She doesn’t want to live in the Meadow. There is not nearly enough excitement, as she has told her great-grandfather many times. But Brennen has raised enough of his own children to be unfazed by the tantrums of a bored adolescent, and so here in the Meadow they still reside. Cassady longs for adventure; even the questionable adventures the Tundra had offered to a curious child had been better than this.
Now, she doesn’t even have the escape she used to have, the ability to flit away into Death for a jaunt when she is bored (and ghosts, she has found, are never boring). No, she’s stuck in the here and now with a mother who is missing, and a sister and great-grandfather who are disgustingly content with boring. At this thought, she shoots Carwyn a dark glance somewhat reminiscent of Snout’s moody looks, but it is mercifully brief as her attention is drawn back to Eyetooth when she speaks.
But where Eyetooth is bright and enthusiastic, her twin is sharp points and dark thoughts. His acidic comment doesn’t phase Cassie, who simply gazes at him through impassive brown eyes, because she is used to it. Mother has similar sharp words and dark sulks when she’s not getting her way. Cassady is often tempted by them, but her dark moods have been tempered through her great-grandfather’s disapproval and contrasting example.
Brennen doesn’t tolerate anything in his granddaughter’s daughters that reminds him of Elite.
Cassady looks away from Snout only because Eyetooth is speaking again, and because she wonders if dismissing him as if irrelevant makes him as angry as it makes her. It doesn’t even cross her mind that making people angry on purpose might be a bit not good. “We’re living here, I guess.” she responds, frowning. “Grandfather is still sulking about his home being destroyed, so he hasn’t picked a new one, and Carwyn and I live with him.” They are well old enough now to strike out on their own, but they have not. Cassie couldn’t articulate why, even if she tried. The conspiratorial way that Eyetooth sidles closer, then, only makes the little purple mare smile wider again, pretending she can’t see the way it bothers him.
cassady