Postcards and Polaroids

The sound of a call for Valentine had Cascade slowly dragging herself to her feet with a mighty yawn. In her den, Chaos was sleeping restlessly, the faint rattling of his breathing causing her fur to prickle with worry. Evangeline was sleeping nearby, her weariness clear. Cascade looked over her only daughter with almost as much worry as she felt for Chaos - Vana had been working desperately hard to care for the sick she had been able to gather together. Chaos, Seraphim, Hati... three wolves desperately ill with some strange strain of pneumonia. Two of her sons, and the scent of sickness was everywhere. Vana was only half-trained at best, but even she knew more of illnesses and their treatments that Cascade had ever learned. Neither of them had been able to track down any of the pack's other healers anywhere in pack lands, not even Valen's little playtoy, and so many of the pack's warriors seemed to be either laying low or as absent as the healers. Cas was at her wits' end trying to hold things together for her best friend and her eldest son in their absence. She wasn't meant to be a leader, but she as much as she wanted to she couldn't just drop everything either - she was supposed to be Valentine's partner, and she was Angelus' mother. She couldn't abandon them when they needed her. Until one of them said otherwise, she would remain here.

She'd hovered at the den mouth long enough to assure herself that neither of her sons had worsened or wakened, long enough to make sure that Evangeline was still deep in much-needed sleep, before slipping away to answer the call for Valentine herself. She shook her rumpled fur to settle it, eyeing the caller with half her attention. It was Avalon, the wolf Valentine had fought Sonticus to claim. Wonder what she wanted with Valentine? Oops, maybe she was looking for a playmate instead of a ranking wolf. Too late now, she'd just have to go without if that's what she was hoping for. "Valentine's indisposed," she said blithely, locking down any hint of her evasiveness behind a faint half-smile. "Did you need something?"