The Sunspire winning was easy, governing's harder

They could at least agree on one thing - that Rannoch hadn't been thinking. She was quiet as she listened to him, timid still of what he might say. She had never felt this worry before around him, but she had never heard him speak a word that had hurt her to hear before either. She didn't know the man that had commanded Terance to punish the pleading boy, nor did she know the one that had told Titmouse he too would be punished if he did not take Rannoch's side.

But this wolf... Liffey felt tears come to her own eyes as she saw those in his. Not for remorse or guilt over how he felt now, but relief. She knew this Rannoch. This one was hers. She wasn't entirely certain yet if she could trust him to stay or if the other would sneak back in, but she was trying. She kept her eyes on his. They kept her steady, though they still did not reveal to her what to say.

"You scared me," she said softly, feeling her arms begin to tremble, "What you said to Titmouse. That he'd be considered an intruder too. It was like.. Charon. What he said to me. Before he..." She shut her eyes as the memory flooded her head, blurred with the one of earlier that day. You questioned my decisions about Gannet. Is that what you call loyalty?, but in Rannoch's voice and not that of Moonspear's alpha. The scar across her muzzle twinged as though it too remembered.