coffee black at three

He had stuck close to his parents while his sire was ailing, rarely straying beyond the borders for fear of what may occur in his absence. Most of his siblings had taken off for their half sisters new pack, and he wondered if he would be better suited to joining them. To keep an eye on his sisters, and provide aid to his family as opposed to this unrelated monarchy. Thoughts best set aside, for the time being.

Long limbs wreathed in smoke-like markings of marbled onyx pulled him from the familiar boundaries of the pack, and further afield than he had strayed in many moons. Ghostly pale in the moonlight, his champagne coat turned liquid mercury by the rays of the rising full moon. Mismatched eyes scanned over the landscape, catching sight of his mastiff companion lumbering through the undergrowth towards him. He greeted the smaller canid with a gentle nip to his shoulder and continued onwards.

They did not wander for long before the vestiges of a familiar aroma met his nares, one which set his hackles bristling and tail lashing with a mixture of excitement and ire. So she wasn't dead! That bitch! He'd mourned her for months, despondent and lethargic for days and weeks after she'd vanished. Though they hadn't found her body, two of his other sisters had already passed, and so the notion wasn't so far fetched.

Aethon swept across the terrain like a thunderhead, his willowy physique cutting through undergrowth and still night air like a blade. As the strength of Gem's scent increased, his blood rushed harder and harder in his ears until the roar of it drowned out even the ragged sound of his own breathing.

And then all at once, he was upon her. Brows furrowed with a host of emotion that he wouldn't admit to quite yet, the towering ghost of a man sought to leap into the space just behind his sister and seize her scruff. Not to shake, not to harm, but to secure her. To hold her still, and ensure she didn't leave him until he had some answers.

"You left us." it was not a question, and the hardness of his voice made it abundantly clear that he was displeased. Deep down, he was hurt by her absence. Afraid for her safety, concerned that she had been hurt or captured, all manner of possibilities. But on the surface there was only the stony coldness of his flat expression and his sharp gaze.

ooc. I figure they can have a lil reunion and then have a lil devils advocate argument for funsies