Saren sat outside at the top of the ravine, before you travelled down to where the dens were. Looking out at the sky he had taken a moment to pause. He had been fairly busy the past couple of days and had barely taken the time to think about it all. It almost felt like a new life, a fresh start. When he left things were one way but now…it was all different. The pack was in a new place, new leadership, new name, it seemed a lot of people had left. It didn’t feel like the home he had left and maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it would keep him from becoming like he was before. The fact that he was even here still made him happy. Thalia was still a part of the pack and that at least she still believed in it. He needed to speak to her again, the last time when he had first come back she seemed shocked more than anything. He had to ask what had happened, what caused the move? Did people leave because they were unhappy with Eligos becoming the alpha? He was curious and wanted to know what had happened in his absence. He also wondered if she was okay, when he left he hadn’t thought that he would be leaving her alone he had been thinking for himself instead of others. She was the only one of their immediate family here, Saren had made that choice to be alone but she hadn’t. No wonder things were difficult.

Things certainly had changed, hadn't they? As far as Thalia was concerned, she was happy with the direction both Aerie and her own personal life were going. Things had been worse before and now she felt like she had a place here - something that helped ease her anxious mind. For a long time, after her parents and brothers had left, she'd felt out of place even among her own family, but it was clear to her now where she belonged and what she needed to do. She had no doubt that there would be roadblocks along the way, but at least she had a general idea of what the course that lay ahead of her looked like. It was all subject to change, of course. For example, she hadn't expected Saren to return home; and though she was thankful, it still had caught her off-guard. After having met him at the border she hadn't taken time to seek him out since. Without much on the agenda today, she supposed it was a good time to make sure he was settling in. Carefully she navigated down the side of the ravine, finding it much easier now that she'd gotten used to the terrain, trying to catch a whiff of his scent. Once she found it, she headed his direction, pace picking up until she found him. "Saren," Thalia greeted him, her voice measured and cautious, though not without a warmth that was rare for her. "Are you settling in okay?"

Saren as per usual had many things on his brain. His sister, the pack, his herbs, crafting, his mental health, the list could go on. One of his thoughts, his sister, actually came to him as opposed to him having to go looking for her. She came and greeted him and asked if he was settling in okay. Settling in wasn’t much of a thought to him at all, he had started a system for how he was handling the herbs in his den and he had already been meeting some of the pack wolves. He wanted to talk about deeper stuff than how he was doing on the surface, he wanted to talk about her and how she was doing and how the pack was doing. Saren didn’t feel like wasting time talking about himself. Saren looked back at his sister. “Hey, I wanna talk.” He tried to make his voice rather inviting, he didn’t want to make it seem like she was in trouble or anything. He gestured with his head to the ground beside him, as an invitation to sit down with him. He would wait to see if she would take his offer before continuing on. “I’m fine, the den is set and I’ve actually left it more than once. I’ve been busy, but right now I’m not and I have a few questions.” He wasn’t sure which he wanted to go with first, pack or personal, he had realized that Thalia might not be willing to be that open with him since he had gone and left her alone. Personal questions might be off the table for now. “What happened here? It all feels different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but a lots changed. The pack moved and it seems like a lot of people left it. We also go by a new name as well...do you have any idea why that all happened?” Saren cared about his sister’s opinion on things and he didn’t want to take anything else that he heard at face value. He was willing to take what she said as what had happened though, she was his sister after all. Direct blood relations still meant something to him, there was a sort of bond forged just purely by being forced together in the same area a lot. Whether or not he appreciated it at the time was a moot point. He just wanted some legitimate answers from a trusted source, he sure hoped she didn’t see any reason to lie to him. If she lied to him he wasn’t quite sure what he’d think of that.

Though beyond grateful that Saren was home, she was still reasonably wary when it came to him. She had no reason to believe he wouldn't stay for good, but the worry still tugged at the back of her mind, faint but still present. Even now as she trailed his scent, she was worried it would lead to nothing, but immediate relief flooded her when he came into her vision. He was here still - and finally she let the faintest hint of a smile touch her lips, forced but not entirely disingenuous. "I'm here," Thalia answered a bit stiffly to his request to talk. They were talking, weren't they? Though he said he was doing well, settling into his den, he quickly got into what he'd wanted to talk to her about. He had questions about what had happened. Her brow furrowed in slight confusion, though she took a moment to think before responding, finally settling down on her haunches into a more comfortable position. "What do you mean, exactly? The volcano took Malleus's life." Getting too deeply into what she believed had caused the disruption felt like a conversation she didn't need to spark right now. "None of us really knew what to do, what God wanted of us, after that. Pyrrhic was the first to tell us what had happened, so we decided to follow him, but he didn't truly want to lead. We just needed.. someone." Where had the rest of the Empire gone? The weak hadn't been strong-willed enough to stick around and wait for a sign of what they needed to do. Sometimes all it took was time to watch the pieces fall into place and arrange themselves more clearly. "Pyrrhic wanted Eligos to rule after awhile, and no one objected. He wants things to be different... he doesn't want to see us hide away from the rest of the world. He wants us to flourish - really flourish - and he wants the world to know who we are." Thalia's eyes flashed with interest. "Not like some of our ancestors, who wanted to just... take and take and take," Thalia explained, though to her that kind of existence didn't necessarily sound awful, either. "But he wants us to really matter." She could go on, and she felt a sudden burst of passion as she began to speak, hoping Saren understood. He'd always shied away from the crueler aspects of the Abraxas upbringing as a child, she remembered as much; surely this was a better way of existing, in his eyes?

Saren watched as his sister answered his questions. She didn’t have an exact answer as to why, but she explained things as she had seen them. It made sense to him though, the death of Malleus and the rise of Eligos to power. She didn’t explain it verbally so he guessed that the change in leadership was the implied reason for the loss in pack members. Differing world views in a leader would certainly be a reason to leave. He could see the passion in his sister’s eyes when she moved on to Eligos’s goals for the pack. He couldn’t say that he was aware of Malleus’s pack vision, but Eligos’s didn’t sound all that great to him. He didn’t want to be known. Saren was a cog in a machine and he was just fine being that. Power or fame weren’t a part of his end goals, family and knowledge were. He wanted to stay here and be a part of his family again and possibly start his own in the future. To Saren in mattered more about the inner workings of things and how they as a pack worked, not how the outside world saw them. He had no problem with being open to the world about who they were, honesty was fine by him. Fame and notoriety just weren’t the path that he wanted to take. He didn’t agree with the idea of just taking either, he wanted to give. Saren wanted to be a part of a group that didn’t care about how they were viewed and yet tried to put more good into the world. Maybe now that he was here again he could fight for that, for them to be a pack that put more good into the world than evil. It was a lofty goal, but he could dream. Saren began to formulate a response. “I like that. I can’t say that I want everyone to know who I am, but it’s a better goal than just taking from others. There’s always growing to do and while I don’t know if it’s my place to say having been gone for so much. I think that in time we can lead the pack to be greater than it is now.” It didn’t occur to him that Thalia and his ideas of greater might be different. “I trust that Eligos will lead us in a positive direction, I can sense how strongly you feel about it all.” Saren trusted his sister and by extension would put his trust in the pack, if she believed in it so would he.

Saren listened as she spoke, and explained what had happened. She couldn't say much for why many of her family members had left, but she hoped they - like Saren - might return. If it was meant to be, she had faith that they would find their way back to their family in due time. And the rest? Well, she'd heard bits and pieces about her family's history, about their cullings that had historically occurred.. it was hard for her to believe that other cullings were possible, not just ones executed by wolves. She had no doubt the volcano's eruption had been a sort of culling in its own right, as well as a message to the Abraxas that things needed to change, and she believed truly Eligos could be a catalyst of that change for their entire family.

"The kind of pack Eligos has in mind for us gives us all room to grow, and to figure out where we belong in the grand scheme of things." Even Thalia wasn't quite sure where her skills truly lie. Though she thought the life of a fighter was something she'd be good at, she was largely unpracticed and needed to continue training and working to figure out what she'd be best suited doing, in the long run. "I do feel strongly about it." Though I don't know there's any other option for me, she thought silently to herself. It wasn't as though she felt condemned to this life, but it was what was meant for her. Without this conviction she wasn't sure who she was, let alone other options she had. The Abraxas were all she had, as far as she was concerned. "Give it time. Hopefully you'll feel the same," Thalia offered gently, a smile more genuine now touching her lips. It was brief but still existent, though it softened not long after it appeared. "What do you envision for your future here? I have no doubt in time you'll become quite skilled." In healing, no doubt, or.. whatever else he decided suited him.