Dread squared his shoulders, set his jaw. His eyes narrowed. Hackles up. There is hurt in the boy, deep, long lasting hurt. "I'm not fighting your war." The words are spoken, maybe as a plea, ears pinning back against the boy's skull. Standing up to his father feels strange, but maybe it's empowering too. Maybe. He looks Sirius in the eye now, expression drawn and serious. He'd always been a serious child, the most severe of his siblings. As Dread is about to open his mouth and make his choice, someone else arrives. The words from moments ago die on his lips.

Scald. A diplomat, Deluge's brother. Dread's expression remained hard drawn, listening as the boy speaks. As the boy outs him, for the conversation he's had with Gilgamesh himself. Shit. At this point, it was a bell that couldn't be un-rung. Though his heart pounded in his chest, the boy looks at his father. He looks, and for perhaps the first time, he sees him. The Warlord looked... old. A man who had fought, who had won, who had loved, who had lost. A man that had spread his legacy through this place, and who wore its scars. There's something awful about seeing your father not as your father, but as a man. Dread has lived a relatively sheltered existence, having been shielded from that view up until now.

"You don't get it. You never will-- I'm not making requests anymore. I'm telling you," his voice wants to crack, but Dread swallowed hard. "I'm not turning my back on my whole family. Just on you." There are too many emotions in his system. The yearling is overwhelmed. Grief that he's never processed, things that he's never given heed to, things that he's felt he couldn't... it all bubbles to the surface. It hurts. Though Dread feels like he's going to throw up, he'd fight to keep it together for as long as his father could see him.

With grief blooming in his chest, Dread turned away from his father. He'd been offered the chance to take control of his own destiny. Maybe it was the wrong choice, but he wouldn't let anyone see him second guess himself. Not now. There were too many emotions he didn't know how to process, too many feelings involved. Dread would make the choice to walk away.

"speech"

For the moment he ignored the apparent diplomat of his enemies. One of theirs had tried to kidnap his son. It earned them no good will with the Warlord. But right now, this was between him and Dread. Kite had tried to leave, and he had told her no. Not while she was a yearling, as a child. As his son, he would have told Dread the same. But the boy has made this into more than a young child being rebellious. Dread had upped the stakes. He has made it clear that he would take what he wanted at the cost of the Armada and his family. Seers words remained. He could come home now his son, or leave a stranger. The Warlord gave him the choice to rip them asunder, and he would keep to his decision. Even if it hurt as vividly as tearing off his own arm.

What did catch his eye, was the scent of relation between the two Raiders. Gil would sacrifice one of his children for the happiness of the other? The blatant favouritism shocked him. His opinion of Gil dropped a little further. Sparrow he knew would have carved him nose to tail before sacrificing one of her children to him. At least he wasn't the only one who had failed his children. If dreads anger at his fathers shadow and his mother's death was anything to go by.

But all that fell away at Dread’s words. The hurt was there, slashed across the Warlord's expression. He would not shed a tear in front of his enemies, but how he wished Zee was there. She was the gentler of the two of them. Perhaps she would have found a way to fix this. He did not recognise the wolf in front of him, could not match him with the image of the boy he had taught to hunt, to fight. The boy who had come to him and asked for the rank of Diplomat. He had thought he had watched Dread grow stronger, grow in the Armada. Apparently, what he had seen was him grow apart. There was nothing more for him to say, Dread had made his choice. Made his opinion of the Warlord clear. “You have two days to get your things” He told the boy, and turned and walked away.

- Sirius exit -

"Speech"