Though he had been born in Amaryllis, the lands were all but foreign to him. He’d been too young to explore much, and by the time he was separated from the rest of his family, he’d fled to other lands entirely in the hopes that he would be able to find his mother and bring her home. The missing piece to the life he should have had. Those childish dreams had left him by now, though, and all that was left was a bitter longing for something he couldn’t even name anymore. He was too angry with the family that had left him behind to want them back anymore, but the feeling of loneliness gnawed at him, leaving him more confused about what it was he was looking for than ever.

He sat at the edge of the watering hole, seeing his fathers face when he looked down at his own reflection. He wondered where Zoticus was, if his siblings were better off than him or if they were all as lost as he was. Had his parents found each other and started over in some other land, or was he running the risk of running into them again here, back where it all started? He wasn’t sure what would be worse, if there was any option that would make him happy and take away the sting he felt in his chest every time he thought of them.

@Aryana
"Speech."

aryana Things seemed to be smoothing out well for the Huntress. She had a stable home - a land where she had proven herself enough to become Lead Hunter for. It was bittersweet, because she couldn't help but to think about if her mother would be proud of her or not. She'd like to think so, but it was hard to when she felt the pain of her abandonment everyday. How can you be proud of someone you left behind? Red paws brought her to the watering hole. At first she hadn't noticed anyone else, but when she did, she found her gaze narrowing with a tilt of her head. The brute afar seemed... oddly familiar. She didn't know how or where, but there was something about him she knew. A flick of her tail, and Aryana lounged back on her hind legs in silence. She wasn't going to engage him first, because she was too focused on trying to figure out why she knew him, lost in her thought as she stared directly at him. @Kyros

It wasn’t long before he found himself in the company of another, a young lioness marked with red hues. She watched him silently for a moment, but made no move to approach. Typically, Kyros would have happily ignored her as well, content to mind his own business and stay out of the way. As he turned to look back out at the water, though, a thought nagged at the back of his mind. Something about her was familiar. The stripes across her shoulder, the orange winged line above her eyes… Someone from the past, perhaps?

Several long moments passed, his gaze now fixed on her, brows furrowed with his lips curved with a hint of a frown as he dug through the depths of his memories, trying to recall where he knew her from. She appeared close in age to him, it was possible they had known one another when he was a child. Or maybe they’d crossed paths in his travels and both found themselves back here. Even more likely, she was just another stranger, and his mind was trying to make connections that didn’t exist to try and fill in the empty voids in his life that should have been filled by friends and family. "Sorry." He muttered after a while, shaking his head and turning away. "I don't mean to stare, but... I can't help but feel that we've met before." He glanced back to her, wondering if she felt it to, or if he just sounded crazy.

@Aryana
"Speech."

aryana Her eyes did not move from his mauve frame, they couldn't. She found herself stuck in a trance, gazing upon a ghost, but was he really? How could he be a ghost if she did not know him? But she did know him. Somehow, some way, she did. She just couldn't remember. Aryana took careful, silent steps closer to him. The closer she got, the more she could see someone in him- Zoticus? A frown deepened on her face, her head tilting before she parted her mouth. "Zoticus." She whispers the name of her old leader, a name that seem so old to her life now. Was this... was this a son of his? @Kyros

Luckily for him, she seemed just as caught up in the site of him as he was with her. Both seeming to search for some answer, some explanation, that neither could find. She stepped closer, and he shifted slightly to face her fully, but remained sitting, tipping his head ever so slightly to the side. She spoke finally, not in response to anything he had said, but the single word stole the breath from his lungs. She knew his father.

He swallowed hard, trying to shove down the lump in his throat. Resentment towards the man who had turned his back on him, abandoned him, mingled with guilt, and a feeling that this was partially on him, too. He cleared his throat, shaking his head to clear the thoughts swirling. "Zoticus was my father. I am Kyros." He dipped his head in a proper greeting. "How do you know him?" Was he here, still? Would this meeting with her bring him closer to the family he had lost? He wasn’t sure if the idea was exciting or terrifying. His skin seemed to tingle with anticipation for her answer.

@Aryana
"Speech."

aryana Lahr had been right, the male before her was a son of Zoticus. Aryana did not know how to feel about that. Wolfbron was lost to the usual way of life- challenged for and taken away. He hadn’t been the cause of her family abandoning her. At least she never saw it that way. A blink, and Aryana sets herself down on her haunches at the watering hole. She made it known she didn’t think he was a threat. “I was in Wolfbron. Born there.” She reveals, watching the water ripple by her paws. “He mated to my mother shortly before they both disappeared.” So what did that make the two of them here? Siblings? No, at least not by blood- hell not even by relation. She didn’t even know him! “I’m Aryana Huntsong.”

This first thing she said made perfect sense. Born if Wolfbron, and from the looks of it, he could easily imagine that they had been born around the same time, familiar enough with one another to look vaguely familiar, but distant enough that neither could place the connection quite clearly. It was his relation to Zoticus that clicked, and she went on to explain why his father was so much more recognizable to her. It made sense that his father would eventually move on and try to find love with another after Crice vanished, but he could feel the knife twist in his chest despite himself.

Letting out a long, low breath, he tried to reign in the immediate surge of… Was it jealousy? No, just an extra heap of betrayal. Had Zoticus run off with his new bride to start fresh elsewhere, both single parents leaving behind the families that hadn’t panned out the way they planned? "I’m sorry." What exactly he was sorry for, he wasn’t sure. But her mother had disappeared with his father, and he knew all too well the sting that came with that kind of abandonment. "Were my siblings… Did you know any of them?" Were any of them still around, or had they also been left behind in Zoticus’ grief after he tried to run off and kill himself over the Bluffs?

@Aryana
"Speech."

aryana The words “Im sorry” were bittersweet to hear. She had never thought about the other children- never had the idea someone was suffering the same as her. But here someone was, who went through her same pain. Who understood her. She takes in a breath, her gaze sweeping over to him. “Not any of our age, I don’t think. He had a litter with my mother though. We have half siblings roaming around somewhere. Not here though.” A shrug came with it, she hadn’t spoken of family in so long, and had become used to being alone. “Why'd you come back here?” A more serious question. There wasn’t anything here- not unless you made a place for yourself. There was no family, no Xanthos or Huntsong. So why return?

Every time he thought he had a handle on things, she dropped a new bit of knowledge the knocked him on his ass all over again. None of his littermates had made it to see Zoticus take his new wife, but he had half siblings out there somewhere. Who knows what could have happened since the pair of them left Amaryllis, how many siblings they might have roaming the wide, vast world that they may never know. Would the day come that he met another lion with a striped hunch that bore the Xanthos surname, claiming Zoticus as their father? Suddenly he felt unwell, bile rising in his throat. Even he wasn’t sure why this news rocked him so heavily.

Her question was a valid one, one he’d been asking himself ever since he first attempted to return. "I don’t know, honesty. I tried coming back once thinking I might find my family again, but quickly realized they were all gone and I left. I couldn’t tell you what possessed me to return this time." There was nothing for him here, but there was nothing out there in other lands either. "I’ve spent my whole life looking for my family. First my mother, and then my siblings or my father. I think I’m done looking now, ready to start my life finally but I don’t know where to begin." He flicked his ears back, resenting how pitiful he sounded. "What about you? What’s kept you here?" Did she have other family besides her mother?

@Aryana
"Speech."