Valen aimed a kiss to Vana's forehead, and Cas melted. She was lucky, unbelievably lucky, that the wolf who had fathered her pups was such a softie when it came to his children. What if he'd been like Neios? She'd been so young, so stupid a year ago when she'd given herself to him. Damn who'd have thought the wolf who'd fucked her while they were both still covered in coyote gore would have made the best father she could have ever asked for. It made her wonder, wistfully, what her own father Kaios might have been like if he hadn't been killed. But, remembering her foggy memories of her own mother, recalling Neios, and Nausica, and even the oldest brother she'd met only briefly... it was unlikely she would have ever known a real childhood even if she'd not spent most of it in terrified solitude. Her children would never face that, thanks to Valentine Imperialis. It was practically miracle level luck.
Yet now he was sitting before her with a problem, with hurt rolling off him in palpable, and angry, waves.
Valen remained silent for a while. She carefully masticated the herbs into a pulp while she waited, spitting them out onto a leaf of lambs-ear. Picking up the sticky honey she made ready to smear it on his wound, but his voice stopped her. She watched him attentively as he spoke, but it took a moment for the words to sink in. Rhythm hadn't just 'brought the bad man away' as Vana had said - she'd deliberately scorned Valen to go with Sol. Brow knotted, ears falling back, she eyed him quizzically... and a little disconcertedly.
She'd known he liked Rhythm. Hell that was why she'd blackmailed Hati into kidnapping her in the first place wasn't it? She just hadn't realized how deeply that went. Was he angry because he'd been betrayed by a possession? Or because his heart had been broken? Up until now it had just been a game, toying with the innocent little waif who'd fallen for Valen. What, exactly, was it now?
Using spreading the honey on the wound as an excuse to buy her a little time, she remained silent. And the lambs-ear with the poultice. Using a paw she pressed the leaf against the honey, sealing the poultice against the cut. She even added another couple of leaves over top, pressing into the honey that oozed out from under the first leaf, just because she knew he wouldn't go easy on them like he should.
Finishing, she sat a moment staring at her handiwork. Ok. So... Serious conversation time, right? "So... Rhythm left with Sol." So she really couldn't think of what to say. She sighed deeply, seeking to run her tongue soothingly across his shoulder. Wait... weren't she and Soliloguy both Destructions? Like, some kind of cousin or something? Either this wasn't Rhythm-running-off-with-another-man thing that had been the first thing to occur to her, or Rhythm Destruction was into weirder shit than she thought. "She will come back, Valen. She will. You know she's pretty... uh... delicate. High strung?" High maintenance? Sensitive. She settled on sensitive. "Sensitive. Things that are normal for wolves like us... she isn't used to that sort of thing. Her people don't do that. What did Bass do when he got here after Hati won Rhythm? Try to maim you? Demand you maim Hati? He'd probably have been within his rights to demand Hati was maimed for stealing his sister." Well, or demanding she was maimed for instigating it but hey as far as she knew Bass didn't know that. "Hell he didn't even maim Rhythm after she rejected him, he just kicked her out of his pack which she didn't even belong to anyway, and you saw how something as little as that broke her to pieces. Seeing you as something other than... uh..." She almost said 'her lapdog' but figured this wasn't a good time to snip about it. "... other than a cuddly marshmallow probably was a pretty big shock to her. She'll come back when she comes to terms with the fact that you have more to your life than just making her happy. You are an alpha, and you do what needs to be done. She'll figure that out and come crawling back."
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