well met

He listened intently; ears perked with interest as Corbie laid out what she’d been doing for the past couple of years. Sheep had been something his mother had tried, but they’d drawn one too many grizzlies, and possibly Jupiter, so she’d sent the remaining animals back to the Nomads.

The subject of kidnapping brough an instinctive upward twitch of his lips in a faint grimace of disgust. “We have a close ally in the east, on the coast; Abaven. The alpha there, Theory, recently reformed her pack into a neutral school open to all. I’ve yet to send any of my own there as our numbers are shorter than I’d like, but in the future, I’d like to send one or two experienced wolves over.”

His head tipped in thought, considering. There was an icy neutrality held between Valhalla and the Armada, not helped by their Warlord’s lackluster diplomat’s performance during Malalia’s disappearance, and he had little desire to get any warmer with them despite their attempts during the Long Night to figure something out between all the packs to get ahead of the plague... Sirius was too paranoid to view any overtures of friendship as the gestures they truly had been. Genuine. He trusted his mother’s assessment of the man.

Prior to Lia’s disappearance, there had been some friendship there. Pity things fell apart. “The Armada is a pack that we’ve had some… tension with… long story. They’ve been largely militant in culture and from what I gather, closely allied to Ashen in the south. Primarily, I don’t think the Armada is predisposed to forcing others into their ranks. At one point, they were gracious enough to house one of ours when he fell off a mountain and broke two legs and who knows what else. They were guarded, but didn’t force him to stay or treat him ill… however, that was shortly before and after my birth.”

Isara’s timid features, and the cocksure Fatalis man only backing down after Isara had edged toward Ardyn and Ardyn had pulled status, crossed his mind, and he added, “However, I’m not certain all Armadan wolves are against taking someone who doesn’t necessarily say yes to joining them. They are a large pack, with large allies. I’d assume they are used to getting what they want. I encountered a yearling girl who knows next to no Common and speaks a language I’ve never heard before. And then a member of the Armada popped up almost the same time and tried to push her around. Kotori Fatalis. Be cautious. He backed down in the end, but I’d be cautious about mentioning any connection with us if you ever bump into him. He strikes me as vindictive. Especially because the girl chose to go with me and I stepped in to defend her.”

He described the man and encounter in detail, leaving nothing he’d spotted or noted of him out. He kept it diplomatic; after all, it could have just been that the man had just been having a bad day and it had brought out the worst in him and he was normally a friendly sort, if haughty. There was that offer of a spar. Whether he could trust the man not to be underhanded in it would have to be seen if he ever took Kotori up on the offer.

Finally, he turned to the subject of family, a smile gladly taking his features over as he said, “Mother’s been enjoying retirement. It gives her more time with my father, and time to build the tower on the hill.”

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Labhair an Sean-Teanga." ---- "Hear" ---- Think