Mists of Gold (meeting)

(ooc: post is slightly mixed up. Assume Aurielle somehow missed seeing Amos in the crowd. Distracted by puppies, that's it! She was distracted.XD)

She’d been padding along the wall at the time she heard Gwen’s voice calling the pack, and her head lifted, confusion furrowing her brow. Why had Gwen called a meeting in the moor? Perhaps it was that the location was closer for still young puppy legs to travel, and they’d be old enough to meet the pack, today. Still… while she’d been enjoying her reunion with her mother and twin, she would have liked to be informed prior to the meeting being called.

She gave a shake of her coat and broke into a lope, leaping from the wall and into the mists. It was a chance to consider her options for the future as to whom she’d eventually install as the secondary leader to the pack when Gwen was ready to step down or Aurielle was ready to make her personal choice for the next many years of her leadership. A part of her wanted to make a choice soon, to give Gwen more time with her litter, but there weren’t many wolves to choose from.

She supposed she’d have to give it more time and study the pack further. Amos was a definite possibility. She nudged the thoughts to the side as she drew near enough in the mists to see the backs of the pack gathered at the circle. She circled around until she was hidden behind the stones, then let herself fade out of the mist into the circle to settle beside Gwen, smiling at the woman before her eyes roved to the pups, counting all but one. A soft hm of concern brushed through her nostrils.

“He’s still ill?” She asked softly, for Gwen’s ears only. She’d kept up her patrols between spending time with her family, and she’d caught the scent of a cold in passing by the den Gwen had dug. It hadn’t smelled serious, and she’d decided to let Gwen handle her own children, as their mother.

She lowered herself to her belly, coming to the level of the pups and studying each face with an easy warmth, bannered tail sweeping the ground as she took them in, from the serious, proud, almost haughty face of the largest male to the nervous female pressed against the chocolate and white boy with the green eyes and deer femur.

“Hello, kids. I’m Aurielle Adravendi, the Alpha of the pack. I’ve been looking forward to meeting all of you, and I look forward to getting to know you all.”

A familiar monotone frame caught her eye, then, and her head lifted away to rest those gradated blue eyes on Amos. Briefly, she rose to go to him, bumping his shoulder in friendly welcome with her nose and hoping to make that faint smile grow back into his usual grin. She hadn’t seen much of him since the meeting she’d called, and she was glad to see him.

“You and I will have to have a rematch soon… and figure out a way to get that weird log home from the Bifrost.” A toothy grin spread on her features at the prospect of an adventure as her brow-points lifted in a faint challenge before she took her place beside Gwen and spoke in a lowered tone to the older woman, head tipping close to keep the words between herself and Gwen, “I’ll let you take the lead on this one since you called it, but please keep me informed on when you intend to call meetings in the future. I’d like to be less likely to show up hurrying like a tardy apprentice instead of being there for the pack to see when they arrive as the primary alpha.”

She flicked a grinning wink at the woman to make it clear she held no grudges and swept a quick glance over the faces gathered. She wondered if her mother and father and brother, all still catching up on rest and healing from their various ordeals – from her mother and brother’s enslaved lives and malnourished bodies to her father’s stress and recent injuries in freeing them, they all had a lot to catch up on in food and rest and healing, though she’d be pressing them to start being more active once they were well enough to do so – would make the trip from the den in the Plains to this meeting. While her father had been making patrols, he had taken more of a beating than he was ready to admit fully—especially in front of his mate, knowing she blamed herself.

“They’re still healing and resting, so if they don’t make it to this meeting, I think we can allow it. I’ll be pressing them to start working on sociability soon enough, though.” This again was said in an undertone to Gwenevere as she waited however long it would take the older woman to decide that all had arrived who would.