Morning Report

The flame-pointed form of the Adravendi female materialized through the faint wisps of fog that clung to the borderlands, scattering the mist in swirls behind her. She was patrolling the moor's eastern border this early morning, while dawn barely lightened the twilight with its faint pale light. It was the most likely direction for trespassers to come from, facing as it did more hospitable lands than Celestial's other borders. That wasn't to say that she generally neglected to patrol the other borders as well, on other days, but today she'd chosen this most strategic border.

She was patrolling alone, as usual. Without a lead warrior to assign patrols, it seemed that when and where they happened occurred according to the whim of whomever happened to feel up to patrolling somewhere that day. And unless that patroller deliberately sought out company, that meant that they generally occurred alone.

Gwen wasn't particularly keen on the idea of being the head warrior, but she had begun to wonder if maybe she should work towards that higher rank, simply to force some sense of structure on the pack's guardians and get them working together for the good of the pack. And it did feel like she was simply biding her time here instead of proving out her proud lineage. She was an Adravendi, a true-blooded Adravendi and yet here she sat, doing nothing while the adopted-in upstarts were the only Adravendis that the world saw. It irked her and wounded her pride more than a little that, when you asked anyone in Ardent who the Adravendis were, they would point to Erani's descendants rather than Cairo's. She didn't begrudge Regulus his success, no, not at all, nor did she hold any sort of grudge against the young man. He and Surreal before him, and Erani before her, had worked hard to ensure that their branch of the family was protected and well known.

But it did bother her that the true-blooded Adravendis could be so easily overlooked. And who was at fault for that? At least in part, she was.

So perhaps it was time to stop blending in and going with the flow. Maybe it was time to start standing out and showing the world that Cairo's Adravendis were not at an end. It made for a very introspective patrol, though she was careful to not allow it to affect her concentration on her surroundings.