shouldn't you know when someone's pretending

Torrent was in an... unusually thoughtful mood as she swung back into the battlefield yet again (how convenient to live right across the border from it). The subject of her thoughtfulness was her family, her brother's pack, and the multitude of pups that now ran around it. Not that she didn't like pups - she didn't particularly, but that wasn't relevant - but the fact that her particular proclivities were dangerous in a pack that almost constantly had young children underfoot. And someday those children could be Tyrion's, or Alarr's (or, for fuck's sake, her father's, because despite his advanced age he was an active vigorous male and she rather doubted that he'd lost his ability to fuck in the time since she'd been conceived, so there was always the possibility that he'd suddenly pop up with unexpected younger siblings for them) and she couldn't risk doing something that would set someone on Fireside for revenge... but she couldn't settle down to be a sheep farmer either. She loved her brothers more than her own life, but maybe that love for them meant she would have to do something she'd never considered an option before. Leaving them. Setting out on her own. Maybe even building something of her own, instead of just destroying.

Asriel and Pidge had both been quiet, neither wanting to break into her thoughts when she was in such an unsettled mood, but now Torrent reached back demandingly to grasp the flask of liquid she had made up to boost energy and endurance, tipping it back to let the liquid rush down her throat and begin the process, and Asriel stretched his feline body in readiness, and Pidge dropped to the ground to waddle over and stash the pouch of flasks and other medical supplies where it wouldn't get in the way, while Torrent raised her rough voice to call out for an opponent.