@Furi :3c

The adjustment back to life in Drageda is at once seamless and strangely difficult. He missed this place, his home, but Argent had been an easy mask to wear. Perhaps because it isn't so far removed from him, Argent being his brother. Perhaps he had stayed in Blackfeather too long and learned their worst secret: they are just wolves, no better or worse than any other. With a certain brutality to their way of life, sure, and Cicero's actions remain unexcusable. But they are not the faceless villains Étoille once pictured. 

He is not introspective enough to continue this line of thought, and with a heavy sigh he rises to his feet and makes his way across the territory, not searching for anything in particular. An aimless walk to clear his head, a reminder that he is back where he belongs. And if he keeps a nose out for a certain choupinou, well. He has missed this place and those in it.

She appears quickly enough as if summoned from his thoughts, and a lingering knot of anxiety he hadn't realised he carried is loosened. He has not been gone that long and yet she seems so much more grown than last he remembers. For a moment he worries -- perhaps she will be turned off by the mess of his face --- but she barrels into him without pause and he stumbles slightly with an oof before laying his head against hers. "Bonjour," Étoille says softly, the French thick on his tongue after purposely avoiding it for so long, "choupinou. How have you been?"

He can't help the small smile that finds its way to his mouth fleetingly. She is grown but she is still young. He wonders if this is what it feels like to have a daughter. Before Drageda Étoille had never contemplated having children, too content to drift in his aimless way. Now he still does not know if it is in the cards, but... if in the end, the closest he has is choupinou, it will not be so bad. 

"I missed you as well," the titan confirms, then admits, "there were children at Blackfeather. They made me think of you." Though they had been much younger and much more deformed than his chou. He presses his nose against her forehead briefly. "I'm glad to see you were unharmed," Étoille tells her, and means it.

In an odd way, he feels similarly. He knows he has accomplished a great deal, successfully living amongst an enemy group for a significant period of time, but he does not feel as if he gleaned much in the way of actual information. He was not able to properly lead heda to victory and she suffered injuries as a result, even if the overall war was won. What had he done at Blackfeather? Fratenized with their children, learned a few tricks from the one who started it all. 

"They were... like us, or anyone else," Étoille says, feeling faintly chagrined. "For the most part. Aware of their reputation, certainly. I did not learn too deeply of their culture. They were tight-lipped to the end." It had been danced around, and had he stayed longer, he could have. Peraps that is for the best, though. There is a fine line between subterfuge and assimilation. "I am sure you did plenty, Furi," he adds gently. He does not know what was asked of her, but she had not been at the forest and for that he is grateful.

 Her question surprises him. Then again, he fell into spying sort of on a whim -- training for it would have definitely helped him. He didn't know Furi was interested in spying, but if she wants to be able to offer more for Drageda, who is he to decline? "All right," Étoille murmurs, "though I fear it wasn't very much."

The titan moves to walk, pausing to allow Furi to follow him. It seems easier to explain while moving, though if she doesn't wish to walk, he won't. "I adopted a false name -- Argent -- though I did not construct an elaborate backstory, as I did not have the time." Nor the ability to pull off a very detailed lie, but let's not mention that. He shrugs. "They had no reason to suspect me of being anything other than an outsider to their way of life." He glances at her, wondering if she thinks the same as him: a bit like being in Drageda, despite his affection for the place. Choupinou is, after all, the same as him in this regard.

He does not know Furi's turmoil. Their circumstances are so dissimilar it would not occur to him even if he did know that Furi adopted the name for herself. So he considers her question with a small hum, thinking on the wolves of Blackfeather. "Killed me," Étoille says mildly, "and flaunted my body before Drageda, most likely." He could have been a trophy for their corpse-lined borders, an image which strikes him as oddly intriguing. He puts the line of thought aside for now. 

He remains oblivious to her internal distress, his own interiority lacking. The secret to his success, dear choupinou, lies in his general absence of personality or character. Argent was easy to adopt because it required little effort on his part -- frankly, a little too easy. There had been moments where he'd thought he could live the rest of his life as Argent in the forest, had Drageda not come at all. It is ... disquieting, maybe. If he dwells on it.

So he doesn't.

"I as well," he rumbles in agreement, reaching to nudge her shoulder affectionately. "One of their members -- a rogue himself, I believe -- taught me some stealth. Would you like to see?" He still takes her questioning for innocent curiosity in the art of spying, and figures he can pass along the little he learned from Cicero as well.

 He smiles at her assent briefly, and then takes up position, recalling Cicero's example. "Walk lightly on your feet," Étoille explains, working to make his own foot-falls lighter, speedier -- sort of leading that they may walk together as he demonstrates. He has gotten better from his practice despite his natural disadvantages (big). "You have some darkness in your fur, which will help you blend with the shadows," he adds thoughtfully, indicating the contrast between his creamy white coat and hers. The redwood forest is not so shaded as Blackfeather but it provides some cover and so he passes the time with her pretending to sneak through the forest.