It took him a few days to make it, but perhaps that was a good thing. It gave time for tempers to cool. He saw no hide nor hair of Isa, but nor did he seek her out. He left her to her own devices, and slowly but surely worked on his creation. He used the last of the polar bear fur for the inner lining, and wove crocodile scales down the inner spine of the garment. Giving it a dual purpose, before dying the whole thing black and giving it a hood that could be pulled up or down at will. The clasp was decorated with a small blue gem that matched the blue of a certain wolf's eyes. It was the sort of coat that set a scene if you were a story teller speaking over a fire. Or a wolf in a climate far colder than you were accustomed to. Or a wolf in need of a little more defence in a hostile environment.

He wrapped it in an oiled cloth and had Marshal help him tie the cloth closed. The final touches were made in the wee hours of the morning, and he grabbed it by the tie as he trotted to the den where Isa was residing. He stopped at the door and scratched at the entrance, not announcing himself by voice. That she might ignore entirely.

"Sirius Fatalis"

Avoiding the warlord had been a piece of cake. She hadn't seen him in days and that was perfectly fine with the blue woman. Her life was much more peaceful without the giant dire wolf nibbling at her last nerve. He was irritating. What was even more irritating was the fact that she had dreamed about him. Twice. The woman had woken up in the middle of the night after dreaming of the bastard warlord and each time had wrinkled her nose in distaste. The real wolf was nothing like the one in her dreams. If he was, perhaps they'd have been able to get along.

A sound from the doorway caught her attention and she assumed that it would be Andromeda coming to visit since the girl seemed to do so almost daily. Turning away from the project that she had been working on, Isa began to walk towards the door, "Andy, I-" The fae stopped in her tracks, brow furrowing as her gaze landed upon that of the bastard warlord himself. "Oh..." Isa sighed in exasperation. "It's you."

"Isa"

The Warlords gaze darkened at the reminder of how much time Andy and Isa had been spending together of late. He didn’t entirely approve. At first, because he had not trusted Isa. Now… because it hurt his memory of Zee. He thought of the moments of Andy and Isa together as the ones that would have been filled with Zee. But she was gone, and Andy had needed another older female to turn to. He pushed aside the thought, and didn’t respond to it. Knowing it would just start another spat between them. On second thoughts… but no. No. That wasn’t why he was here.

He pushed the parcel towards her. “Here. This is for you, take it. Leave it. The choice is yours. I’ll be at the Obelisk” He told her. Leaving it up to her to seek him out afterwards if she so chose to. He turned to leave, and then hesitated, grimacing. “I dreamed of my wife, and felt you beside me. It hurt, so I did damage back. I’m an asshole, and I’m sorry.” He said. He didn’t often apologise, and his face looked pained. Luckily, he wasn’t facing her. He picked his pace back up, and walked away.

"Sirius Fatalis"

Initially the man's gaze narrowed and Isa braced herself for another fight. It didn't come, however. Instead, the giant shocked her. A package was placed before her and Sirius told her that it was for her. His indifference between her accepting or rejecting it was a farce, she could tell. He wanted her to accept it. Then he rose and turned away as though he would leave. Isa reached for the package but stopped as Sirius stopped. Dark ears swiveled to catch his words as he spoke again. The man gave her an explanation as to his childish behavior. He'd dreamed of his wife and it was painful. It was something that was so easy for the woman to understand that she could barely believe that he didn't realize it. She had lost her husband just as Sirius had lost his wife. She dreamed of him just as Sirius dreamed of her. She wanted to say as much, but the wolf was already on his way out.

Isa looked at the package for a moment and decided to open it. She removed the thick, plush coat from the oiled skin and shook it out, admiring the craftsmanship that went into it. She noted the gem encrusted clasp. It was a similar shade to her own eyes. It brought a frown to the woman's maw. After their time coming down the mountain, she wanted to hate the man. After this though, she didn't hate him. She didn't like him by a long shot, but she didn't hate him.

After securing the thick fur cape around her shoulders, Isa made her way out of the den and towards the obelisk where the brute in question was waiting. Silently, the woman moved forward and seated herself beside Sirius, the pair of them looking into the fire. She sat quietly for a time, deciding on her choice of words, but eventually she spoke. "The illness that killed my people was some kind of wasting sickness. No one could keep down food or water and everyone slowly became thinner and weaker." As she stared into the fire, she relived it all again in her minds eye. "Of my family, my children were the first to die. Three young pups, barely weaned. My parents went after that." It was difficult to talk about her deceased family, but she did so in the hopes that it would help the man beside her. He didn't need to feel so alone because she had lived through it too.

"My husband," she began, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. "He went last and he tried so hard to be positive about the whole ordeal. He would say things like, 'The children aren't alone. Your parents are with them and I'll be with them soon.' Or he'd say, 'At least it doesn't hurt.' He was always trying to make me feel better, even at the end. Then he died too and I never felt so alone in my entire life. I thought that I would die. There was nothing left to live for." She had contemplated suicide. No one would miss her because everyone that cared was underground. In the end, she hadn't followed through. Her time would come when it would come. She simply had to wait.

"And then it stormed." She had already told him about the rarity of storms in her homeland. "It stormed hard and as the rain parted, I saw a ship. I boarded that ship and another and another. Each path led me here. It led me to this moment." Isa cast the brute a side-eye just to see if he was even paying attention. "I could have left at any point, Sirius. I could have lost your tailing bird with ease and been gone, but the truth is, I have nowhere else to go. I have nothing. I am alone." A deep breath was taken and Isa let it out long and slow. "So I forgive you because I understand that pain." With her piece spoken, Isa rose and turned, ready to go back to her den so that the man could be on his own again. "Thank you for the gift," she spoke softly, then began to slowly pad away from him.

"Isa"

He wasn’t sure if she would join him, and he was more than a little surprised to see her moving towards the firepit. The coat he had made was carefully worn about her shoulders. He had sized it to his Wife’s measurements, and it fit her perfectly. He didn’t speak as she settled down beside him. He didn’t trust himself not to ruin it. So he kept his peace, and he listened as she spoke of her own misery. Of what she had lost and endured, and how she had walked away from her homeland. She had left it so far behind, that she would likely never find it again. He wondered if he would ever find the Klein Empire if he searched for it. It had been so many years ago that he arrived in Boreas. Fever dreams plaguing his damaged body as he dragged himself after Deathbelle.

No. He would never find it again, and there was nothing for him there.

The urge to get up and walk away from his life had struck him many times. The first time Zee had died, and the second. But he had too much holding him here. Responsibilities, commitments. Judging little eyes. “Are those the ties that bind us? Miserable, old, and broken?” He asked, voice hoarse and soft as he looked into the fire. He did not look her way as she rose, and he did not expect an answer.


"Sirius Fatalis"

As it turned out, Sirius was paying attention. The woman rose to leave and the warlords haggard vocals stretched across the distance between them. His words made her sad and the fae frowned, though she stopped her departure to speak to him further. Miserable, old and broken, he had called them. Not having gone more than a few footsteps, Isa turned back to Sirius. "We've certainly suffered those things but that's not who we are," the woman spoke softly.

Since it seemed as though he might be in a mood to have a conversation rather than a gripe fest, the woman moved back to the fire, seating herself beside the giant and sliding down to lay on her stomach. She tucked her new cloak around herself and stared into the flames much like her companion. "I try my hardest to live a worthy life in honor of those lost. It feels like a betrayal to squander something that was stolen from them." A sigh drifted from the fae as the air of melancholy continued to drift around the pair. "Some day, if I've lived to my fullest, perhaps I'll be able to rejoin them. That's what keeps me going." And then she fell silent, having yet again shared her beliefs with the man. If he threw her words back at her this time, she wouldn't try again. These beliefs were too close to her heart to brush off any disrespect towards them.

"Isa"

He gave a noncommittal grunt at that, falling silent for a time. Listening to the sound of the pop and crackle of the firepit and the echo of her words in his ear. As the silence dragged out, she might believe he has deemed not to reply but after a time he stirred. His voice soft, with no hint of a growl. "That's the essence of its isn't it? Forced to keep going because to do any less would shame them. But yearning to break the ties that keep us from them. My Wife knew me well. She made me swear to be there for our children. I was not allowed to leave them. Not mentally, not physically, not by my soul, which craves to find her." He whispered. He had kept his promise, and it had hurt him bitterly many days since.

She had shared her heartbreak with him, and now he spoke of his own his voice growing softer, as if to place any more presence in it would break him. "She was suffering from something I will not speak of, but she knew her death was unavoidable. She believed in something. That there was a force out there, and so her dying wish was to give herself over to them. So that her sacrifice might mean something. That this higher power wohls honour her for it and protect our children. She did not forward me how she intended to brace that. She slit herself, more then once. Her life blood touched my paws, and she suffered before the light dimmed in her eyes."

Indigo ears shifted as the man spoke in a soft voice, very unlike the usual, brusque demeanor that he usually took with Isa. Forced to keep going, he said. "Not only that, but forced to make the most of it. Not just wallowing in pity. We aren't in purgatory. We're still alive, so we should act like it because they can't." Another sigh pulled from the woman as Sirius mentioned his children keeping him here due to a promise. "The greatest duty that a parent takes on, knowing that they have to do it all alone if the other perishes." She hadn't had that decision to make. It had been made for her.

To her surprise, Sirius shared the tale of his own loss, speaking of higher powers and the fact that his wife took her own life to save herself from a long road of suffering. There were different beliefs in different cultures, but this was one that Isa was aware of. From the corner of her eye, the woman could see the pain etched in the warlords dark features. He hadn't learned to cope. Hadn't found a way to live with what had happened. She had been like that for a time as well.

"I am sorry, for what it's worth," she spoke softly, blue eyes closing against the light of the fire. To some, it might have looked as though the woman was asleep, but she was very much awake. "You have responsibility. There are wolves that need you. What greater honor could you give your wife than fulfilling that promise and doing what I know you're capable of doing?" Though he was a bastard and they bit at one another like tasmanian devils, Isa knew that underneath he was a very capable man. If he didn't have the capacity to care deeply, then he wouldn't feel like this at all.

"Isa"

To make the most of life. It was what he was forced to do. He went through the motions. He kissed his children he, he trained them. He invited wolves into his pack and ensured they had the resources they needed. By all accounts, he was living his life. Living it with a hole where his heart used to be. With pain in his limbs that had little do with his advancing age.

She spoke of honour and the people that loved him. He spread his forepaws wide, as if to invite her to see him in fullness. "And there you have it. The greatest chains that bind me. The things I love the most are the weapons against me. I would have joined my wife in a heartbeat. I tried to, in the past. But that's a different story, and I doubt you wish to hear it." He said, he picked up a small weed growing by his paws, tossing it into the fire. The bright green caught in the fire, and the scent of it drifted in the air for a moment. Faint and then gone again. "I have little pleasures left in life. You'll hate to hear it, but heckling you is one of my fonder hobbies." He offered her a small, amused smile. The sort of dark amusement found in sorrow.

Everything that came out of the dire brutes mouth was negative. He had little joy left in life. His children were weapons against him. That part stung and Isa winced at his words. "You should feel blessed that your children are alive and whole," she informed the man. Her children were quite the opposite. Dead and gone. Memories that only she possessed. Telling the man what he should feel was pointless, she knew. He was too deep into his self-pity to believe anything else. It was... sad.

Sirius admitted that he enjoyed giving her a hard time and Isa scoffed softly in response. "I'll have to try harder. Can't have you enjoying yourself, now can we?" The woman's lids parted to mere slits and she watched as he tossed a piece of grass into the fire to be consumed. "Is there anyone helping you run this pack?" Having been injured during the majority of her stay in the Armada, Isa wasn't well versed in the politics of the pack. She only knew the little that Andy had told her, but hierarchy wasn't exactly a riveting topic for a child.

"Isa"

He gave a soft sigh at the admonishment in her words. He knew he had said too much, but sometimes that was easy to do with Isa. Their ups and downs were extreme. Hate, to trust, and back again. “I am. I would fight the world for them. Their very existence has made my world complex and complicated. I love them, and they are the reason I am still here.” He said softly. Isa had lost her mate, and her children. Everyone she ever knew. In her paws, he was well aware he would have come as far as she had.

“I do. My second oldest, Azure. He and I are equals, then we have Basilisk. His son, and our heir.” He explained. Her introduction to the pack had been rocky, so there was much she was yet to learn about the pack.

"Sirius Fatalis"

Sirius spoke and the blue woman didn't speak further on the matter. He'd said exactly what she wanted him to say. She needed to know that his children were more important to him than his own sorrow. Isa wondered if she might offer to hold a bonfire for the warlord and his children so that she could share some stories and distract them all for a while. With his reaction before when she'd offered to feed his children... Isa held her tongue.

As the man spoke of those that helped him run the pack, Isa filed names away. Azure, Basilisk. "I'd like to meet them at some point," she spoke. Isa was a friendly sort and looked forward to meeting each of her packmates in time.

One vibrant eye cracked and Isa looked towards the giant beside her. "Tell me about your children, " she asked, truly curious. "How many do you have? What are their names and what are they like?" The blue woman loved children. She would have been an amazing mother, she knew this for certain.

His children were stakes through his heart. Tying him down, and holding him here. He would never let anything hurt them, and he would fight like a mother bear if he thought they were in danger. But if they had not existed, he would have followed Zee in a heartbeat. He would not have the pressing pain of her passing in his soul.

The Warlords nodded his head in acceptance as she requested to speak to his son and grandchild. If she thought he was prickly, she was in for a surprise. His lip twitched a little in thought. “I’ll call Bas over to you tonight. Do you have any interest in hunting? He’s a decent hunting partner. He had to be.” He gave a soft laugh. It was a running joke through the boy's childhood. He’d had to do a lot of hunting, or he’d eat them out of house and home.

“My oldest is Mortis. He was my heir once, but leadership didn’t come as naturally to him as it did Azure. He is winged, and a gentle soul. Then I have Azure, whose ambition led him to leading the pack beside me. He's a wolf I trust to have my back, and would fight to protect the wolves of the Armada alongside me. Then I have Indigo, Who took after his Auntie Io and became a healer. He’s a gentle giant. My smallest in that litter is Asla. She’s a child who loved the stars. I’d say she’s the fiercest fighter of the lot. Small, but mighty.” And he missed her. Missed their nights under the stars. But children grew up, and moved on, and he realised that sometimes parents struggled to accept that.


"Sirius Fatalis"

Isa listened as Sirius spoke of his children. When he did so, she could see the change in his expression. He loved them, that much was obvious. It was perhaps one of the first time that she'd seen him without a scowl on his face. Dark ears shifted, listening as he spoke of each older child, giving names and a bit of a description for each.

"I'm jealous of you, warlord," the fae spoke, though there was still some teasing in her tone. She envied the fact that he had his children. Some sort of reminder of his lost love. Isa... she had nothing but memories. It was fine though. She'd come to terms with her loss. Sirius, however, had not.

Hunting partners were offered and the blue fae chuckled, pulling her new cloak more tightly around her smaller frame. "I quite enjoy hunting. Send your Bas to me and we'll fill the stores," she promised with a chuckle.

"Isa"

He had only gotten through the telling of his oldest litter when Isa spoke, and he knew she had heard enough. She needed time, and was feeling her own loss as he spoke. “They’re good kids” He said, voice soft. And it was hard to watch them live their own lives, so far from his own.

When she mentioned filling his stores, he paused. “Oh, no, no. You’ll be filling his stomach first. Just watch” The Warlord said with a soft laugh, shaking his head. He could almost swear his grandchild was going through another growth spurt, though he was old enough that he should have been finished with his growing.


"Sirius Fatalis"

Sirius showed a different side of himself as he spoke of his children. There was a sense of longing in his voice as though he wished they'd stayed small forever. Children grew up though. They trod their own paths and crafted their own lives. As long as they were happy and healthy, that was all that a parent could ask for.

At the man's mention of feeding Bas first, Isa chuckled softly. She couldn't wait to meet the boy since Sirius spoke so highly of him. That would have to wait until the next day, however. The heightened emotions of the day made the blue fae rather exhausted. Surely Sirius wouldn't hold that against her.

Quietly, Isa pulled herself to her paws, the soft cloak falling around her shoulders. She turned and lifted a paw to walk off, then thought better of it and took a step towards Sirius instead. The fae gave his cheek a gentle bump with her forehead. "Thank you again for the gift," she spoke softly, then she bid him goodnight and made her way back to her den. Things seemed a little different between them now. He was less of a mindless hardass and had shown her actual emotion. It was... interesting, to say the least.

"Isa"