for all that i've blessed
#1
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For Cambi. It r drama tiemz. 451



Things never seemed to stay quiet for long around here. Thoughts of the little Marino family gathering still traipsed through his head, a particularly bright spot in the otherwise somber series of events fate seemed keen to be throwing their way recently. He could still easily picture the common room bustling with the many members of their steadily growing family. Not only that, but there would soon be even more little Marino’s running about the lands of Crimson Dreams. It wouldn’t be long until his ebony-furred sibling would be bringing another litter into the world. He almost couldn’t believe that he would soon have even more nieces and nephews to brighten his days. Had life really been soaring by this quickly? He could still picture so clearly in his mind the day Savina and Kansas’s first litter was born. Amata, Gotham, and Cambria were already becoming such fine young adults.



Cambria. The mere thought of his delicate niece sent the increasingly familiar pang of guilt flowing through him. The Marino man still hadn’t been able to sit down and talk with her since Savina broke the news of his intimacy with Naniko to her. The girl had done a wonderful job of avoiding her uncle completely afterwards, and Ehno had seldom even had the chance to offer a meek ‘hello’ before she would disappear from sight. The man understood her feelings of betrayal and thus willingly gave her the space and separation she desired. But he was beginning to fear that their relationship would continue to fall further and further beyond repair if they kept up this game of hide and seek. He wanted to at least try to speak with her and try to salvage what he could of their severely broken relationship.



With that goal in mind, Ehno began to scour the manor for any sign of the girl. He spent quite some time stopping by certain places around their home where she could possibly be lingering. When one last glance into her room revealed that she was still nowhere to be found, Ehno sighed warily in defeat. There was no trace of her to be found in any of the spots in the manor he assumed she still frequented, and it was beginning to appear that the girl was simply not at home. Any further searching beyond Haven Manor at this point would simply lead him into a wild goose chase. This would have to wait for another time, it seemed. Ehno turned slowly away from the doorway, feeling utterly defeated in his impromptu search for Cambria. Perhaps he would just have to head down to his workshop and clear his mind with a little busy work instead.
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#2
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Pink might not be the most appropriate color for this thread, but I thought the lyrics kinda fit, plus Jennytable for Jennythread is gut X3 500+





The girl's thoughts were still heavy and weighed down by the two big topics that had managed to overshadow the rest of her existence: her uncle and Mati. Though proportionately, the issue with Mati was hanging much larger in her view than the one with her uncle. Partly because this one was fresher, but it was more than that she knew. Yes, she was terribly hurt by what Ehno had done, but the hurt with Mati was entirely different. Cambria liked her, liked her a lot as she had discovered, and she had actually managed to tell the Church fey this and put herself out there and just when it seemed like something might actually happen it had fallen apart instead. The Marino girl couldn't think of a time where she had felt more foolish as she had standing there awkwardly in Mati's room. She still thought of the painting sometimes, and wondered if it were finished or if it had been left to sit there and collect dust. Even if Mati had tried to come and find her to tell her it was done, she had done a very good job of avoiding the other female completely. Wanting to not see two members of your pack made you quite adept at staying unseen.



She hadn't seen Mati at all, hadn't even allowed the possibility to happen, but she hadn't been quite so lucky with her uncle. They'd crossed paths a couple times and he had tried to be amiable, but she hadn't given him the chance and had moved on as quickly as she could. What could he even possibly say to make things alright? While she had been wallowing in depression he had gone off and slept with the woman who had caused all her pain. In Cambria's mind it was a selfish, inexcusable act. She wasn't the only one who had been hurt by it either, it affected the whole family to varying degrees, she was simply the epicenter of all the pain he had wrought. Great sorrow and terrible anger mixed equally in her chest at the thought of it.



At the moment her mind was fairly blank, as she slowly climbed the stairs, recounting her healing supplies in her head. Did she need to weave some more bandages? Did she need to get more seed for Enzo on her next visit to AniWaya? Did she need to go to the city to find some more rubbing alcohol? These were the questions that filled her head and her gaze was stuck on the ceiling until she began to trot down the hallway and noticed there was someone else there. When her sea foam eyes finally laid upon the wolf that stood near her room the girl froze and her body went uncomfortably rigid. Jaw clamped tightly shut and as much as she wanted to turn tail and flee she couldn't find the will in her to do it. Cambria just stood there, silent as the grave and still as a stone statue.

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#3
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The pink will add some cheer to dramallama thread. ;D 384



The first thing that hit Ehno as he turned around was disbelief. It was too good to be true, Cambria’s sudden appearance just as he was giving up the search for her. It had to be an illusion, he concluded, something conjured up by his disappointed mind to simply confuse him. So at first, Ehno’s reaction turned out to be much like his niece’s. He stood stock still, silently staring straight ahead at the unmoving figure of the girl. When he blinked a few times and Cambria was still standing there, it finally clicked that this wasn’t some trick of his imagination and that the girl actually had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.



He knew he would have to act quickly, else she would simply bolt away as she had during their previous brief encounters. And some cowardly little part of him almost hoped that she would turn tail and run off again just so they could put off this difficult little conversation until another time. He couldn’t bear to let that happen, though, because he knew that it would only make this more difficult the longer it went on. It was already going to be an arduous task to attempt to fix things between them; he’d royally screwed things up, and it would take nothing short of a miracle for him to earn back her trust. But he had to start somewhere.



He took a step forward, though he stopped short from making any further advancement, knowing that their proximity now was already pushing the limits. “Uh, Cambria. I…” His words just seemed to leave him for a moment and he frowned slightly, looking away ashamedly. He took a short breath to compose himself before bringing his gaze back up to her, ears folding back against his skill. “I just want to talk,” he managed meekly. If he could at least get her to agree to that much, there would be some hope. He had to believe in at least that much. What they could possibly talk about, he hadn’t the faintest idea. There was no getting around his traitorous actions, nothing he could really say to make things any different. He was left to deal with the situation as it came, just as with every other ordeal he faced within recent months.
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#4
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Haha, yes! Big Grin 300+





Her uncle turned and saw her and it seemed there was disbelief in his golden eyes. As the two Marinos stood there it was so quiet that you could have heard a feather fall to the floor. In the back of her mind she was amazed that there appeared to be no one else around in the mansion, but at the same time she was thankful. There didn't need to be any witnesses to whatever would occur between the uncle and niece. Her body language and expression remained blank, though clearly uncomfortable as it seemed Ehno came to the conclusion that she wasn't some apparition. Cambria saw a flash of her own hesitance and discomfort in the older man, but stubborn hurt pushed it away, unwilling to be anything but angry and hurt by him. It was his fault things were like this, not her's. He was the only one in control of his actions and now he had to face what he had done.



Ehno took a step towards her and she readied herself to run, but then he paused and her body remained still. As he stumbled over his words a small sense of satisfaction ran through the girl. Good, she thought. He should feel guilty, facing me like this. Cambria was such a gentle creature and such thoughts were mostly foreign to her, but in this case she couldn't help it. Anything and everything related to her accident and that woman caused a maelstrom to rage inside her and she could not be her usual kind self. Part of her childhood had been stolen from her, and that was unforgivable.



When her uncle was finally able to manage a sentence her face darkened, eyes taking on the fury of the open, raging ocean. Her lips were a grim frown and the tip of her tail twitched irritably. "Talk about what? How you were off copulating with that woman while I was laying here wishing I was dead?" she spat. Anger was her first reaction, and the most prominent, but beneath it all was the horrible pain that she felt. Tears already were gathering at the corners of her eyes and the muscles in her legs silently shook. No one had ever cut her this deep and he was one of the last individuals she would have expected it to come from. She couldn't understand, she didn't think she ever would.

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#5
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I totz had a better idea for him to go about this in mind yesterday, but it went 'poof!' XD Oh wells. 429



The words she throw at him stung, sharp as needles prickling all over him. They were brutal, but they were honest. And honesty was what they needed right now. Ehno had known all this time that these were Cambria’s feelings about his actions, and now her feelings had been spoken, hovering before them now like a solid wall. This issue between them had previously been some malleable apparition haunting them, so flexible that it returned to its previous shape no matter how Ehno had tried to take it apart. Keeping them constantly at odds. Cambria’s harsh declaration changed that, though. Solid things could be torn down, maneuvered around, and that could only happen if the effort was taken by the both of them. At least he hoped.



His amber gaze fell to the ground as his niece berated him, the stinging needle words injecting a fresh dose of guilt into him. The man cared for all of those involved in the accident and couldn’t allow himself to simply abandon someone. That was the problem. He’d cared too much. And in the end he’d gotten himself involved in something far more complicated than he’d expected. After a moment, he finally worked up the nerve to look back up at Cambria, though he could not meet her gaze completely and his ears were still pressed flat against his skull. His instincts were driving him into submission. “I know what I did hurt you. And I know an apology would be worthless to you," he began slowly, taking a breath to try to clear and organize his thoughts.



He wasn’t sure how to continue, but he tried to steel his nerves and speak from his heart. “I never intended to hurt you, Cambi. I never wanted to hurt anyone. She was my friend, and I couldn’t just leave her to battle her demons alone. And then it just…” happened. He let his words trail off, frustrated with the direction he was taking things. It was an argument he had defended before, and one he was certain Cambi did not want to hear. The man did not know any other way to go about this, and honesty was all he could offer her now. “All I wanted to do was help,” he tried then, voice a rough murmur. That had been his intentions, but in such a delicate situation as this, he couldn’t please one person without betraying the other. And choosing sides wasn’t something he could do, not now. So instead he made himself miserable constantly trying to balance this off-kilter see-saw.
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#6
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we'll get through it! Cambi's a year old today, yay! 500+





She could tell her words had struck home and his continued submission pleased her in a sense. Cambria had always been the submissive one, always timid and shy and tucking her own tail. She found it hard to stick up for herself, but not this time. No, what had happened to her put steel in her nerves and fire in her blood and this was one subject she would never back down on. She couldn't see the D'Angelo's side of things. Not after what she had gone through and not after hearing how she blamed not only her but her mother as well. The memories of the argument before she had been taken away were blurry and disconnected, but she did remember that. That was where a lot of the anger had grown from. It was one thing to do something bad and be sorry about it, that could be forgiven. The woman hadn't been sorry though. She had heard it with her owns ears. It hadn't been her fault, it hadn't been her mother's fault, the only one at fault was the wolf who had brought that stuff into the house.



Still, even through the vindictive satisfaction, the hurt came on stronger. Looking at him like this didn't really make her feel better. Cambria didn't want things to be this way. She didn't want to feel this way around and about him, but he had given her no other choice. He was her uncle, he was supposed to protect her and instead he had done something that hurt her more than she had ever been hurt before. He started to speak again and her stony demeanor was quickly cracking, fraying at the edges quicker than she could keep it together. The pain was forcing through all the cracks and soon she wouldn't be able to hide back the tears. The fragile girl was crumbling into herself again, the explosion over, her rage used up. All that was left was how much it hurt.



His words came forth, and she only shook her head back and forth until the agony came forth in her words. "But I'm your niece," she said, her voice cracking, strangled. The dam had broken and the hot tears streamed down over her cheeks like sorrowful rivers. Her legs shook more visibly now, and she doubted she'd be able to stand for much longer. "Do you have any idea what I went though? I thought I was going to die, and afterwords I wanted to, because I couldn't be happy anymore. I couldn't feel anything but depression and pain. I never thought I was going to get better." She paused, taking a shaky breath. "Do you have any idea how much it hurts that my own zio did that with the woman who caused all my suffering? Who stole my innocence?" She used the Italian word to drive home the significance of his betrayal to her. He was her family, and he had let her down, poured salt in her wounds.

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#7
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Happy belated bday to Cambi~! And lol, my slowness makes this thread ooold. I'll try to be fast fast with it so we can finish it up. o:



It was always the tears that stung him the most. To Ehno, those tears spoke louder of her outrage and sorrow than her words ever could. He very nearly flinched at the combination of the sight of those tears and the sound of each shaky word as she spoke. He had caused his niece so much grief, and the evidence of it was right there before him. The Marino never intended to hurt anyone with what he did, but that didn’t justify the pain he’d caused. It didn’t make it hurt any less for Cambria. He wanted so desperately to take the pain away, but couldn’t even begin to see how, when he was now the root of it.



“No,” he nearly whispered, voice wanting to hide in his shame. He couldn’t possibly begin to imagine how much this all had pained her. Ehno had seen the sorrow that had engulfed her after the accident, had seen the way she desperately avoided the sight of him within recent weeks, but he couldn’t truly be able to understand how much she was hurting. The thought of that made him feel even more pathetic and terrible about how he had hurt her without even thinking. His gaze lowered back to the floorboards. “I was stupid. I am stupid,” he corrected, words picking up a slight tone of harsh, self-degradation. “I should have been able to see how much it would have hurt you, but I didn’t. I was too blind and foolish to see it.” Too foolish and naïve in believing that he could make everything work out for everyone.
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#8
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we can speedyspeedy finish dis, once you're back :o 300+





She could see the effect that the rivers cascading down her face had on him. Even if her words had fallen on deaf ears, her tears reached him. Her tears made him see how much damage he had done. For her whole life the girl had believed that no matter what anyone else did, her family would always be there for her. That they would always be on her side and would never do anything that would cause her any substantial amount of pain. With the revelation of what had occurred between her uncle and that woman though, that paradigm of her life had fallen apart at the seams and she had felt herself coming apart as well. If you couldn't depend on your family, then who could you depend on? Even at her age she knew that you couldn't fix everyone's problems. You couldn't right everyone's wrongs. In her mind, if it came down to protecting a friend, a friend that had caused the injustice, and protecting your family, the family should always win. He had tried to have his cake and eat it too, and now the family was suffering because of it.



Cambria was glad, at least, that he acknowledged that he didn't know what she had been through. That he couldn't truly understand how much she hurt. If he had tired to say he knew she would have lost whatever small spec of respect she still held for him. He didn't though, and so that small respect was allowed to stay in her heart. It didn't mean she forgave him yet, but she didn't totally dismiss him either. She let him speak, the unsteadiness of her legs finally overcoming her and she sat down. Her eyes didn't focus on him, she looked at the wall, but she still listened. She wasn't sure what else to do or say. Her goal, if she had had one at all, was to make him see what he had done to her. To make him understand that he couldn't do what he had done without severely hurting the people that had trusted him. Maybe what he had done hadn't been completely wrong, but it hadn't been completely right either.



A pained silence engulfed them, and she let it drag on for a few minutes before taking another shaky breath into her lungs. "I can't forgive you," she said softly. "Not yet, anyway." Honestly she didn't know if she ever could, but it certainly wasn't going to happen right now. Her eyes stayed averted and she was drained by the vortex of emotion that had consumed her.

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#9
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wc:312 fwee~



Perhaps it was his overwhelming sense of loyalty and a heavy dose of foolish, sweet ideas that had led him into this mess, but he knew that he could not have done it any other way. Ehno couldn’t look at the situation with the Manichean touch his niece did. To him, each side of the conflict, family and friend, needed help. After seeing what a mess the drugs had made of Naniko, he couldn’t view her as evil, as he knew his niece did. He didn’t expect her to understand that, nor did he expect himself to fully understand how Cambria saw the ordeal. He could only hope that it wouldn’t prevent them from ever moving on from it. The girl sunk down to the ground, gaze averted from her uncle. The Marino man tensed slightly, arms crossing over his chest in response to the nervous tension they had conjured up. He gripped his arms so tightly it was a wonder he didn’t break the skin.



A heavy silence fell between them, and Ehno did nothing to stop it. It simply settled in with the tension, making it almost palpable between them. He couldn’t keep his gaze steady on his niece, the sight of her there on the floor with sorrow and anger draped about her only serving to further fuel his own feelings of guilt. Amber gaze moved to the wall behind Cambria as the silence pushed on. It was cowardly to not face what he had done, trying to push away the guilt, but if this ordeal had shown him anything, it was that he was not perfect. The painful silence lingered on between them for a few moments more before the girl finally spoke up again. “I don’t expect you to,” he responded just as softly. The uncle willed himself to turn his gaze back to her once more.
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#10
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one more post from you? or I can close here, whichever Smile





The tension between them was draining whatever small amount of strength and composure she had left. The girl just wanted to be alone, just wanted to curl up under the soft covers of her bed and fall into oblivion. She wanted to fall asleep and not wake up until her body had healed some of the damage it had sustained throughout the past few weeks. The last words from her uncle that came did something to make her feel a little better. At least he knew that she couldn't forgive him yet. That things wouldn't be okay between them for some time. At least he could understand that and give her time. It was time that she needed, and space.



The silence didn't stay for long between his last words and when she once again opened her mouth to speak. "I just need to be alone now...please..." Cambria had nothing left to give and nothing left to say. This was all of this that she could handle right now, and likely for some time to come. She wanted to just slink into her room, but she needed a moment without Ehno in the hall before she could move an inch. The Marino didn't trust her legs to move her at this point.

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