Bunch of Fruitcakes [XANIS]

Kassander and his companions had ventured out of the Crew pack lands with the intention of harvesting some of the necessary ingredients for their next batches of alcohol. Remy clung to the fur of his shoulders, but the constant rocking motion of a wolf's long-range lope had put the little lemur to sleep, and the primate only continued to cling by reflex. Rommel kept up well though foxes weren't made for the same long-ranging nature as a wolf. Long years together and more height than most foxes gave him something of an advantage there.

They arrived in the Orchard in good time, and he couldn't help but remember sadly of when this had all belonged to Valentine. How Katja had traded some of his alcohol for the right to collect a harvest from these trees from the handsome alpha. How strange to think that Chaos was Valentine's child, youngest child at that, yet old enough to hold a pack of his own. Goodness he was getting old. His sisters had probably settled down with families and kids of their own, wherever they were. Svetlana, and Val, and Sindri. Last he had heard Svet was in Fiori but she had never sought him out, and he thinking she didn't want to see him because of what happened to Sigmarr had left her alone. He didn't think she was sill there, though, there being no trace at all of her scent in Fiori's markers last he had been near. It bothered him that he didn't know her fate or that of his other sisters, or his adopted sisters and brothers. Was he the only one left alive from his family now?

Voices suddenly intruded on his morose thoughts, as he dropped another apple carefully into one of the baskets he pulled behind him on a primitive hide sled. He tried to edge away, not wanting to disturb the strangers, but the hide caught on a protruding root and nearly toppled the baskets, and the resulting racket of catching and righting them would have undoubtedly caught their attention anyway even if it hadn't woken Remy up so that the lemur squeaked indignantly at him.

He gave the three strangers a swift sidelong glance through the thin tree cover between them and him, but habitual anxiety kept his eyes from meeting theirs, wavering more at the level of chest and shoulder, so he didn't see or yet realize the familiar facial markings they each bore in their own way. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he stammered out a soft apology to the young wolves. "It wasn't my intention."