Dawn and Twilight

The old red man smiled as the two confirmed and Rhaegara joined him. “It’s a pleasure,” he murmured to the pair, fathomless eyes sweeping over them.

He was glad to hear they were settling in well, and he listened with that old intensity as she admitted to just how much was new to her. He chuckled, nodding in agreement. He’d been a forward-thinking King, but Aurielle had taken the pack even further than he’d initially thought it might get.

“I was the one to found the wall. Initially, the idea was sparked by a pup, Dragon. He was in a pack called Imperium at the time, and had wandered very far from home, and had crossed out borders. I scared him to make a point that not all packs will treat a trespasser as kindly as Valhalla, or Celestial at that time, would.”

A frown furrowed his brow points, hackles rippling in visible indignation as he added, “I often wonder if his packmates at the time told him this pack would eat pups, because he’s used that insult on me since, last we met, which was him, once again, trespassing, that time to lead a raid against my pack. Which he came away from, blinded and unsuccessful.”

He shrugged, eyes casting toward the wall, far from sight here. “I’d started the stone line around our border by that time. A wolf who I suspect was possibly a scout, because it was not that long before the raid, tripped over the line. Paladin was watching her. She inspected them, sniffed the border. Paladin intercepted and sent her packing without a hair on her hide harmed. He was pretty sure she was blind.”

He hummed softly, thinking over the events. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and years after the bloody raid, the sequence of events were pretty clearly connected. Sterling, too, may well have been a scout, as she had been among the raiders Talis had brought. He hadn’t asked her, and she was gone, dead or living her life far away, so he couldn’t ask her now.

“After the raid, we built the wall higher, maybe hock height on myself, so that no one could miss it, and in hopes of keeping young pups from wandering off and being hurt or taken. It didn’t work, I’m afraid. Several children went missing at that time, and we never found them.”

His head bowed slightly, admitting his failures. “After that, we began building the walls higher. I’m sure Aurielle’s told you about her plans for just how high and wide she wants to build it?” Here he smiled at the girl, amusement replacing the lingering sadness in his eyes.

“All this that Aurielle has brought into the pack is relatively new, but I find I enjoy them. Heated stones in my alcove to warm old bones, heavy hides hung across them to keep in the heat. For an old man, it’s bliss.”

He laughed, a rumbling, rolling sound of easy mirth.