Koe's expression didn't change when he looked at her. And try as he might, it was impossible for him to really be angry with her. What he felt was a hurt, distant and almost totally unconnected to her. An ancient thing she'd awakened without realizing it. There was no inference made on her part, no judgment. She was still young. And far too impetuous for a dragon, far too willing to press for things which were hidden and ask for things which she'd no right to ask for. Koe wanted nothing just then so much as he wanted her to go away, to leave him alone so that he could concentrate on not weeping. But it wasn't meant to be.
"Sit down," he finally said, in little more than a whisper; after a clearing of his throat, he repeated himself. "Sit down."
If she wanted to know the truth, the stories, he didn't have a right to deny her. Heritage was important to a dragon, and Minaht had filled her head with such notions. For his own part Koe did not wish to remember any of it, either ups or downs, because it was all in the distant past. And if he'd never made his piece with it and he'd engineered himself into something completely different, at least he was not consumed by guilt for it. Or anger. Or shame. It simply was. The old dragon didn't bother to check and see if his daughter had sat down. If sound was enough to go on, she had.
That would do for now.
"Do you remember the story I told you? About Onainaht? She wasn't an ancestor of yours, at least... not in the way the story implied. She was my mother. I took your name from hers and told you a story about gathering songs for the stars because the actual story is something I never wanted my child to know. I promised myself that I'd keep you safe. Keep you away from a world of violence. And the story is part of that, the actual story. I never wanted this sort of life for you. Never."
He hoped that she didn't ask for the full story.
Knowing her, however, she would. Even if it pained her almost beyond belief to ask about her dead grandmother.