Since the challenge, since he had learned of his mother's death, Tornach had buried himself in his work. It was his only solace from the emptiness that threatened to overwhelm him at times. But he'd made no effort to find others who shared his life's dream, no effort to leave the range except to herd more animals in to increase the genetic variance. The herds had increased, and with the increase had come more work to sink himself into, until finally Aiden had enough of it. The falcon had told him quite bluntly that he was hiding, like a coward, and that he was not the only one in his family who had lost someone that day. His father, his brothers, his sisters. They'd all lost someone. It wasn't just him. They had each other, he'd argued half-heartedly, though he'd known that Zuriel had been wandering alone last he'd known, and Faite had her own pack now. And Regulus - who comforted the king who thought he needed to always be strong for his people?
But he'd put it off anyway, because there was always an excuse. Fences needed to be added to, herds moved from one to another to keep them from eating down all the grass. And then it was birthing season, and he'd needed to protect his herd's next generation from opportunistic predators who did not recognize a loner's ownership over a prey animal.
And then it just got... easier not to go. It was a long way away, and it was just easier to stay here, guarding his herds and fussing over them. He'd added pens of captured partridge and quail to his experiment, and a colony of hares (rabbits, thus far, had foiled his primitive attempts to keep them penned). So he'd found the seasons fled past without him having returned to his family, or visited his mother's grave, or even extended his intended offer to his father to stay with him here.
So it was that he found himself halfway through the summer still on the range. He was laying out sphinx-like outside the currently-used elk pen, watching the somewhat distant herd grazing. Aiden was off hunting for herself - duck hunting, and having watched the way the falcon hunted Tornach had the idea that she could maybe knock a few ducks from the sky for him to capture sometime early this autumn when there was still a multitude of newly independent young ducks who hadn't migrated yet. It was an idea, anyway. Yawning in the thickly humid air, he let his gaze and his mind wander.
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