachings they had instilled, but her faded memories did not include the names or relations of the religious family that cast her out. Coli had never known her mother enough to miss her, but she did mourn the loss of a parent that might have loved her. "Well, then they gave me back to my father. And then he gave me to another pack. And then I went back to him, and he left me again. Sometimes it's hard to feel needed in this world, Cat, but we can't give up hope..." She sighed heavily, not having meant to dredge up her past again. It was a heavy burden to her, but with each friendly face she met, she began to feel a bit more comfortable with her lot in life. Very few pups were lucky enough to have a happy childhood these days. She shouldn't be so serious around the snowy-white girl, though, she was bound to depress her if she kept talking about abandonment. Maybe she'd rather talk about her new family with Cercelee instead.
"You know, when I was your age, I grew up with Cercelee," she admitted shyly, watching the cheerful pup splash about in the shallow water. Would it surprise Catalyst to learn that her guardian had been raised by a guardian as well? She couldn't remember much as to why Cer's parents had given her up - they had both been too young at the time, really. But on some inexplicable whim, Haku Soul had agreed to raise the two girls, when he hadn't wanted children in the first place. "I still think of her as my sister, or at least my best friend. I didn't have any littermates." She knew Cat did, although not how many. She remembered seeing the colourful little faces at the last pack gathering, along with Conor and Emwe, her baby brothers whom she was not allowed to spend time with unless she snuck them out. Families were so complicated...
