Raven's Watch Tendencies

Warbone didn't explain what had taken him from the Keep, nor what had kept him away for so long. He spoke of loss and death and choices - things Harlyn was intimately familiar with. She listened silently, gazing at him without judgment. She knew perfectly well what it was to lose your home, your rank and your family. It was like losing your self. She didn't wish the feeling on anyone. She still didn't even have herself back together, after all this time.

But still, Harlyn was silent after he finished. To encourage him would be a betrayal of Stark, and she simply couldn't bring herself to do such a thing. She knew how terrible it would feel to return to the Hollow and find it claimed by another. She would want to fight for it. But at the same time, Harlyn would not have given up a pack she had worked so hard to hold together and make her own after the disappearance of its previous leader. Not when it had cost as much as it had Stark. And Stark was a good man. He did not deserve to lose what he had built. But nor did Warbone deserve to lose what he had created.

If only one of them were a woman...

"All I had ever dreamed of my whole life was leading a pack of my own," Harlyn replied finally, her tone gentle and wistful, "I did not crave power. I had no real desire for power. I wanted only a place I could call my own, and a group of wolves that I could love and protect like my own family."

"To have found that and more in the Hollow, only to have it torn from me was a terrible thing. It has been more painful than I thought before that I could bear," her gaze had drifted as she'd spoken, but now it focused again and she looked at Warbone. "When we came to the Keep, I thought it was to be a brief reprieve until we were strong enough to carry on. I had never dared to hope that it would be a new beginning for me or my family. That it would perhaps even be my future, and my son's future. I have found family to protect here. I have found a place to call my home, which I've realized is far more important to me than calling it my own."

"I would never try to tell you what choice you should make. You gave me this new life, and Stark has helped me to realize it. I owe much to you both," Harlyn's eyes were clear, and she hoped quite fervently that Warbone understood her. Her loyalty to him had not disappeared, it had simply split between he and the man that had taken his place. "I simply wish for you to know that we are capable of building more than one life for ourselves. The one you dream of is not necessarily the only one you are capable of being happy with."