Redtail Rise honey and sulphur

"Thanks!" was all Saena could think to say in response to Lasher's praise. She wasn't a stranger to being praised, per se, but she was much more used to being held accountable for misbehaviour than anything else. That she could be a strong leader was something she believed in, but it was good to know that others believed in her, too, even without seeing how she handled delicate situations as a leader. It was hard to even describe; if asked, she couldn't give an example of a time she'd handled something "appropriately" or with any amount of leaderly skill, if only because she didn't know how to measure that.

Lasher asked how she was feeling and Saena shrugged lightly. "I dunno, better, I guess. I went and talked to dad and sort of smoothed things over. He introduced me to his new kids, my... half-siblings, I guess." With Fox's blood in their veins, it was unlikely that Saena would ever really consider them family, but the title was easier to say than, "my dad's other kids with his bimbo wife". They passed by a burbling stream then, close to where Junior had first freaked out, and Saena remembered and told Lasher, "Junior was really unhappy when she heard about them. One of our pack mates helped one of them—he's a healer—and I guess dad repaid him by treating him like crap, so he came back and was talking about it, and Junior totally lost it." That was a huge clue as to why she hadn't returned, but Saena was just too trusting of Junior to connect it to her disappearance.

"That's why she left, actually. She said she needed some space, she went out east somewhere to explore but never came back."