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She had moved into her own den not far away from the cabin that she and Jefferson had shared, but still frequented the cabin often. She'd been trying to catch Jefferson at home for a little while to talk to him about their family and whether their relatives in Dahlia were any good. She'd been there to visit a couple of times and had met Haku. Oh, Haku. He had sparked a definite interest in her, but she was curious about what he was like outside of the time that she was with him.
She was interested in finding out more about Geneva and her father...they'd been spending a lot of time together lately, she knew...was there something there that she didn't know about? She felt like it was silly for her to feel jealous of Geneva, who she had grown up knowing, but couldn't help it. She wasn't used to not having all of Jefferson's attention on her. Not sure if she ought to knock, the newly-shifted teenager stood awkwardly outside of the cabin door. After a few moments she lifted up her hand, pounding out a short rhythm on the wood.
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In recent months, the ranch had been lively and bustling. Jefferson, with his slowly developing methods of being a father, had made every effort possible to raise Addison in the most proper way possible, though his ways of doing so were less than spectacular. He was a laid-back father; she had the freedom she needed, but his single eye kept a dominant, constant watch and remained the careful guardian she had become fully comfortable with along the way. She'd grown quickly; too fast, in fact. Some time before she'd moved out of the ranch, leaving the poor place so quiet and empty that the one-eyed idiot could actually hear the crackle of the fireplace or the creaks in the floors and walls as he moved about the small cottage. Geneva had been residing inside as well, of course, but she was always in and out and hardly staying between. While Jefferson and she had spent a noticeable amount of time together, the two were not yet attached at the hip. Regardless, Jefferson guessed that the aging Addison had suspected something and moved to live elsewhere as a result. He couldn't complain, but he missed the energetic pup when she wasn't around... even if she wasn't a pup anymore.
There was a knock at the door. There was no fire in the hearth, but Jefferson had occupied the rocking chair nearby as he always did, book in hand but half-asleep regardless. The sound snapped him awake, immediately perking the tattered and worn ears to alert. Many of his underlings weren't comfortable with wandering the cabin if he shouted for them to come in, so the brute groaned and pushed himself to his feet in a slow approach of the front door. Rolling his shoulders and neck as he went, the idiot stifled a yawn as his good hand pulled the door open, only to reveal the girl that had been occupying his thoughts so heavily as of late. "Adds? You don't have to knock." He sent her an odd look, but stepped back and motioned his hand to invite her in. Addison looked... off, but perhaps he still wasn't used to seeing her standing on two feet. "What's with the face?"
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She had liked living here, growing up in the valley. But now she was going out more and more and learning about the different places that were out there. She'd gone over to Dahlia to watch Haku several times, and had run into Tokyo as well. She liked that woman--Tokyo was a real badass in Addison's eyes, a wolf with a rebellious streak who knew more about thieving and trickery than anyone else she knew.
Blue and yellow eyes looked up when the door opened, and she stepped inside a little unsteadily. She wasn't used to this form yet. "Ah...I wasn't sure. I don't live here any more, so I didn't know" She said. "I had some stuff to ask you about...and talk to you about" Addison had no idea how to approach something like this. To say that she was stalking a wolf from another pack, even a relative of theirs...that she wanted to leave to go out on her own?
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She was uneasy, more so than usual. He and Addison had always shared a rather tenseless relationship, he being her guardian, but as a pup Addison had never been afraid to speak her mind. She'd made it known when she was hungry, bored, or otherwise demanding for his attention, and he'd bent over backwards more times than not to somehow satisfy her yearning for whatever it was she wanted. Even as she'd grown, the two had stayed the same: comfortable with each other, like comrades rather than father and daughter. She'd matured fast, and there was no need to treat a woman like a whelp.
He recognized her anxiety almost instantly; the flicker of her eyes, the hesitance in her step gave it all away. He guessed for some bad news or the long-awaited lecture he'd been expecting somehow related to his relationship with Geneva and how the grey-furred goddess had managed her way between daughter and guardian. Such a conversation had yet to come, and to be honest, it was all he was expecting... thus the leniency continued. "Home is home. You're always welcome here." He turned, starting down the hall nonchalantly. "Go ahead. Are you hungry?" The concept that the conversation might be dire didn't enter his mind; Jefferson remained distracted and indifferent, just hoping to stumble his way through an awkward exchange about birds and the bees or something similar. Kids needed a talk about that, right?
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[html] ooc: omg Lin ;____; I'm so sorry this is so late!
"Not really." She had managed to trap some hares and had recently eaten. Besides...the nervous feelings that gnawed up her insides drove every other feeling away. All that she could feel was the nervousness, unsure of what to say or do. It was a first for her; normally she knew what she ought to say.
"I just wanted to talk to you. I'm thinking about moving out...out of the pack" She had grown up here, but this was important to her. She couldn't get what she needed by staying here. Hopefully he could see that, too.
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You're sorry? I'M sorry! ;-;
He froze when the words passed through his ears. The hesitation, that brief waver in her voice, meant that this was no joke: whatever thoughts had possessed Addison into such a mindset were honest and real. The cyclops immediately slowed his pace to a stop, browsing the question in his mind as it became embedded there. He'd raised Addison in Phoenix Valley as his daughter. He'd cared for her as his daughter; he'd began to believe she really was his daughter.
She wasn't. All of a sudden, it dawned on him.
He'd raised her with freedom. Jefferson had given her more and more independence as she'd grown, eventually allowing her to move out of the ranch without much input. The brute had always known she was bothered by Geneva or the responsibilities that pulled his attention away from the adopted girl, but the concept of leaving? That, he hadn't predicted. Jefferson turned a sad, mystified green eye to his daughter, reacting so mildly to the idea that he himself could not even believe it. "Leave...?" His voice cracked somewhat; the Patriarch winced and shook his head. "Why? To where? Is this about Geneva?" He sure as hell hoped it wasn't.
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