The Sunspire the veil lifted

Charon hoped that Amekaze's outrider was doing well, although his experience with departing wolves was that if they were gone for a really long time, they often stayed gone. Sometimes they'd return, but it was as though a wanderlust had grabbed hold of them and just wouldn't let them go a lot of the time. This made Charon think about Aesop and he wondered if the old coot was still around when he returned to Stavanger Bay. Time would tell.

He listened to Amekaze's query about bears, and nodded. "Yeah... My mom was killed by a bear, too." Conversations like these were part of the reason why Charon never called Thistle Cloud his mom out loud -- it'd be confusing when he referenced to his real mother. "We haven't had much trouble with them otherwise, but when we did things just got real bad each time." Charon didn't remember ever meeting a peaceful bear, except for the crafting bears from Osprey's stories. They were probably as real as Drake had been, so really, there were probably just no peaceful bears alive at all.

They should check if there weren't any bears where they were going to live; problem was, though, that bears, in Charon's experience, had a tendency to not be around and then suddenly come 'round and maul the crap out of someone you loved. He hoped not to have that experience again, but he realised that you could never really be sure about those kinds of things. Charon made a mental note to check for cougars too, but he'd only ever heard of those and had never seen one in real life so it was a lot harder to imagine how dangerous they would be and what, exactly, they looked like and how they moved, acted and hunted.

Charon listened to Amekaze's story about the Sunspire wolves. It sounded a bit like them, for before recently the Bay had been doing much better. It was mostly after Aesop left and the storm hit that things'd been going downhill -- with Saskia joining as the only bright spot -- so perhaps in light of that a move would be better. They'd have a territory that wasn't banged up by the storm and would go into winter great. He didn't recognise any of the names she mentioned: Charon hadn't seen many others, partially because he had been resting, and those he had seen he'd seen either in scent alone or from a distance. None face to face. He wasn't bothered by the fact they were with few, for it was that very fact that had driven him to suggest a merge in the first place.

"I hope you find Rain and Nishu, then," he said, for while outriders with a thirst for exploration, they sounded like they were somewhat the core of the pack, along with this Jace fellow who'd been Beta for a really long time up until recently. "Sounds good." Charon realised that the time to leave was drawing nearer, although he enjoyed this talk about Alpha things with Amekaze, who shared his enthusiasm, it seemed. However, he was also eager to tell his pack and family about the news, and so he decided it was time.

"I should head out," he told Amekaze. Perhaps sooner than anticipated, but after this talk he was really eager to get back home, inform his pack, and start looking for a suitable sort of territory.