Sun Child |✔|

|13|

Caught between a strong mind, 

and a fragile heart

***

We enter my room.

Lilah looks around.

I blush from the embarrassment of having her look at my different sketches of the dark stranger.

Almost a hundred different drawings, crude, complete, partial or whole- hang and line the wall. Covering up my other works of the mountain scene, and forest sky I had painted years ago.

"Who is this?"

I blush again from her question.

I don't even know how to explain that he's no one. Nothing by my imagination.

"Well I'm glad I came in here and not Atlas."

That statement has me turning to her, sputtering out incoherent things as I try to explain.

"No...it's no one, just this stranger...I mean it's not a stranger, he's not real... he's...."
Lilah is staring at me as awkward silence invades the room.

I clear my throat, "My brother went to training camp and....came back and told me of a wolf who kept bothering him. Fighting him. And for some reason I couldn't get him off my mind, so to make me stop thinking about it I...painted him." I finished the sentence lamely, watching as Lilah's eyes dart around, taking in the galaxy sky that is above her.

"So this is really Atlas? Or at least what you thought of him?"

She smiles then, walking over to me. And then she smooths my hair. Just like how Mark would, "You are so cute."

I blush again at the statement. 

"This is...incredible," Lilah walks around the room, distracted with the different colors and works.

Then she finds my closet. 

"No freaking way," she gasps, pulling canvas after canvas out.

"Please tell me you did not paint this?"

I hesitate, not sure what the correct answer is before I see a tear fall from her eye.

"Oh crap," she laughs as she wipes the tear away, looking up at me, "It's just....too beautiful for me."

I stare at her, stunned.

No one has ever said that about my work.

But then again, the only person who has ever really seen my completed work is Mark.

Father turns away when I try to show him, and after a while, I stopped trying.

Mark would just sit upon the bed, quiet and thoughtful before dropping the picture and walking out.

"I don't think we can take all of these though."

I nod. I had expected that. Dad would probably burn them when he got home. Mark would try to protect them. But once he left for training, dad would be free to do what he wanted.

I felt tears form in my eyes at the thought.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong," Lilah softly puts a hand on my shoulder, making small comforting noises as I try desperately to clear my throat. I'm embarrassed that I'm crying in front of someone.

"It's nothing."

"I know it's hard to leave a pack," Lilah says, her hand continuing it's soothing motion on my back, "But everything will be okay. I'll look out for you. And despite what you may have heard, Atlas is a good guy. A great guy. You are very lucky."