The days had begun to grow warmer, with each one passing. The air was tepid, not unbearably hot but not what he, personally, would consider cool, either, though in retrospect the “winter” if that was what he dared to even call it, had been extremely mild in comparison to the one had suffered with Adlartok through in the Seahawk Valley. The charcoal with guard hairs dusted with cinnamon and rust wraith moved like an out of place shadow across the landscapes, each melting into one another. Earth was earth, what was the sense in forming irrational attachments to a claimed stake of land? It did not truly belong to the wolf whose urination saturated the invisible “borders” that warded off unwanted intruders. Either the pack would prosper or it would wither and die. It was this mentality that he adopted upon joining the Spine wolves moons ago, and it was a mentality he kept too. He had no attachment to the lands and no attachment to any of those who inhabited it with him. In an idle sort of fashion, Sinaaq wondered why it was Cara kept him around, why she had not just told him to leave and never return for he had challenged her before even being accepted by meeting her eyes. In many ways the thought to be incapable Spine Queen intrigued him which served to make the darkling more resolute to avoid her if he could help it.

Intrigue never meant anything good when he felt it. Solia had intrigued him, at first and that had ended in a disaster. To say that Cara's status as Kaname's wife, should Sinaaq have chosen to nurture this intrigue would stop him would be to speak a lie. He held no concern for previously established relationships; but Sinaaq refused to nurture his intrigue. Once was bad enough and the nightmare had learned his lesson. In all fairness, this year had held many lessons for Sinaaq, all beneficial but all damaging in their own manner. Solia. Adlartok. Even Quicksilver, whom though Sinaaq would never admit it, had taken a shining too in a rapid and ardent manner. He had been drawn in only to be cut bluntly out as one day Quicksilver had, presumably, left to chase after his next conquest and mysteriously never returned. They had been a duo, reminiscent only a tiny bit, to how he had once traveled with Adlartok as his companion.

Pause was given, abrupt and harsh, like the jerk and grinding halt of metal wedged between gears as a familiar scent, though dappled with unfamiliar scents teased his black, leathery nostrils. His heart sputtered to what felt to be a stop before it gave a painful lurch in his chest, knocking the darkling breathless. Even as foreign as the other scents were he recognized it, unmistakably. It couldn't be. But it was. "Adlartok,"

Sinaaq's course altered marginally, long, willowy legs carrying him forth with reckless abandon, hatred and anger and devastation and joy raging a nasty war within him with each step he took. The svelte silvery form of his nephew — so much like his beautiful mother — came into the fallen's view and he stopped, steps faltering until he could move no more. He had grown, bigger, taller, his eyes even from the distance that Sinaaq left between them, not his mother's eyes but Sinaaq's instead. Quick, rapid pants left the darkling's lips as he stuied his precious and wretched infection, not sure what he felt only that his warring emotions felt like they might crush him with their weight. For now, Sinaaq was silent, ardently watching for the boy's reaction.

The insolent infection turned with hackles bristled and a growl, though when the child's eyes touched upon him, recognizing him, Sinaaq had no doubt, the growl did not cease. It did not cut off, or even bother to taper. This ignited the darkling's own rage, benign as it typically was. The fallen was not so used to feeling such a hot, ardent rush of wrath and yet it rose to the surface like boiling lava, preparing to erupt from the mouth of the volcano that housed it at any unpredictable moment. How dare he? After it had been Adlartok whom had left him? Who had destroyed him as he sliced his own wounds into Sinaaq's mangled heart. The child's face twisted in anger at him, the words cold, indifferent and biting, which would Sinaaq would not have been busy being ravaged by his precious infection's unwarranted (or so Sin thinks) rage, he might have been proud and ready to boast about how the child was like him; that Adlartok could deny it but they were two of the same vein. Alike. That Adlartok was successfully Sinaaq's own legacy, and in that way, Frigga's as well.

That pride was snuffed out in favor of everything that was threatening to crush Sinaaq emotionally at that moment, however. There, providing they did not kill one another, would be time for boasting later.

"Don't snarl at me, infection," The darkling hissed, eyes narrowing. "What right do you have to be angry with me?" He ghosted forward, gaze bearing upon the silver accented child without waver. "It is you that left me. Or have you already forgotten?" The darkling demanded, his muzzle wrinkling in attempts to subdue the child's wrath and keep his own under check.

The last time his normally benign wrath had gotten conquered him it had ended in a blood bath — Glimmer's broken and blood stained body ruined at his paws, her metallic blood pooling around his ebony paws and dripping from his crimson stained teeth.

The child dared to growl again, and Sinaaq's chest puffed out in indignant offense to the boy's insubordination. Adlartok had spoiled him by being relatively well behaved, and generally listening when Sinaaq told him to say something...but this was not the Adlartok that Sinaaq knew. It was a crushing thing, to realize that someone else had gotten their poisonous claws into the child and changed him. Sinaaq had him on the path to perfection, what he and Frigga had wanted for her child and someone else was ruining him. Had turned him against his own uncle. The one who had raised him, stealing him away from the lack witted family he'd been born into in attempts to keep him free. Free of the scrutiny and hatred that Sinaaq had suffered as an infant. If not for Frigga and Nan, Aga, their mother, would have left Sinaaq to die. Had, in fact left Sinaaq to die. Though there was always a reluctant and sour affection for Nan, Sinaaq could not bring himself to hate her to any real degree. Without his eldest sister, who had lost her litter earlier that month nursing him he would have died for Aga would not let him feed from her, disgusted by the male she had produced, infatuated as she was by Sinaaq's father Akiak.

Eyes of liquid gold rolled, a soft tsh leaving Sinaaq's lips as the child babbled on about how he woke up and Sinaaq was gone. As annoying as it was to be yelled at by his own prodigy, the creature he had willingly taken captivity for would really think that he would leave him. It was a giant misunderstanding between them, Sinaaq realized; but he was offended and angry and it appeared, so was Adlartok. "Do you think so little of me, infection?" Sinaaq spat at the boy, contempt lacing his words. "I who has raised you since I was but a child myself? I who willingly became a prisoner to keep you safe?” He wasn't trying to guilt trip Adlartok, merely to act the cynical voice of reason in this, now that he understood.

Attempts to end Aldartok's life aside, no one could contest that Sinaaq had taken care of him. Had killed Glimmer to keep him safe. "I killed my own sister to keep you safe and free," Not that Glimmer's death had really affected him all that much. He had always hated her in particular, but even so. She was his first kill of their species and it was not something he was likely to forget even if it failed to bother him. "I went hunting, Adlartok. Have I ever not returned to you?" Sinaaq demanded, expecting a response from the child.