Honeyed Pasture beta

The panther's head whipped sharply to this news; his sister? here? He had always been curious about these other siblings, and there was a part of him that admired Aditya for how far and wide he'd proliferated. But one was lost — Dutch absorbed this uneasily, familiar with the feeling of going to visit a child and finding them just gone. But he believed that his sons were only on their own journeys, and so he believed the same for Aditya's daughter.

Blood ran true, after all.

"I am sorry you missed her," he said, and he felt it deeply. "And of course you will come to the village. I will see you fed and rested before you go, if you insist on going."

He couldn't help but pick up the pace as he anticipated showing his father around. Truly, he had never felt he had anything to prove to the man — but there was still a childish part of him that was hungry for Aditya's pride. It had not been a reliable resource, true, but Dutch had never been afraid to take advantage of it when their lives intersected.

"Heph or Rodyn?" he wondered, intrigued by the hint of a story. He was wary of asking for one, however. It seemed to him that most of the chapter's in his father's biography ended in either tragedy, or in tapering, desultory woe. It was hard for him to wrap his head around the challenges the other man had faced — perhaps leadership would soon leave him with a different perspective.

"There was a great hunt not long ago," he said. "All the moon villages attended, and more besides. Heph was injured. She is healing well, it seems."