Northstar Vale you break me up

I’ve been asked to powerplay Rannoch!

Thanks to Rose’s attentive care, Cypress was back to his old tricks — namely, keeping the borders marked and spending the majority of his time with his brothers. He’d spoken to them both about solidifying the Vale’s tentative alliance with Moonspear, but at Rannoch’s insistence he’d been lying low. There would be time enough to visit Charon — and the Cerberus — when Cypress was fully recovered. For now, he had been issued a formal command by both his alpha and his beta to take it easy. So…he ambled along the borders with his brother, scent-marking and leaving rubbings of his wild dark fur on the trees and rocks he passed.

When the howl arose, they were well on their way to answering it, but they quickened their pace just a little to get there in a timely manner. Cypress and Rannoch approached the two siblings, the latter with his blocky skull lifted high and his tail curled over his back. The raven moved at his left, his narrow muzzle a few significant degrees below his brother’s and his tail just a tick above neutral, looking obliquely down at them with piercing sulphureous eyes. “Hey,” Rannoch rumbled, a sunny smile lighting up his brilliant turquoise eyes. “You’re looking better. Is this a relative of yours? I don’t remember if you guys ever met, but this is my brother, Cypress.” He gestured with his muzzle to his sulphureous-eyed littermate.

Cypress regarded the younger wolves with a characteristically stoic expression, nodding cordially toward them. “Hey,” he said, unconsciously echoing his brother. “Rannoch said you might come back.” Cypress hadn’t met the girl personally but there were few secrets between the Frostfur trio, and he’d heard about the girl from both Rian and Rannoch. Too, they’d traveled together for a time. So…he knew her. Adjacently. The two prospects were younger than Cy, and therefore his instinct was to protect and shelter instead of defend. “You look like you’ve traveled a long way,” he commented, his attention drifting from the more exuberant sister to the wary, freckled boy. He did not smile, the leftmost corner of his mouth drawn as it always was into a hooked frown, but his voice was quiet, even, and nonthreatening.