Another day had passed on Coruscant. The first hours had been spent with her children at the aid center, busy packing, handing over food and medicine. The afternoon had been spent going door to door with a list in hand, delivering the same packages to those too unfortunate to make it to the center.
Sights after a war were never easy, and the last one on this wretched planet had been no different. People had lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods, and not everyone had a cushion to fall back on.
They had been here for several days now, Alwine herself, along with her children, Aethelwulf and Wulfric. Wulfric, the younger one among them, was ready to go back home to Figaro Fortuna. It was his first time exposed to these sights, and he had only known a safe home and peace. She didn't completely understand him on the issue, but she was his mother. She wanted to
keep her children safe. Both of them.
Aethelwulf… Was another matter She completed her tasks without complaint, but Alwine quickly realized that her daughter's heart wasn't in it. She hadn't come to help, she had merely come to avoid being at home. No number of wounded souls would convince her otherwise.
And now the child had wandered out. At night. Alone. On Coruscant.
Alwine cursed. Her child was only fourteen, still a cub by any standard. Her education had made her book smart, but was she street smart too? Alwine wished she knew better. But all she knew she had to go look for her.
Quickly, she put Wulfric to sleep, reading him a story, pretending that he did not hear how much faster her heart beat while Aethelwulf was gone. And as soon as his eyes closed, Alwine Bergen rose and quietly shut the door behind her, leaving him alone with a droid on their ship.
That had been an hour ago.
Now she was walking in one of the lower parts of Coruscant, following a trail left by her daughter who had chosen one of the worst moments possible to go wild. Part of Alwine wished her daughter would lose control and become a wolf that night, as that would make it far easier for her mother to find it. But… No.
Coruscant was not Stewjon, but Alwine's skin still bore the marks of what had happened when she wasn't much older than her daughter and had shifted against her will.
"Looking for the girl," a voice called out to her. Alwine turned around, brown gaze falling on what looked like an old human lady. But she knew her face. She had seen it every day since coming here
, "She passed by not too long ago. Some of the youth are having a party over that way," she pointed.
Alwine nodded her thank you, and continued her trek through the dark streets of the city-planet. Every bit of her thoughts were focused on what her daughter might have gotten herself into it while Coruscant burned, her senses for the moment too wrapped up in it the notice of the Sith's approach.
Darth Petrichor
Alwine Bergen
