Valentine had some explaining to do. Not the ‘I fucked up’ kind thankfully, but what he had to say would take some delicacy. The last thing he needed was for his son to think he’d gone senile or worse, that old age had made him a laughably shitty liar.

Behind him in the den under his tractor and currently being fawned over by an infuriating skunk, was a litter of raucous Imperialis puppies. Their squeaks and growls could be heard by Valentine and if his old ears could hear them then whoever happened to be wandering by could as well. Not that he thought that mattered, really. Everyone would be made aware of their presence soon enough.

The first person, and perhaps the only one owed this information, was Chaos. It was for that reason that he howled for his youngest son before sinking to the ground to wait.

It wasnt often that Valentine sought him out, so when the howl came Chaos was immediately curious. And, to be quite honest, concerned. Glen had never been the sort of dad who called for his kids just to talk so if he was calling it was for a very specific, cant wait until the next time they ran across each other sort of reason, and those sorts of reasons were rarely good. So Chaos wasted no time in loping across the territory towards Valen's den, and coming to a semi-dignified stop in front of the old man. "Hey," he greeted with careful casualness, but before he could say more, a particularly loud chorus of squeaks that sounded suspiciously like puppies erupted from under Valen's tractor, and Chaos' brain stuttered to a rather poleaxed halt. "Uh," he managed, and with that word something loosened in his brain and he raised his brows at Valen. "Isnt Rhythm a little old for birthing pups?" he said as delicately as possible. Like... the kind of too-old that certain activities could prove fatal, like the whole pregnancy and birthing thing.

He was a bit too restless for sitting and waiting so after a beat Valentine stood up and began to pace. There was a decent strip of flattened grass alongside the tractor by the time he heard Chaos approaching and forced himself to stop and gather as much dignity as he could muster given the circumstances. He seated himself in the nick of time. "Hey." Before either of them could say anything else the tractor hooligans decided to make a bunch of noise as though they knew they had company. Valentine frowned and glanced sideways to listen before his attention shot back to Chaos. He studied his son, trying to gauge his reaction, and noted with no small amount of amusement that he seemed to be struggling to understand what he was hearing. Finally Chaos spoke again and Valentine hard blinked once in surprise. Wasn't Rhythm what now? His frown deepened. Yes, yes. God yes she was too old. Although he technically would never be too old, Valentine himself was too old. This...this nonsense was firmly in young person territory. And yet here he was. "What? Yes, she's...yes," he said gracelessly. "They aren't Rhythm's and before you look at me like that, it's complicated so why don't you sit your ass down and let me tell you a story." He took a deep breath and then asked, "Have you ever heard of Somnium?" Actually, wait. There was a chance Chaos would be content to not know the details. "Unless..." he said slowly. "You don't need...or want...to know."

Valen seemed suddenly as confused by Chaos' question as Chaos himself was, which was a bit of a relief since it he hadn't been confused it probably would have been because Chaos had been right and somehow Rhythm had miraculously given birth and that maybe he would have to be explaining to Rhyme that his mother was dead birthing more of their siblings.


That said, Valen's aborted explanation didn't make much sense either. Chaos' brows slowly climbed, then knotted. On the one hand, no, he didnt care to know about his father's sexual exploits. On the other, the way Valen said it really managed to pique Chaos' inconvenient curiosity. "What's Somnium?" he settled on middle ground.