Shiny

The pale queen moved into his view, and his paws moved nervously on the ground like a cat kneading. Beside him Rommel gazed curiously at both Kassander and Epiphron, but reserved judgement, choosing to stay silent and watchful. "Q-queen Epiphron," he returned her greeting with a jerky dip of his head. "We made it through all right. Ebony didn't have any major injuries but I've been staying close to Ebony until everyone was healed." He, Sindri, Sigmarr and Phaes had been the only ones from Ebony who'd fought, but he'd also had Vereux to keep an eye on and he'd been increasingly concerned about Maximous' mental state as well, all on top of the frantic gathering of herbs for storage over the winter so he'd been pretty busy as a healer. "I... mostly wanted to thank you for your help. Not just for lending us Birna and Bjorn, but for keeping watch over the non-combatants while we were gone. If we hadn't won... Arcanum was always so vindictive, I'm sure they'd have tried to hurt my family." He swallowed hard, thinking about the taunting words the other young alpha had spoken before the whirlwind as battle had joined, about how her family would come for the Xanilovs if he didn't do as she wanted. He hadn't even decided whether to accept her offer or not before the decision had been made for him - did he have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for these elusive parents of hers or had Fiori's warriors' decisive victories over the alpha and her brother intimidated them into silence? "How are Birna and Bjorn doing?" he asked, swiftly changing the subject in an attempt to hide how the memory made him falter. When he'd last seen the pair before they returned to Fiori immediately after the siege they'd had only a few bruises and lacerations and they hadn't seemed much affected by them at all, but even minor cuts could get complications.