Post by Therdde on May 8, 2009 22:17:49 GMT -5
Characters:
Kaya - Female Juvenile Cougar
Kein - Male Cougar
- Snowy Highlands -
Kaya is trying her best not to panic and just run away from what she is about to do, but Jinx convinced her that she's got to at least let her father know where she is going. Probably because she understands just disappearing would scare them. Despite all that's happened recently, she still does love her parents. So she is carefully making her way through the snow, looking for her father.
Kein has all but put the encounter with Jinx from his mind entirely. Oh, he remembers he said he would send Ashen home, but he isn't thinking about it at all times, especially since he has not once smelled or spotted the male cub. His mood and gait are as relaxed as they get, these days, as he heads vaguely southward down the slope. It has been a long time since he left the hearing range of the still-slumbering Nayeli, and still he walks.
It takes all the courage in Kaya's heart to keep from turning away and running. The only thing that keeps her going is knowing that Scuddle has such faith in her. Faith. This is going to be a matter of faith. Finally Kaya approaches Kein keeping some measure of calm though on the inside the little cub is terrified. "Daddy..."
Almost as soon as Kein spots and recognizes, his eldest cub, he stops walking. The way she greets him, if simply in that she does not yell, gives him some heart, though. He promised Nayeli that Kaya would recover, and it would appear that he is right, at least to some degree. Provided that she lets him, once she is close enough, he approaches her with a hint of a smile and lowers his head to nuzzle against the young girl. They still love her. That will be important to make clear for a long time, Kein suspects. "Kaya." There is no judgement, at least in his tone, for what she may have said while she was angry or upset.
Kaya still believes what she said just before she left. The way her father dismissed her behavior as just another reason she's not up to his expectations. Kaya's been reciting that one word in her mind, the word her father never said but clearly meant in the end: Disappointment. And now her father nuzzles her and acts this way now makes her next step a difficult one. After returning the nuzzle and giving Kein a swift lick to the cheek, she begins, first by just imagining Scuddle by her side in the end. She's decided, barring some dramatic change, even if she's not the Matron... Scuddle is who she wants, like how her mother wanted her father. A mature decision for her age, but lately she's had to force herself to be mature. She takes a deep breath next, and utters the terrifying words she has to speak with confidence. "Daddy, I am leaving you. I am going with Jinx and I don't know when I will come back." She actually managed to sound confident through that!
Kein had not expected this from his child. Going with Jinx? As though she has done anything but stay with Jinx since... Well, for far too long, now. Since even before what happened with Ashen. Why would she come back here just to tell them this, that, essentially, she is refusing to forgive her parents or accept their decisions, unless... Kein takes a step back and asks his daughter, "Going with Jinx /where/, Kaya?" His voice has a harder edge now than before, when he simply greeted her by name.
Kaya sucks her breath in and decides *now* is when she wants to start walking, just in case her father starts to move after her. "If I tell you, you'll only hurt Jinx or some other innocent cougar, daddy." Kaya doesn't look back, but she just talks, still walking. "I am going with Jinx outside, and I am going to do what you refuse to do, daddy: Do the right thing. Goodbye, daddy." Kaya steps up her pace a bit more. Please don't let her father try to stop her. Please! Please! Don't let him try to take away her last bid for independence... for proof of her worth... for her last chance to show she can do right even in the face of those she cares most about. "I'll miss you, daddy!"
/Try/ to stop her? Kein does much more than that. He leaps over her, intending to block her directly from her exit. "You'll do no such thing!" Kein will /not/ have one of his children leaving Amaranth to get themselves killed. He doesn't even try to stop himself from yelling, no more now than when Cael said he was going to leave, to find Malak and Revan. "Since you seem to have forgotten this, your mother and I are your parents. Jinx and Kasim are /not/." And just hours ago, Kein was wondering if he'd been judging Jinx too harshly. Apparently, not.
"And I am *me!*" Kaya yells, turning to try to run around her father. "And I am going to help my friend whether you want me to or not." Kay is trying to get past her father, when she remembers what Chayton told her. Go for the tight spaces he can't go. Kaya starts talking again, glancing for one right now. "I love you daddy, but everything wrong in Amaranth right now..." Glance, ah hah! "Is because of *you.*" Kaya makes a run for two largish rocks she could squeeze between. "And I intend to find Ashen because you refuse to protect those who cannot protect themselves!" And there KAya gets between the rocks. Then pokes her head out and continues to yell at her father. "This has nothing to do with Jinx. Nor does it have anything to do with not being Chosen. In the end, the decision I've made since I saw what a terrible thing you did to Ashen was to *always* do what I think is right... and my friend is in trouble, I just know it!"
Kein is on her heels every step of the way. As she squeezes herself between two rocks, Kein stops, mere inches from his daughter's face. "Kaya! I suggest you watch what you're saying, because you have /no/ /idea/ what you're talking about." And there's that urge to strike out at her again, an urge he barely restrains. His body may not be able to fit between those rocks, but his paws most certainly can. "Would you like to know what lies outside of Amaranth? Death. Cougars and wolves who would as soon kill you as look at you. What makes you think, what makes /her/ think, I would ever let you leave in the foolish search of a cub who is probably still in Amaranth?!"
"Because I know what's *in* Amaranth!" Kaya says finally. "Because I think I can't just sit around and not take a risk for those I care about." Kaya shivers. She looks for her way out. "Daddy, what if it were you in my place? What if someone you cared about was across the way, and the way itself was deep? Do you cower? Or do you leap?!" Kaya finally scoots back out the other side of the rocks and starts to run as hard as she can for the next spot. A bush who seems to be making the attempt of a leap of its own up here. "I know what's in amaranth and what's not in Amaranth. What's not in Amaranth is a Cheiftain even a small cub can have faith will make the promise... you know what that promise is, daddy?!" And Kaya jumps for the bush.
It is all too easy for Kein to leap even the tall rocks, and this time, when he leaps for Kaya, it is not with a mind to cut her off from her path, but rather to knock her feet out from under her. "I've made the mistake you're trying to make, Kaya, and a cub got killed for it! You need to get it through your head that you do /not/ know everything!" Period. It isn't that he doesn't understand. It's that he /knows/ better.
Kaya feels her feet skid out from under her and she falls into the snow. She rolls over to try to get her feet back. "Daddy, I never claim to know everything. I know I have much to learn." Kaya says, then rolls again when she finds her feet. "I know a life where I don't help my friends no matter what happens is not a life worth living. Jinx doesn't want me to come! She came outright and said not to!" Kaya stands, but undoubtedly Kein is upon her by this point. "*What is the promise, daddy?!*" Kaya demands sharply and loudly. She knows she'd have to do something drastic to get away at this point, such as a bite, but maybe, just *maybe* her father will let her go, just this once. Let her fall or rise on her own.
It is now your pose.
No, Kein does not allow Kaya to just get up. As soon as he even sees her trying, he reaches out to knock her back over, intending to pin her just long enough for him to get his mouth around the back of her neck, to pick her up. Jinx doesn't want Kaya along? Well, that's just fine, because Kaya will /not/ be going. He'll see to that. Apparently, he is done trying to speak to his irrational daughter, as he certainly has no intention of speaking while carrying her in his mouth.
Kaya falls onto her back as her father knocks her over, and she realizes he's done talking and is now doing. And though she dreads this, she realizes her only hope of getting away will have to be by way of escalation. "Forgive me, daddy!" Kaya yells and as hard and as fast as she can makes a fully-clawed swipe right at her own father's face. She really doesn't want this. If the swipe connects, Kaya intends to get in the bush and tell him that, one way or another, she's leaving, better for her it is sooner and Jinx not have gotten far than a few days down the line and have Kaya wandering out looking for her.
Would Kein have ever expected one of his cubs to strike at him? No, and that's likely the only reason those small paws manage to land. The claws barely manage to cut through his fur, and there is not any of what Kein would call pain associated with it, though the scratches do sting, and blood does escape the small wounds. It's just shocking enough to allow his daughter to pull herself out from under him, enough to keep him from reaching her before she reaches the bush. Not that he's that far behind her, but still enough. And rather than trying to reach in and grab her out... He uses the one last tool in his arsenal. "If you leave against my wishes, Kaya, you will /not/ be accepted back in these lands." Not without permission, and probably a lot of grovelling. He will not see her harm her mother like this, then try to return as though all is well. Sure, it may be trying to shock her into realizing what she's doing, but he means every angry word. He would push her out of Amaranth if she tried to cross the borders a second time.
Kaya finally has to face that ultimate fear. Be cast out by her father for this? Kaya doesn't say anything for the longest time. He'd cast her out? He'd seriously do this? Kaya can't decide what she must do. If she were truly gutsy, she'd tempt fate, but what her father says gives her considerable pause. She's not going to decide easily... and not without talking more. "... Daddy?" Kaya says. "You'd really do that?" She doesn't poke anything out of the bush. "I'm still your daughter, and in here or out there, I'll love you the same... You'd... throw me away like that just because I am doing what I must? Doing what is right?" Kaya finally pokes her head out. "I never thought I'd imagine it, daddy, but are you really such a coward that you can't allow, even for just one day, for me to do what is needed? To go out there and help someone else? Think of *someone* else?" Kaya says. "I know it's dangerous, daddy. That's why I must. Because Ashen needs a friend. He needs a friend. I'm his friend, can't you understand that? And you'd reject me for doing what I believe?"
Kein ignores all the tiny things she says that he could nitpick over. Kein has never been guilty of cowardice. He has been guilty of many things, but not that. And one day? Does she really imagine that, if Ashen is even out there, they will really be able to find him, in strange terrain, in one day? But he doesn't budge. Not for a second, not outwardly. "Not for doing what you believe. For your constant, stubborn refusal to accept that there are forces out there larger than you. For your utter disregard for your family. Your father." His anger remains, the only thing that allows him to continue speaking to his daughter like that.
"And disregard all else? Friends? Those I would protect if I were in your place?" Kaya says. She doesn't think she'll leave... not unless her father does something horrible. "You never answered me, daddy. What is your promise? What makes a Chieftain different than just a cougar surrounded by cubs and females? Where were you when Ashen needed you to be Chieftain? If Ashen is out there, lost, in danger, isn't there something you're supposed to do?" Kaya says. "When I said I wanted to be Matron, did you think I just made that decision without even thinking about what it meant?" Kaya says. "Daddy... prove me wrong. Prove that, in the end, you *are* Chieftain and you *can* protect even those you don't want to. If I stay, daddy... I want you to go with Jinx. I want you to go find Ashen.
"I want you to find him and explain to him why you're really here. Bring him home. Treat him like an innocent. And I'll do anything you want me to. Be what you want me to be. You refuse to do even a small duty like finding a lost cub, and I'm going to leave. It will hurt. It will hurt me deeply, daddy. But I don't know if I could stand to live with a father who can't accept that maybe, just *maybe,* he made a terrible mistake and hurt someone. You don't realize what you have done. This is not about you or me. I am not leaving because you think I shouldn't be Chosen, not leaving because you've been so angry with me. Not leaving because of *anything* that happened to me. I'd be leaving because of what's been happening to others, and how blind you've been to the harm you've caused. I love you, daddy, but I must choose what is right, and I pray that you do, too."
"My responsibilities are to the ones who are /in/ this land, Kaya. I /cannot/ prevent the entire world from being dangerous, and if I tried, the cougars /here/ would suffer." It's as simple, and as difficult, as that. "You're angry with me for protecting your mother. Fine. But you /cannot/ expect me to leave her vulnerable to any threat that may present itself in my absense because your friend was upset that I wanted him out of my way, that I had to get my injured mate to safety." Will Kein miss his daughter? Is he terrified of telling Nayeli that she's gone? Yes. But if Kaya can really be so unconcerned about her own mother's well-being... Then she doesn't need to be here, where she can play to every maternal feeling Nayeli has while caring nothing for the health of the cougar who gave birth to her. "I told you what your choice was, Kaya. You can choose to forsake your family and your tribe, or you can stay." If she is old enough to make that choice... Then Kein won't stand in her way. To prove this, he turns to walk away from the bush in which she's hiding.
Kaya steps out of the bush and starts to walk toward the boundary. She thinks she is going to go... perhaps beg forgiveness of her father.. but the further she goes, the worse she feels. By the time she reaches her father's marked boundary, she's filled with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. She knows she has a friend in need. Likely out there. How her heart aches for the willpower to step past that boundary. Past that line. The real world, the scary place of many nightmares she has never experienced. She stares ahead, she lifts a paw, about to make that next step. That very next step. Would she do it? Would she sacrifice her place with her family, her place with the tribe, even for a friend in need? She hesitates. This is a life changing moment for her, what will she do?
Kaya - Female Juvenile Cougar
Kein - Male Cougar
- Snowy Highlands -
Kaya is trying her best not to panic and just run away from what she is about to do, but Jinx convinced her that she's got to at least let her father know where she is going. Probably because she understands just disappearing would scare them. Despite all that's happened recently, she still does love her parents. So she is carefully making her way through the snow, looking for her father.
Kein has all but put the encounter with Jinx from his mind entirely. Oh, he remembers he said he would send Ashen home, but he isn't thinking about it at all times, especially since he has not once smelled or spotted the male cub. His mood and gait are as relaxed as they get, these days, as he heads vaguely southward down the slope. It has been a long time since he left the hearing range of the still-slumbering Nayeli, and still he walks.
It takes all the courage in Kaya's heart to keep from turning away and running. The only thing that keeps her going is knowing that Scuddle has such faith in her. Faith. This is going to be a matter of faith. Finally Kaya approaches Kein keeping some measure of calm though on the inside the little cub is terrified. "Daddy..."
Almost as soon as Kein spots and recognizes, his eldest cub, he stops walking. The way she greets him, if simply in that she does not yell, gives him some heart, though. He promised Nayeli that Kaya would recover, and it would appear that he is right, at least to some degree. Provided that she lets him, once she is close enough, he approaches her with a hint of a smile and lowers his head to nuzzle against the young girl. They still love her. That will be important to make clear for a long time, Kein suspects. "Kaya." There is no judgement, at least in his tone, for what she may have said while she was angry or upset.
Kaya still believes what she said just before she left. The way her father dismissed her behavior as just another reason she's not up to his expectations. Kaya's been reciting that one word in her mind, the word her father never said but clearly meant in the end: Disappointment. And now her father nuzzles her and acts this way now makes her next step a difficult one. After returning the nuzzle and giving Kein a swift lick to the cheek, she begins, first by just imagining Scuddle by her side in the end. She's decided, barring some dramatic change, even if she's not the Matron... Scuddle is who she wants, like how her mother wanted her father. A mature decision for her age, but lately she's had to force herself to be mature. She takes a deep breath next, and utters the terrifying words she has to speak with confidence. "Daddy, I am leaving you. I am going with Jinx and I don't know when I will come back." She actually managed to sound confident through that!
Kein had not expected this from his child. Going with Jinx? As though she has done anything but stay with Jinx since... Well, for far too long, now. Since even before what happened with Ashen. Why would she come back here just to tell them this, that, essentially, she is refusing to forgive her parents or accept their decisions, unless... Kein takes a step back and asks his daughter, "Going with Jinx /where/, Kaya?" His voice has a harder edge now than before, when he simply greeted her by name.
Kaya sucks her breath in and decides *now* is when she wants to start walking, just in case her father starts to move after her. "If I tell you, you'll only hurt Jinx or some other innocent cougar, daddy." Kaya doesn't look back, but she just talks, still walking. "I am going with Jinx outside, and I am going to do what you refuse to do, daddy: Do the right thing. Goodbye, daddy." Kaya steps up her pace a bit more. Please don't let her father try to stop her. Please! Please! Don't let him try to take away her last bid for independence... for proof of her worth... for her last chance to show she can do right even in the face of those she cares most about. "I'll miss you, daddy!"
/Try/ to stop her? Kein does much more than that. He leaps over her, intending to block her directly from her exit. "You'll do no such thing!" Kein will /not/ have one of his children leaving Amaranth to get themselves killed. He doesn't even try to stop himself from yelling, no more now than when Cael said he was going to leave, to find Malak and Revan. "Since you seem to have forgotten this, your mother and I are your parents. Jinx and Kasim are /not/." And just hours ago, Kein was wondering if he'd been judging Jinx too harshly. Apparently, not.
"And I am *me!*" Kaya yells, turning to try to run around her father. "And I am going to help my friend whether you want me to or not." Kay is trying to get past her father, when she remembers what Chayton told her. Go for the tight spaces he can't go. Kaya starts talking again, glancing for one right now. "I love you daddy, but everything wrong in Amaranth right now..." Glance, ah hah! "Is because of *you.*" Kaya makes a run for two largish rocks she could squeeze between. "And I intend to find Ashen because you refuse to protect those who cannot protect themselves!" And there KAya gets between the rocks. Then pokes her head out and continues to yell at her father. "This has nothing to do with Jinx. Nor does it have anything to do with not being Chosen. In the end, the decision I've made since I saw what a terrible thing you did to Ashen was to *always* do what I think is right... and my friend is in trouble, I just know it!"
Kein is on her heels every step of the way. As she squeezes herself between two rocks, Kein stops, mere inches from his daughter's face. "Kaya! I suggest you watch what you're saying, because you have /no/ /idea/ what you're talking about." And there's that urge to strike out at her again, an urge he barely restrains. His body may not be able to fit between those rocks, but his paws most certainly can. "Would you like to know what lies outside of Amaranth? Death. Cougars and wolves who would as soon kill you as look at you. What makes you think, what makes /her/ think, I would ever let you leave in the foolish search of a cub who is probably still in Amaranth?!"
"Because I know what's *in* Amaranth!" Kaya says finally. "Because I think I can't just sit around and not take a risk for those I care about." Kaya shivers. She looks for her way out. "Daddy, what if it were you in my place? What if someone you cared about was across the way, and the way itself was deep? Do you cower? Or do you leap?!" Kaya finally scoots back out the other side of the rocks and starts to run as hard as she can for the next spot. A bush who seems to be making the attempt of a leap of its own up here. "I know what's in amaranth and what's not in Amaranth. What's not in Amaranth is a Cheiftain even a small cub can have faith will make the promise... you know what that promise is, daddy?!" And Kaya jumps for the bush.
It is all too easy for Kein to leap even the tall rocks, and this time, when he leaps for Kaya, it is not with a mind to cut her off from her path, but rather to knock her feet out from under her. "I've made the mistake you're trying to make, Kaya, and a cub got killed for it! You need to get it through your head that you do /not/ know everything!" Period. It isn't that he doesn't understand. It's that he /knows/ better.
Kaya feels her feet skid out from under her and she falls into the snow. She rolls over to try to get her feet back. "Daddy, I never claim to know everything. I know I have much to learn." Kaya says, then rolls again when she finds her feet. "I know a life where I don't help my friends no matter what happens is not a life worth living. Jinx doesn't want me to come! She came outright and said not to!" Kaya stands, but undoubtedly Kein is upon her by this point. "*What is the promise, daddy?!*" Kaya demands sharply and loudly. She knows she'd have to do something drastic to get away at this point, such as a bite, but maybe, just *maybe* her father will let her go, just this once. Let her fall or rise on her own.
It is now your pose.
No, Kein does not allow Kaya to just get up. As soon as he even sees her trying, he reaches out to knock her back over, intending to pin her just long enough for him to get his mouth around the back of her neck, to pick her up. Jinx doesn't want Kaya along? Well, that's just fine, because Kaya will /not/ be going. He'll see to that. Apparently, he is done trying to speak to his irrational daughter, as he certainly has no intention of speaking while carrying her in his mouth.
Kaya falls onto her back as her father knocks her over, and she realizes he's done talking and is now doing. And though she dreads this, she realizes her only hope of getting away will have to be by way of escalation. "Forgive me, daddy!" Kaya yells and as hard and as fast as she can makes a fully-clawed swipe right at her own father's face. She really doesn't want this. If the swipe connects, Kaya intends to get in the bush and tell him that, one way or another, she's leaving, better for her it is sooner and Jinx not have gotten far than a few days down the line and have Kaya wandering out looking for her.
Would Kein have ever expected one of his cubs to strike at him? No, and that's likely the only reason those small paws manage to land. The claws barely manage to cut through his fur, and there is not any of what Kein would call pain associated with it, though the scratches do sting, and blood does escape the small wounds. It's just shocking enough to allow his daughter to pull herself out from under him, enough to keep him from reaching her before she reaches the bush. Not that he's that far behind her, but still enough. And rather than trying to reach in and grab her out... He uses the one last tool in his arsenal. "If you leave against my wishes, Kaya, you will /not/ be accepted back in these lands." Not without permission, and probably a lot of grovelling. He will not see her harm her mother like this, then try to return as though all is well. Sure, it may be trying to shock her into realizing what she's doing, but he means every angry word. He would push her out of Amaranth if she tried to cross the borders a second time.
Kaya finally has to face that ultimate fear. Be cast out by her father for this? Kaya doesn't say anything for the longest time. He'd cast her out? He'd seriously do this? Kaya can't decide what she must do. If she were truly gutsy, she'd tempt fate, but what her father says gives her considerable pause. She's not going to decide easily... and not without talking more. "... Daddy?" Kaya says. "You'd really do that?" She doesn't poke anything out of the bush. "I'm still your daughter, and in here or out there, I'll love you the same... You'd... throw me away like that just because I am doing what I must? Doing what is right?" Kaya finally pokes her head out. "I never thought I'd imagine it, daddy, but are you really such a coward that you can't allow, even for just one day, for me to do what is needed? To go out there and help someone else? Think of *someone* else?" Kaya says. "I know it's dangerous, daddy. That's why I must. Because Ashen needs a friend. He needs a friend. I'm his friend, can't you understand that? And you'd reject me for doing what I believe?"
Kein ignores all the tiny things she says that he could nitpick over. Kein has never been guilty of cowardice. He has been guilty of many things, but not that. And one day? Does she really imagine that, if Ashen is even out there, they will really be able to find him, in strange terrain, in one day? But he doesn't budge. Not for a second, not outwardly. "Not for doing what you believe. For your constant, stubborn refusal to accept that there are forces out there larger than you. For your utter disregard for your family. Your father." His anger remains, the only thing that allows him to continue speaking to his daughter like that.
"And disregard all else? Friends? Those I would protect if I were in your place?" Kaya says. She doesn't think she'll leave... not unless her father does something horrible. "You never answered me, daddy. What is your promise? What makes a Chieftain different than just a cougar surrounded by cubs and females? Where were you when Ashen needed you to be Chieftain? If Ashen is out there, lost, in danger, isn't there something you're supposed to do?" Kaya says. "When I said I wanted to be Matron, did you think I just made that decision without even thinking about what it meant?" Kaya says. "Daddy... prove me wrong. Prove that, in the end, you *are* Chieftain and you *can* protect even those you don't want to. If I stay, daddy... I want you to go with Jinx. I want you to go find Ashen.
"I want you to find him and explain to him why you're really here. Bring him home. Treat him like an innocent. And I'll do anything you want me to. Be what you want me to be. You refuse to do even a small duty like finding a lost cub, and I'm going to leave. It will hurt. It will hurt me deeply, daddy. But I don't know if I could stand to live with a father who can't accept that maybe, just *maybe,* he made a terrible mistake and hurt someone. You don't realize what you have done. This is not about you or me. I am not leaving because you think I shouldn't be Chosen, not leaving because you've been so angry with me. Not leaving because of *anything* that happened to me. I'd be leaving because of what's been happening to others, and how blind you've been to the harm you've caused. I love you, daddy, but I must choose what is right, and I pray that you do, too."
"My responsibilities are to the ones who are /in/ this land, Kaya. I /cannot/ prevent the entire world from being dangerous, and if I tried, the cougars /here/ would suffer." It's as simple, and as difficult, as that. "You're angry with me for protecting your mother. Fine. But you /cannot/ expect me to leave her vulnerable to any threat that may present itself in my absense because your friend was upset that I wanted him out of my way, that I had to get my injured mate to safety." Will Kein miss his daughter? Is he terrified of telling Nayeli that she's gone? Yes. But if Kaya can really be so unconcerned about her own mother's well-being... Then she doesn't need to be here, where she can play to every maternal feeling Nayeli has while caring nothing for the health of the cougar who gave birth to her. "I told you what your choice was, Kaya. You can choose to forsake your family and your tribe, or you can stay." If she is old enough to make that choice... Then Kein won't stand in her way. To prove this, he turns to walk away from the bush in which she's hiding.
Kaya steps out of the bush and starts to walk toward the boundary. She thinks she is going to go... perhaps beg forgiveness of her father.. but the further she goes, the worse she feels. By the time she reaches her father's marked boundary, she's filled with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. She knows she has a friend in need. Likely out there. How her heart aches for the willpower to step past that boundary. Past that line. The real world, the scary place of many nightmares she has never experienced. She stares ahead, she lifts a paw, about to make that next step. That very next step. Would she do it? Would she sacrifice her place with her family, her place with the tribe, even for a friend in need? She hesitates. This is a life changing moment for her, what will she do?