Parenting teenagers was difficult. No, really. Tenel Ka would actually admit this fact proudly. There were times when she didn't have a clue as to whether or not she was doing the right thing with her daughter. There were also times when she knew exactly what she needed to say, but those times were fewer and far between. The entire concept of parenting was terrifying when you boiled everything down. TK could remember when she had been pregnant with Allana and what all that had meant for her. She had, of course, elongated the pregnancy to hide the identity of the father. That had been necessary, it had been a decision that hadn't been difficult. The thing was that the older your child got the more difficult it was to make decisions for them. When Allana had been a baby things had still been relatively easy. It wasn't until she began walking, talking, and becoming her own little person that things had gotten anywhere even remotely near difficult. And even then it wasn't always her, sometimes it was factors around her that were difficult to make decisions about. There was the whole kidnapping escapade and then...there was the decision to send her to live with her grandparents, faking her own death, which was something that she had not actually gotten to do. She could imagine how difficult the decision was for her, though. Despite the fact that she kept her emotions tightly under control it didn't mean that she didn't love her daughter with all of her heart. In fact, Allana was the most important person to TK. Jacen and she both knew this and it was only to be expected.
That being said, now....with a teenage Allana things were even more difficult. It wasn't that she purposefully made life difficult that would be completely untrue. She didn't attempt to make life difficult for TK or for Jacen. She just....thus far she had been such a good person, but she worried and she was active. She got herself noticed, which apparently was a bad thing, as it had caused Lucifer to delve into her mind. Nobody knew how to stop him, nobody knew how to keep him out either, so they were all susceptible to this. What the Queen Mother didn't understand was why it had to be her child. Allana had been moping around for some time. And whens he wasn't she was doing things that were far from characteristic of her. She wasn't the happy girl she'd been, she wasn't all right with herself, she was terrified. As a mother, not knowing how to make her feel safe again....it broke Tenel Ka's heart.
Allana wasn't herself. And then she had to pull the stunt with Australia. It was obvious that she wasn't all right. The question was what were they supposed to do for her? It was difficult to get through to a person that would rather be grounded and stuck in their room....behind piles of books and whatever else she had in there. Her mother was thinking, though. She wasn't combative, like Jacen. She knew that problems couldn't be solved by picking a verbal fight over the comms. It took more thought and more control than that.
TK had a book in her lap. She hadn't been paying attention to the words on the page in some time. Truth be told, she couldn't even remember what she'd been attempting to read. Her back was against the side of the sofa and her feet were curled up underneath her. The voice that called out for her was able to get through the intense thoughts plaguing her brain. "Yes, sweetheart, I'm on the sofa." She called back, looking up toward the hallway. "Do you need something?