The Sentinels her ghost in the fog

she began haltingly, and lasher was struck by the characteristics they all exhibited -- eilidh, the doting one, aria, the guardian of the borders, somehow disapproving, and himself, quiet and yet interested. he had yet to speak -- his daughter made the proper introductions, and he mulled the girl's story in his head. lasher had no reason to disbelieve her -- the shaking fear in her voice was proof enough of her ordeal -- but he knew from where she had come, and while winter's snow made a route to the caldera currently impassable, in the springtime perhaps peregrine's daughter would return to her pack.

for she was the daughter of his former lover -- he saw the panther in the lines of her body and the tilt of her head, the elegance of even her minute movements. she was a true child of the avian-named line, and yet somehow her presence here vindicated some bitterness buried deep within him of which he had not been previously aware.

wildfire had left her pack; saena viewed the caldera as enemies. pura had disappeared, and junior -- and now hunched another child of peregrine. wryly lasher recalled the last epithets and curses he had heaped upon the devil's head. and so he waited for the girl to speak, but in his heart he had already welcomed her into their fold.

donnelaith would never be the closed, cruelly guarded place that the caldera took pride in being -- taltos brought all who would contribute in among them, and while he loved jealously his tiny daughters, he adored eilidh and casmir no less, and would not throw them from his ranks, as he assumed had been done to wildfire. 

and there was an unsatisfied part of the druid that was self-serving; while he would bring the girl into their ranks and place her below the tutelage of the others, he wished peregrine to discover that she was here, to be hurt by it.