The Burdens of the Tides
03-31-2013, 08:52 PM
An answer came almost instantly, but certainly not one he had expected. Tribals? When was the last time he'd stumbled across a pack like that.. it had to have been years. Could it be his sons and daughter were the offspring of a tribal pack? It had to be, for he trusted the word of this matriarch. She spoke on, describing them further and with more detail than he probably cared to know. However, the King could not help but listen with the upmost curiosity. Her last word brought a wretched taste into his throat. No. He would not believe that his children were the product of inbreeding. He'd seen the mother and father, and they looked quite different from one another. "My sons and daughter are a product of those tribals. My wife and I took them in on our way here, we couldn't help ourselves.. the poor little whelps were screaming and carrying on. Their mother and father were dead when we arrived, a black brute with splotches on his rump, and a fiery red female. Did you happen to know either of them?" He wouldn't bet that she would, but any information at all was more than he started with. Tail switched from side to side, pondering what she had said. Slaves, sacrifices, inbreeding, gods, priestess... His mind was swimming. What if he had not found them? What would have become of his sweet children, kind Maverick, darling Kamala, and sullen Valkis, had he not adopted them and brought them here.. had they grown up in a world of religion and sacrifices? The King could scarcely begin to imagine such things. "I never like to rejoice in the death of parents with pups so young, but from what you describe I can scarcely help but do so. I would not have wanted them to live in a pack like that." If it had been a choice between living in a pack like that and facing the fiery inferno.. Gerhardt would have thrown them into the fire himself. Well.. perhaps that was a bit drastic. He fell silent again, musing about this and that, and whoever came to his mind. Quite often Segar and his lady lingered in the folds of his cranium, but he tried not to dwell on them if he could. The whole situation only irked the King, and he wasn't in the proper company to act sullen and distressed. Crusade wanted a tour of his home, and he'd be barking mad to go around moping about things he could very well take care of later. Eyes would flicker to the one-eyed woman as she spoke up, returning his own compliment with one directed at him. A brow raised slightly, followed by a genuine smile. "You cannot imagine how much I needed to hear that today," he would pause, wondering if he ought to unveil the reason for his all-over-the-place attitude. Feeling as if he owed that much to her, he decided to go forth. "One alpha to another.. how did you deal with punishments when you were reigning over Glaciem?" It was an innocent enough question, but he elaborated a bit further. "Because frankly, I'm finding it to be far more difficult than I'd imagined it would be." He supposed he was naive to think that punishing a member would ever go exactly as planned, but he hadn't expected it to go so wrong. He wondered if his relationship with Segar and Ghost would ever come back from the events that had so recently passed. Eyes would travel from the woman to the waves, finding some sort of comfort in them. |