Hercules shook out his coat and began to move slowly across his pack's territory. It seemed like it had been so long since he had been out and about... which, in reality, he supposed it had been quite a while. His illness had been hard to shake, but he was finally feeling better thank goodness. Slowly he had begun to regain the weight he had lost. It would probably be quite a while before he would regain all of the muscle he had lost, but over all he didn't think he looked too bad. He certainly felt better anyway, at least physically. He had tried his best to keep up with what was going on in the outside world while he was stuck in the den so he had already heard of his mother's illness and the fact that his aunt Phoebe had taken over the pack. He still didn't know how to feel about it or how to even comprehend that his mother was dying. So far he had been pushing those feelings off and ignoring the facts, but he was sure it would catch up with him at some point. Hopefully that would be later rather than sooner. "Talk" "You" Think

Phoebe wandered through the territory with no real destination in mind, but instead a task that she had been trying her best to do. She honestly had no idea how to go about this whole alpha thing, but one thing she had taken to doing was walking through the territory and looking for all of her pack members to see what they were doing to try and get a general feel for how everyone in the pack was doing. These journeys also gave her plenty of time to be alone with her thoughts which could be a blessing or a curse. Generally she tried to avoid thoughts of Conan or Natalya, but today those thoughts seemed to be more persistent than usual. She could feel the stress of it wearing on her, but she didn't know how to fix either of those things. She spotted a russet form in the distance and she thought for a moment that it was Helios, but upon closer inspection she realized it was her nephew Hercules. She knew he had been sick for a while now so it was encouraging to see him out and about. She smiled, momentarily distracted from her woes, as she hurried toward him. "Hercules! It's so good to see you, dear," she said as she got closer, leaning in to give her nephew a small kiss on his cheek. She remembered a time in the not so distant past when she had taken quite a liking to the young man, back when he was just an eager pup. "How are you feeling? Better?" "Talk" "You" Think

He looked up with a little surprise to see his aunt suddenly hurrying toward him and he returned her smile. He was happy that the first wolf he saw on his first day out was a familiar, friendly face. "You too, aunt Phoebe," he replied and smiled when she leaned in to kiss his cheek. It felt good to be around family again, he had missed them all dearly. He felt like he had missed out on so much and honestly didn't know how many of his siblings still lingered around, but he hoped he could reconnect with all of them eventually. He loved them all dearly, whether he knew them very well or not. He nodded and answered, "I am. I think I'm finally all better." That was certainly something to be grateful for as far as he was concerned! He settled down onto his haunches with a bitter sweet sigh. "Of course, as soon as I get better Mother gets sick..." He forced a small smile and tried to brush the emotions off. "How are you settling into being a Matriarch?" he quickly asked to move the conversation past the potentialy depressing topic. "Talk" "You" Think

A small frown touched her muzzle when he mentioned getting better just in time for his mother to be sick, realizing that he was right. He had been sick for a while now and now that he was better and able to spend time with his family he had to deal with this trauma. Luckily it seemed like he wasn't letting it keep him down too much. He quickly changed the subject and she would respect his unspoken request to not talk about the situation with Natalya right now. Instead he turned the attention back on herself, asking about how she was settling into her new position. She gave a soft, uncertain chuckle and let herself settle onto her haunches as well. "I'm not real sure to be completely honest with you. I just don't know if I'm cut out for this. I appriciate your father having so much faith in me, but I just... I don't know if I can do it. I'm not the woman your mother is." She sighed and frowned again. "I just don't want to let them down, especially with everything they're going through. It's just so hard trying to raise Hera and Desponia, dealing with loosing one of my best friends, Conan being... I don't even know." She shrugged and tried to give him a smile. "Stay young for as long as you can, Hercules. Being an adult is no fun." "Talk" "You" Think