the sun a'setting

Whatever Chaos might have been expecting - fire, flood, famine, who knew at this point? - it wasn't that. "Shaye?" he repeated, rather stupidly. He stopped glancing around as though expecting danger, and slowly sat. He hadn't particularly liked Shaye - she was a Destruction, for one thing, and a large part of him still blamed that family for ripping apart his own, and while she had more of a spine than most of that family she had still been a nosy do-gooder in the most eyerolling manner - she had been alpha of Abaven for longer than he'd been alpha of Legion and she'd been something of a fixture in his early life as well thanks to her consistent visits to Rhythm after Rhys and Rhyme were born. Hearing that she'd died didn't exactly tear a stone out of the foundation of his life... but it did make him feel suddenly, alarmingly old, and press upon him that if he was old, if his generation was dying, where did that leave the fossils like Valentine?

"Of course," he said automatically after a moment. "I'm sorry to hear about your niece, Rhythm. I absolutely understand wanting to spend your time with her children." His skin practically itched at the need to say something dickish about Shaye's kids also being Rhyme's kids, but he forced himself to refrain because it was really really not the time. "Anything you need, any time, just send me a message." He turned his attention to Valentine. "It's a long way, and the predators are particularly dangerous this year. I know you're a capable fighter, but would you accept an escort? The kids are really coming along as fighters, and I'm sure they'd appreciate the opportunity to say goodbye." Tyrian, Torrent, and Alarr had been partially raised by Rhythm, after all, and having three strong backs to do any heavy lifting would give Valentine help hopefully without making him feel like he was being coddled by a younger and stronger warrior. Besides, they could use the experience of that sort of expedition.