The children had been happily curled up with and on Jael, so Modesty had eased herself from the pile and snuck out to relieve herself, to steal a quiet snack and work on gathering a few supplies to offer to Jael before they switched out. It was different this time, having someone else there to suffer through the experience with her. She turned her face towards the weakening summer sun, eyes drifting shut for just a moment as she stretched. The distant barking of Kenway's dogs didn't even rile her. Peace, even if for just a moment. There was little for her to worry about, or at least, she didn't think there was...

"speech"

All Hattori knew was that this place once belonged to Valhalla, evidently no longer. He paused, unsure what to make of the scents marking the border, most unknown to him, but somewhere in the recesses of his mind, something familiar many years ago, caught his attention. One of Toxicity's children. She had washed ashore in the Bay and instead of taking her in for old times sake he had cast her out, where she'd gone after that was unknown to him. It wasn't as if he had taken her side all those years ago and too much had changed since then.


He exhaled, brows furrowing slightly. This was Raiders territory, wolves he wasn't entirely keen on. He ought to leave.

The pitch of the distant barking changed, less 'noise for the sake of noise', and more, there was something worth barking at. Brows drew down as she scanned the Moor eyes falling on a familiar mottled form. Her tail waved at her back, the lengthened fur dragging through the heather as she barked a greeting of her own, moving to close the distance between them.

Not much time had passed since the leaders meeting, but a lot had changed. She lowered her head to ease her breathing, Man was she out of shape, but childbirth would do that to you. "Tori, to what do I owe the pleasure?" There was a brightness to her tone, projected across the distance between them. She was still more waddle than walk at this point.

"speech"

"I did not know the Raiders had moved, why?" He forwent pleasantries for now, she knew him well enough, surely. He could not say they were friends or anything close to allies, but he had known her even since she was a child. That meant something, even if not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

He waited till she approached, making a point not to step over the pack boundary. Hattori had not been fond of the Pirates and thus the Raider by extension, the pack had no doubt changed more than just in name, but the bitter taste lingered all the same.

Tori had been at the meeting, but his entrance was after she moved her marker on the map, so perhaps he hadn't paid much mind to the table. Maybe it wasn't the first time he had seen it. "We needed grazing territory for the cows and goats, Jael wanted birds and our attempt at chickens was disastrous, but we have a whole estuary full of ducks here. Raiding for resources is all well and good, but you need somewhere to keep them and swimming all the way out to the islands was growing tedious. The biggest trouble makers from Sparrow's pack have dispersed or settled down, it seems silly to make them burn off energy swimming if they are likely to behave themselves, no?" A half smile pulled at the corner of her lip, taking the opportunity to try and catch her breath. "Are you in the market for soaps or fleece? I don't suppose it gets cold enough down your way, but I'd be happy to show you around?" An open invitation, a paw extended in friendship. She'd never had any gripe with the man, why start now?

"speech"

He did not doubt they had their reasons, he was not what many would call a fan of the Raiders, but he was not invested enough to conclude they were outright villains. Frankly, there were a lot of wolves he did not like, if he waged war against them all then he doubted he would have very much time to get anything done. Hate required a lot of emotional energy, but dislike? It was his natural state of being these days, something somewhere had him frowning for one reason or another.

He supposed if nothing else her explanation was valid enough, and Valhalla was long since gone and no longer had a claim to this place, even if they had tried to linger for a while longer, in some unofficial capacity.

"Tojo does not trade." Was his rebuttal, not sharp enough for concern. "But I do not have anywhere pressing to be," which was to say he would not protest a brief tour.

A smile crossed Modesty's face at Tori's blunt reply. Some things would never change. When he agreed to join her, in not so many words, she chuckled and tipped her head deeper into the Moor. So what if Tojo ended up raiding them for resources, the Raider's would never turn down an excuse for a brawl. "We picked up the cows from the markets," she gestured to a few short, shaggy horned cattle, mini highlands, or so she had been told. "They are good for milk, or meat, but they are also good little workers." They had been put to work clearing downed trees in the past, and she was sure if Jael ever told Wake about her plans to have them turning over soil for gardening, he'd put them to work to expand his little patch of poppies into a whole blooming field.

"The goats, some we rounded up, and some were already here." There were shaggy goats with curly coats, long necked wobbly desert goats and grey and brown short-coated goats all mingling together quite happily, "We use their milk to make soap, the longer coated ones shed and their fleece is quite soft, almost cloud like."

A breeze blew off the ocean to the south and she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth that carried on it. "It doesn't get as oppressive as the South, but it's warm enough in winter that we don't have to worry about being snowed in. We've got fowl in the estuary and access to the sea. Why wouldn't we move here?" She had expected to carry most of the discussion, so any silence that stretched between them wasn't awkward at all. "For a pair of Ashen exiles, we seem to be doing quite well for ourselves, don't we?"

"speech"

Hattori listened, taking in her list as she went over their livestock, uses and why they'd claimed the territory for their own. It was all sound and reasonable enough, his ears flicking as he could not think of any glaring gaps in her logic. Her mother had always been...overzealous, in Hattori's opinion, and it seemed as though Modesty had dodged or at the very least didn't openly hold much stock in her kins religion. Hattori had always tolerated it at best, had been willing to look the other way for the sake of Ashen's culture, but it seemed for the most part much of that had been lost to the passage of time.

He found himself agreeing though, made a low noise of ascent in his throat, still following behind.

"What did you make of Ashen's collapse?" Hattori certainly had been surprised, but he wondered what Modesty's take on it was.

It was a question she hadn't really allowed herself to dwell on. What did she make of Ashen's collapse? Given their shared history, she doubted she would need to sugarcoat any of it for the Kaicho's sake. "I grew up hearing tales of the Empire's might but I never saw it first hand. I wonder if Ashen even existed in more than the memory of those that clung to it by the time I came along?" What was there to make of it? A corpse rotted away, left to the elements for long enough, until even bleached bones crumbled. It was the natural order of things.

Did she miss it? What was there to miss? Modesty had claimed the Islands and made something of them, and when her purpose changed, she moved to suit it. "Others seemed to place worth to to the name, but stagnant water loses it's purity, putrefies. Change is nothing to be feared." She shrugged. She hoped wherever her mother was that she knew what had happened, for whatever small measure of satisfaction it might bring her. "What do you make of it? Have you heard word of where my Uncle went?"

"speech"

Venom had the hope, the ambition to reshape Ashen into what it used to be. And he'd believed her for quite some time, but after the Long Night his eyes had been opened, he'd seen the inevitable approaching and wanted no part of it. Knew he could do better, that things would be better if he chose his own path- and thus Tojo remained, as sturdy and as fortified as the Maze he called home.

To a degree, he understood where Modesty was coming from, Ashen had fallen because it clung onto the past, maintaining the pretence simply wasn't enough, action needed to be taken. But he supposed in many ways, some might regard Tojo as a relic of the past, imitating the old ways he was familiar with back on his homeland. Hattori was very much of the mentality that there was no need to fix something that was not broken, though perhaps he was being overly defensive, her words a nudge in his direction he did not quite appreciate.

He frowned, Kuroki and Ikigai had moved on and were flourishing, and those of his children who hadn't...were not, to his understanding.

"If anything, I was surprised it remained as long as it did. The Kleins always relied too much on the value of their name. I have not. " Even when they had been pack mates they never spoke, never cared to.

Modesty missed that her words might have been a blow to the man. Perhaps if they were standing on different soil, and if she wasn't exhausted from the early days of motherhood, she might have payed more attention to any small change in his stance. Then again, he'd never been very expressive, so was it a surprise she missed it? Modesty hadn't been to Tojo, heard no more than it existed, somewhere deep in the south. Hattori had always been a private man, and she wouldn't begrudge him that. She grinned at his assessment of others placing so much value in their name. She supposed she should thank her aunt that it wasn't a problem she had needed to contend with since her expulsion from Ashen. She quite liked the life they had built for themselves here.

"Nor have I..." She enjoyed the easiness with which they were conversing, though wondered if the feeling was mutual by any means. "I know you said you do not trade, but when the days grow longer, I hope to hold a market, something casual and less... permanent than the set up Armada have, perhaps seasonal. You and yours would be welcome, even if they only make the journey to partake in a bit of revelry." After all, the raiders would take any opportunity to throw a party.

"speech"