Valentine flopped down on a sun-warmed rock with a yawn. He was panting hard but his exertion was already worth it. It would take the skunk ages to catch up with him which meant he had time to enjoy the sun and the silence. And oh, did he plan to. Between the kids and the skunk Valentine felt like he'd fallen back in time to Imperium's first years. The only difference between then and now was that he was...old. He yawned again and then rested his head on his paws. The river was stretched out before him all bloated and grotesque from the rains in the west. It was a hideous, muddy thing, but the sunset reflecting off of it made it somewhat pretty. This wasn't quite how he wanted to spend his free time, but it was hard to find a pretty young thing willing to work with his hectic schedule and overlook his oldness so he was just going to have to make due. ""

Basilia had been lying low for the past couple of weeks or so. After pushing her fighting limits she had taken the time to tend to her wounds and make sure she wasn’t going to fall apart the next time she got into a fight. Luckily in that time she hadn’t caught wind of Cordelia or any of her siblings, seeing one of them while recovering would’ve ended up very poorly. Given the fact that it was the summer she had been traveling up farther than she normally would have. Coming across a muddy river she stopped to look around and see where she was. She spotted an older wolf who had lied down on a rock, he didn’t smell like anyone she had met before or any pack she had heard of. He did smell like a pack though, while Bas still disliked the idea of packs she could understand it when it came to old age. She had no clue if she’d even reach that stage though, hopefully she’d die fighting and have done something with her life. She didn’t want to reach the point where she couldn’t fight due to joint pain. Basilia decided it was better to just leave the man alone and to avoid disturbing him. She instead set her eyes on the river in disappointment. Why did the river have to get all gross and muddy, that made it really hard to drink from. Maybe she would do it if she was desperate but she wasn’t quite that desperate yet. Talk

Movement out of the corner of his eye made Valentine reluctantly rolled his head around to look. He didn't lift it - no that was too inconvenient - and instead just kind of shuffled it along until he could see Basilia. She was a cute young thing with pretty markings and equally pretty eyes. It was for those reasons that he decided he could tolerate her presence. Had she been a hag or a toady-looking male he would have complained about having his solitude ruined, but he could handle most creatures if they were easy on the eyes. He watched as she stood before the river and looked out over it with a displeased expression. Even though she had to know he was there she said nothing and Valentine debated breaking the silence. In the end he decided nah, he was content with the view.

So it seemed the older male didn’t have much interest in her either. Basilia would normally be fine with that but it seemed weird for the two of them to be in the same area and not say at least something. She looked back towards the male and said “I think if I drank this it’d taste like dirt more than water.” With a combination of both sarcasm and humor. Returning her gaze to the water she dipped a paw into it and came up with a few small sticks and leaves clinging to her fur. Water these days just wasn’t as clean as it used to be. Talk