TEMPORARY INSANITY

Chaos stalked along through the grass, keeping an eye on the two troublemakers he’d been herding along all this way. Though he’d been initially a little freaked out by Leto dropping two children on him, he had to admit that he was warming to the idea of not being the only Saxe left. Being able to be the kind of dad to these kids that Valentine had been to him… It had never occurred to him how EXHAUSTED Valentine must have been dealing with him and his many siblings.

Until now, that is.

It had seemed like no sooner had he gotten used to having the two around the cave than they’d been evicted - he’d made the trek down the mountain one morning with his owls to hunt only to find the peaks were being hemmed in by scent markings. He’d been furious of course (how dare someone claim HIS mountains as their territory?) but as much as he’d wanted to push back and piss off the would-be usurpers like he’d usually have done, he’d turned around on the path and gone back to the cave immediately to pack up the kids and get them out of there.

He was pretty sure Leto would be pissed if he managed to get his kids taken prisoner within a season of her leaving them with him.

Luckily, the knolls where he’d grown up weren’t that far away. The knolls weren’t the maw, but prey was a lot easier to catch there and he and the owls would need to provide for two growing pups. Besides, he’d been raised there and he turned out just fine. So he’d packed all his stuff on a temporary “sled” of goat hide to pull behind him and herded the kids along.

And “herding” was right. It seemed like he was constantly rounding them back up and shivvying them along like a collie after particularly hyper sheep. How had Leto not gone insane from the various forms of ‘are we there yet’ all the way down from the north?

“WE’RE HERE,” he finally snapped, tossing aside the piece of hide that he had been pulling the temporary ‘sled’ with. The den he’d been raised in had collapsed over the years - it had been the first place he checked, he hadn’t wanted to be digging a new den while the pups ran riot around buffalo - but this knoll was as good as any to start digging in.

He wanted to flop down and nap, but night would certainly creep up on him fast and he wanted to at least have a small scrape that he could corral the kids in before it got dark, so he sighed and started scratching at the side of the hill.